the ‘outside’ other 55
the Northern Qi dynasty (550–577) represent a barbarian costume”),
proposes the idea that “putou” is a result of the further development
of the old Central Asian hats and assumes that the Turks were the
ones that contributed a lot to the distribution of this special hat on
the territory from Sogdiana and Tokharistan to China.^154 Th e fact that
the Turks were masters of a huge part of the Central Asian region in the
sixth–ninth century was refl ected by the fashion style as well, as
revealed by the decoration and manner of wearing certain clothes and
other elements of the costume.^155
Th ere are “putou” hats on the wall paintings in Afrasiab and Panji-
kand in Middle Asia dominated by the Turks in the seventh and the
eighth century although the bulk of the local population there spoke
various East Iranian dialects. People wearing small black hats with a
couple of strings (like ribbons) at the back are depicted on the east-
ern and the northern walls of the Afrasiab hall^156 and these hats are
similar to those known from Sogd and Panjikand, East Turkestan, and
China.^157 Since this book is not aimed at studying the genesis of certain
elements of the costume in Central Asia, we have to conclude that the
“putou” hats cannot be studied through the own–foreign prism, or as
an ethnic marker, since they are used in a diff erent ethnic environ-
ment. It would be more appropriate to seek the distinction in a social
aspect as it is typical for the pre-modern world in general, but it is not
a subject for discussion here.
Th ere are own signs among the nomads, which are imposed by the
aristocratic culture that consolidated the elite. We fi nd one of them
on the Bugut stela^158 which was also placed on a tortoise but bears
an inscription in Sogdian and—what is probably the most important
thing—has a very unusual upper end: there are neither khagan’s signs
(cf. the wild he-goat schematically depicted on the stelae from the time
of the Second Turkic khaganate), nor the imperial dragons, but instead
a picture of a she-wolf (wolf?) and a standing human fi gure below
it. Th ere is no room for doubt that it is an illustration of the most
popular ethnogonic Turkic myth—about their origin from a she-wolf.
Th is legend is embedded in the symbolism of the ruler’s attributes of
(^154) Maitdinova 1990, 128–133.
(^155) Maitdinova 1990, 127 f., 131.
(^156) Al’baum 1975, Tabl. XXXII–XXXV; Maitdinova 1990, ill. 2: 14–16.
(^157) Belenitskii 1973, 26; Sychev and Sychev 1975, 55–60; Maitdinova 1990, 128.
(^158) For this stela and its inscription see, Kliashtornyi and Livshtits 1971b, 121–146.