Osawa Takashi
Osaka University of Foreign Studies

The Deer cult amongst the ancient Turkic tribes

47th Meeting of the PIAC, Cambridge 2004

As long as we know, the ancient Turkic peoples have their own mythology that has relation with wolves as one of their ancestors as well as other nomad peoples, Mongolian peoples of the Eurasian Steppe. Except this, however, we can confirm that deer has also an important role amongst their mythology which the Chinese sources of the Tang Dynasty had recorded. In this paper, I would like to clarify what it means and the cultural background from the points of their cult and way of lives by literatures and archaeological materials.