A Study On Military Weapons In Epic Of "Manas"

The formation of nomadic culture is a difficult, complicated and long-time process. It was passed down from the generation of those wise heroes who were finding ways among difficulties, seeking justice among injustices, finding truth from experience, fighting for the prosperity of their homeland, the living rights of their compatriots, defending their country and guiding younger generation to the right path of being fearless and sticking to truth and justice. In the meantime, wise Manasqis, Akins, singers, high-skilled craftsmen, national leaders and all those who were protecting and preserving precious folk traditions of Kirgiz people also made great contribution to the enrichment of Kirgiz nomadic life in aforementioned aspects. In short, Kirgiz nomadic culture was created by the pioneers of each generation.Without doubt, studies on weapons are of great importance to knowing one nation’s cultural history. Therefore, in this dissertation, I will resort to the Epic of "Manas" and other relevant materials for studying the weapons that Kirgiz people have used in ancient times in order to unravel various cultural aspects of Kirgiz life in the past.Throughout history, military weapons have played an important role in the lives of Kirgiz people, and therefore become the main factors for shaping their history and folk culture. Nomadic people posses a nearly three thousand years of history, and this is closely related to their advanced military weapons and tactics. One could say, it was military weapons and tactics that have made their history. In the meanwhile, they also played an important secondary role in creating nomadic people’s folk culture. Therefore, a study on weapons in Epic of "Manas" will help us understand Kirgiz people’s nomadic culture, their history and traditional craft.There is a considerable number of studies on militray weapons that Kirgiz people have used in ancient and present times, especially by those foreign researchers led by Hudeyakov and researchers in Kirgizstan. But, there is not too much studies on weapons based on the version of Epic of "Manas" performed by the famous "Manasqi" Yusup Mamay in our country.The originality of this dissertation is to collect the names of all weapons that appear in the first volume of Epic of " Manas"(Yusup Mamay’s version) and show the language characteristic of the narratives that are used for describing those weapons. The main study object of this dissertation is the first part of the first volume of Epic of "Manas " by Yusup Mamay. The dissertaion is composed of four parts.The first part is comprised of preface, main content, the choice of the topic, the summary of the studies that have been conducted both at home and abroad, the difficulties, originatlites and methods of the study.The second part of the dissertaion is comprised of the name list of all the weapons that appear in the first volume of the poem, their categorization according to their functions and applications, a systematic introduction to several weapons such as lance and sword and a list of weapons that specifically belong to Manas.The third part of the dissertaion first shows the language characteristics of the narratives that are used for describing weapons, especially the narratives regarding the construction and application of the weapons that belong to Manas, and then analyze the roles that the characteristics of language have played in the variation of the text.The fourth chapter consists of two sections composed. In this chapter reference epic "Manas" in the part of the Military weapons and soldiers to indicate the relationship between the epic of modern weapons and Kirghiz people usually exist between living with the instruments of labor relations, and to find out the epic part of the weapons Kirghiz embodied traditional crafts and folk beliefs.Finally, I have attached an index that includes the picture of some Military weapons, their names and numbers in the poem, their types, and the number of the pages that they appear in the poem.