1. I am grateful to the Silkroad Foundation of Saratoga, California, for its encouragement and a generous grant which made this translation possible.
2. Kojojash (Bishkek: "Sham" Basmasy, 1996), p. 6.
3. One can learn more in detail about the celebration in Kagan Arïk's article "1000th Anniversary of Manas," In: Kazakh and Kirghiz Studies Bulletin (Seattle, Wash.: Kazakh and Kirghiz Studies Group, University of Washington), Vol. 2, No. 2, (Autumn/Winter: 1995-1996).
4. S. Musaev. Epos Manas: nauchno-populiarnyi ocherk (The Epos Manas: A Scholarly-Popular Essay) (Frunze: Ilim, 1984), p. 98.
5. V. Radlov, "Obraztsy narodnoi literatury severnykh tiurkskikh plemen," in Entsiklopedicheskii fenomen eposa Manas: sbornik statei (The Encyclopedic Phenomenon of the Epos Manas: A Collection of Essays). (Bishkek: Muras, 1995), p. 25. This volume has also been translated into English.
6. Ch. Ch.Valikhanov, Izbrannye proizvedeniia (Selected Works) (Alma-Ata: Kazakhskoe izd-vo khudozhestvennoi literatury, 1958, p. 258.
7. Manas Entsiklopediyasï (The Manas Encyclopedia) (Bishkek: Izd-vo Glavnoi redaktsii Kyrgyzskoi entsiklopedii, 1995), p. 8.
8. Nora K. Chadwick and Victor Zhirmunsky, Oral Epics of Central Asia (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 319.
9. Manas Entsiklopediyasï, p. 9.
10. Manas: Kyrgyz elinin baatyrdyk eposu. Saiakbai Karalaevdin variantï boiuncha, 4 vols. (Bishkek: Kïrgïzstan, 1995), Vol. 1, p. 11.
11. Ibid., p. 12.
12. Francis Woodman Cleaves, tr. and ed., The Secret History of the Mongols (London; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982), p. 15.
13. Manas, Saiakbai Karalaevdin variantï, Vol. 1, pp. 105-106.
14. Ibid., p. 108.
15. Paul Ratchnevsky. Genghis Khan: His Life and Legacy (Oxford; Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1991), p. 169.
16. Manas Entsiklopediyasï, p. 11.
17. Ibid., p. 12.
18. Manas, Saiakbai Karalaevdin variantï, Vol. 1, p. 22.
19. Thomas T. Allsen, Commodity and Exchange in the Mongol Empire. A Cultural History of Islamic Textiles (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 106.
20. Ibid., p. 102.
21. Ibid.
22. Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde. Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996), p 7.
23. Ibid., p. 37.
24. G. Bruce Privratsky, Muslim Turkestan. Kazakh Religion and Collective Memory (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2001), p.186.
25. The Successors of Chingiz Khan. Translated from the Persian of Rashid Al-Din by John Boyle (New York; London: Columbia University Press, 1971), p. 37.
26. Manas Entsiklopediyasï, p. 9.
27. Ibid., p. 9.
28. Ibid., p. 11.
29. Ibid., p. 16.
30. Ibid., p. 432.
31. Ibid., p. 432.
32. Musaev, Manas, p. 102.
33. Ibid, pp. 102-103.
34. Manas, Saiakbai Karalaevdin varianty, Vol. 1, p. 6.
35. Ibid., p. 7.
36. Musaev, Manas, p. 117.
37. Ilse Laude-Cirtautas, "Kirghiz akin-ïrchïsï S. Orozbakov," in K. Iusupov, ed., Uluu Manaschï Sagïnbay (Bishkek, 1992), p. 102.
38. Musaev, Manas, pp. 120-121.
39. Manas Entsiklopediyasï, p. 185.
40. Tümön equals ten thousand.
41. Gülazïk (kül azïk) is a name of traditional food especially prepared to take for a long journey, such as war campaigns. The equivalent of pemmican, it was made from the meat of a horse, sheep or deer and it kept for a long time without spoiling (Manas Entsiklopediyasï, p. 360).
42. Ibid., p. 185.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid., p. 186.
46. Ibid., p. 186.
47. Ibid.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid., p 430.
51. Ibid.

© 2005 Elmira Köçümkulkïzï. All rights reserved.