The Göktürk Feast

The Sui Shu says that the Göktürks ate meat and drank fermented milk.^[1] According to the text, they drank fermented mare’s milk until they were drunk, and then sang and shouted to one another.^[1] The Tongdian repeats the sentence.^[2] The drink is taken for kumys.^[3]^[4]^[5] The Sui Shu does not say whether the soured milk of every day was kumys too, or the soured milk of cattle and sheep from which ayran is made.^[1] A Turkish history of culture adds a drink brewed from wheat and millet that the Göktürks called begai. It names no source.^[6] The feasts at the courts of the khans are known from the guests who sat at them. These guests were a Roman envoy, a Sui emperor, a Chinese pilgrim and a member of the retinue of the Albanian catholicos.

The embassy of 569

Menander describes two days of feasting at the camp of Istemi on Ektag, when Zemarchos came there on the Roman embassy of 569.^[7] After the greetings and the gifts, the Romans feasted with the khan for the rest of the day. His tent was hung with silks dyed in many colours.^[7] Menander says that they drank no wine pressed from grapes, because the land did not grow the vine.^[8]^[9] Instead they drank their fill of another kind of sweet wine.^[8] Kumiss, beer, mead and rice wine have all been proposed for this drink.^[10] Some scholars explain Menander’s remark from the land. The vine does not grow on the steppe, and growing it needs a settled life. Therefore herders knew grapes and wine as the goods of the oases.^[9]

On the next day they met in another hut hung with silk, where statues stood and the khan sat on a couch of gold.^[8] They feasted again. Over the drinking they said and heard what needed to be said, and then they left.^[8]

At Talas, on the march against Persia, Istemi invited the Roman and the Persian envoys to dine with him.^[8] He gave the Romans the more honourable couch. He spoke at length of the wrongs he had suffered from the Persians.^[11] The Persian envoy answered back.^[11] In doing so, the envoy ignored the custom of silence that prevailed among the Göktürks at their feasts. Those present were astounded at his rage.^[11] The envoys left. Istemi then prepared his attack on Persia.^[11]

Yami’s camp, 607

In 607 the Sui emperor Yangdi came to the camp of Yami Khan.^[1] Yami knelt and raised a cup to wish him long life.^[1] The emperor wrote a poem on the visit. In it, men with plaited hair hold up the mutton and men in leather offer the wine cups.^[1]^[12]

Tong Yabgu’s court

The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang was received by Tong Yabgu near Suyab in a great tent adorned with golden flowers.^[13] The officers sat before the khan on long mats in two rows. His guard stood behind them.^[13] The Göktürks used no wooden seats and sat on padded mats on the ground. The reason belongs to their worship of fire.^[14] For the guest they brought an iron seat covered with a cushion.^[14]

When the Chinese and the Gaochang envoys had presented their letters and gifts, the khan had wine served to the sound of music.^[14] He and his ministers drank to the envoys. The pilgrim, a Buddhist monk, was given the juice of the grape.^[14] The vine grew in the settled land. The Sui Shu says of Kang, the Samarkand of the Chinese records, that its people made much grape wine. Rich families laid up a thousand shi of it, which kept for years.^[15] The wine and the grape juice of the khan’s tent therefore came from farmland, not from the steppe. They pledged one another in turn, filling and emptying their cups, while the music played.^[14] Then boiled quarters of mutton and veal were heaped before the guests.^[14] The pilgrim received separate food: rice cakes, cream, sugar candy, honey and raisins.^[14] After the meal the grape drink went round again. The khan then asked his guest to expound his teaching.^[16]

A camp in Albania

The History of the Caucasian Albanians describes a feast in the camp of the northern army of the Caucasus campaign near Partaw, after the plunder of Tiflis.^[17] Its narrator came there carrying gifts, with the catholicos of Albania and the nobles.^[18] The chronicle calls the army Khazar. Whether it was Göktürk is disputed.

The men of the camp knelt on their couches.^[17] Each had a bowl of meat and dishes of salt water to dip it in.^[17] They drank from silver cups and gold-chased beakers taken in the plunder of Tiflis, and from drinking horns.^[17] Two or three shared a cup of wine or camel’s milk.^[17] There were no cupbearers and no servants, not even for the ruler’s son Šat. Instead, soldiers with shield and spear kept watch over his court.^[19]

The visitors had to kiss the ground three times before they were led to Šat’s tent.^[18] At the meal they were told to kneel in the manner of the camp.^[20] It was Lent. Therefore the hosts took the meat away and set before them slices of bread fried in a pan.^[20] The chronicler wrote as an enemy and describes the meal with contempt.

In all these accounts the feast is held in the ruler’s tent, and the drink goes round freely. The seating marks rank, as with the more honourable couch at Talas and the two rows of officers at Suyab. A Turkish history of culture mentions a great state meal, the aş-içkü, at which the guests plundered the table service. It cites a study of the Oghuz for the custom and gives no source from the time of the khaganates.^[21] Another account reads the rule of the Oghuz epic, which says which parts of a slaughtered sheep went to which tribes, as a picture of the system of shares, ülüş or pay. The epic is much later than the khaganates, and the account names no line of it.^[22]

References

^ a b c d e f Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
^ Tongdian, juan 197
^ Golden 1992, p. 152
^ Julien 1864, p. 353
^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 64
^ Kafesoğlu 1997, p. 318–319
^ a b Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3, pp. 119–121
^ a b c d e Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3, p. 121
^ a b Laufer 1919, p. 233
^ Blockley 1985, p. 264
^ a b c d Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3, p. 123
^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 94
^ a b Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 42
^ a b c d e f g Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 43
^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 83
^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 44
^ a b c d e Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, II.14, p. 99
^ a b Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, II.14, p. 100
^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, II.14, pp. 99–100
^ a b Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, II.14, p. 101
^ Kafesoğlu 1997, p. 257
^ Ögel 1978, p. 335

Sources

Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 83, 84
Tongdian, juan 197 (after Sui Shu and Zhou Shu)
Menander Protector
Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
Movsēs Dasxurancʿi

Literature

Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Stanislas Julien, Documents historiques sur les Tou-kioue (Turcs) (1864)
Liu Mau-tsai, Çin Kaynaklarına Göre Doğu Türkleri (1958, Turkish edition)
R. C. Blockley, The History of Menander the Guardsman: Introductory Essay, Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes (1985)
Samuel Beal (trans.), The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by the Shaman Hwui Li (1911)
Charles J. F. Dowsett (trans.), The History of the Caucasian Albanians by Movsēs Dasxuranci (1961)
Berthold Laufer, Sino-Iranica. Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran (1919)
İbrahim Kafesoğlu, Türk Millî Kültürü (1997)
Bahaeddin Ögel, Türk Kültür Tarihine Giriş IV: Türklerde yemek kültürü (1978)