Kazakh

Kazakh, also spelled Kazak, Turkic-speaking people of Central Asia inhabiting mainly Kazakhstan and the adjacent parts of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China. The Kazakhs emerged in the 15th century from an amalgam of Turkic tribes who entered Transoxiana about the 8th century and of Mongols who entered the area in the 13th century. They speak Kazakh, a Turkic language of the northwestern, or Kipchak, branch, and predominantly practice Sunni Islam. At the beginning of the 21st century there were roughly 10,000,000 Kazakhs in Kazakhstan and about 1,400,000 in China (mainly in Xinjiang), with small numbers in Uzbekistan, Russia, and Mongolia. The Kazakhs are the second most numerous Turkic-speaking people in Central Asia after the Uzbeks.

The Kazakhs were traditionally pastoral nomads, dwelling year-round in portable dome-shaped tents (called gers, or yurts) constructed of dismountable wooden frames covered with felt. The Kazakhs migrated seasonally to find pasturage for their livestock, including horses, sheep, goats, cattle, and a few camels. The diet consisted largely of milk products supplemented by mutton. Fermented mare’s milk (koumiss) and horse flesh were highly esteemed but usually available only to the prosperous. Felt made the tent snug inside and out and was used for cloaks. Hides provided clothing, containers, and thongs; horsehair was braided into rope, while horn was used for ladles and other utensils.

The Kazakhs believe themselves to be descended from a progenitor who had three sons from whom sprang the main divisions of the Kazakhs: the Great, Middle, and Little hordes (ordas) that occupied the eastern, central, and western parts, respectively, of what became the Kazakh khanate and is now Kazakhstan. These hordes were subdivided into smaller groups; the basic unit was the extended family, embracing not only parents and unmarried children but married sons and their families, who camped together. Groups at various levels in the tribal hierarchy had chiefs, but only rarely was the Kazakh nation, or even one of the hordes, united under a single chief.

Their nomadic life was gradually curtailed by the encroachment of settled agriculture on the pasturelands. In the 19th century an increasing number of Kazakhs along the borders began to plant some crops. During World War I and again under Soviet rule, many Kazakhs were killed in repressions or fell victim to famines; still others fled with their herds to Xinjiang in China or to Afghanistan, and the remaining nomads were eventually settled on collective farms. Most Kazakhs are now settled farmers who raise sheep and other livestock and grow crops. In Xinjiang, however, many nomadic groups remain.