the ‘inside’ other 115
According to at-Ṭ ̣abarî (his information was repeated by Yâqût),
some strange shaman beliefs could be seen among the Khazars, in con-
nection with a specific case in 652 A.D. when the Khazars, near Balan-
jar, put the body of the killed Arab commander al-Bâhilî in a specific
jar and used it as means to invoke rain.^111 It is possible, however,
for all this to be imagined by the Arab writers who are not famous for
their inclination to tell the truth and even were prone to search for
and relate tall stories.
It was the shamans who ‘cosmologized’ the model of their own
world, putting their own people/tribe/community in the center of the
world. This was the way they arranged their own space and put mark-
ers for the distinction of the Other who was put in the periphery. This
model has extremely deep roots and can be traced in many places in
the world among the so-called traditional/pre-modern societies. It is
typical for the nomadic world but also for the great sedentary civili-
zations, including Byzantium and China.^112 Following these notions
every member of the clan (and in a broader scope—of the confedera-
tion) could feel him-/herself as part of the ‘Earth-Water’ (“Yer-su” in
Turkic), i.e. part of the homeland; namely this homeland was con-
sidered center of the Earth, as analog of the mythical cosmic center.
The whole space beyond this center was assumed in negative terms, as
foreign, and was given negative markers: “people” are only the “own”,
and those in the periphery are “enemies”.^113
The shamans of the Central Asian tribes (Xiongnu/Huns, Turks,
etc.) may have well spread the notion that the Earth is square, with
four seas on the sides, and hostile tribes on the periphery.^114 This
(^111) Zakhoder 1962, 148 f.; Dunlop 1954, 59, 118, 155.
(^112) In China there was a special term denoting “the barbarians from the four sides/
barbarians in the world’s four directions”—see details in, Maliavkin 1989, 110. Also
see, Golygina 1995, 108, 142, 209, who points out the idea of the great empire situated
“among the four seas” and uniting “the ten thousand kingdoms”; at the same time, it
was encircled by “eight earths”, a complex notion indeed presenting the idea of the
Great Square of the cosmic Earth, which was thought to be the Middle Kingdom.
There, according to the idea, was eternal peace, order, and calmness. Cf. almost the
same idea in Rome—the Roman Empire and later Byzantium were thought as being
in the center of the world; in it, there was “pax Romana” and later “pax Romana
Christiana”.
(^113) Sagalaev and Oktiabr’skaia 1990, 13, 18. Also see, Traditsionnoe mirovozzrenie
1988 (the chapter “Homeland”).
(^114) Kliashtornyi 1981, 122 f. Cf. The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia 1990,
298, where Menander Protector’s data are mentioned, namely that the Turkic state
was run by four kings and that it was indeed “quadripartite”, i.e. of four parts. Voitov