Purification by Fire

Purification by fire was the rite by which the Göktürks cleansed a Roman embassy and its baggage before the khagan received the envoys.^[1] Menander describes it in his account of the Roman embassy that Zemarchos led to the Göktürk khagan.^[2] The embassy left Constantinople in August 569.^[3]

The rite of 569

After a journey of many days the envoys reached the land of the Sogdians and dismounted.^[4] Göktürks, evidently sent for the purpose, offered them iron for sale.^[4]

Then other men of the same tribe appeared. The Göktürks said that these men were exorcisers of ill-omened things.^[1] They took all the baggage the envoys carried and set it on the ground.^[1] They set fire to branches of the frankincense tree. They chanted words in their own tongue, with the noise of bells and drums.^[1] They waved the crackling boughs over the baggage and fell into a frenzy like madmen. They believed that they were driving away evil spirits.^[1]

When they thought the evil beings had been chased away, they led Zemarchos himself through the fire.^[1] By this, Menander says, they believed that they had purified themselves as well.^[1] Only then did they take the envoys on to the khagan. He was staying in a valley of the mountain called Ektag.^[1]

Purpose and setting

Menander states the purpose. The rite drove off evil spirits, and men who performed it were held to be averters of evil and guardians against it.^[1] The rite may have been a defence against evil spirits that might have come with the strangers from the land of the Romans.^[5]

In that case Zemarchos walked through the fire, probably between two flames, to sounds that seemed shamanic.^[5] By contrast, Menander speaks of a single fire.^[1]

Another explanation regards the exorcisers as shamans and exorcism by fire as a common practice among the peoples of Central Asia.^[6] It recalls that in 1246 Michael, prince of Chernigov, had to pass between two fires when he came to the Mongol khan Batu.^[6] The rite took place on entering Sogdian land. Therefore it also infers that Göktürk power reached no further west at the time.^[6]

Later fire rites

Purification by fire is known among later Turkic peoples.^[5] Bashkirs and Kazakhs light a greasy rag and carry it around a sick person, saying alas, alas, to draw out what is evil and unclean.^[5] Among the Turks of Anatolia the practice survives as alazlama, purification by fire.^[5] The cry alas, alas, alas belongs to the Altaian kam of the nineteenth century as well. In the great sacrifice he smokes the soul of the sacrificial horse and the gifts of cloth with a green juniper twig and sings it over them. A weather-maker used it in a prayer for fair weather.^[7]^[8]

The sources of the khaganates record the rite once. They cannot show whether these practices continue the rite of 569. What those sources keep is a single scene: a stranger made clean with fire before he was allowed to come before the khagan.

A Turkish study of mythology sets the scene of 569 in a wider frame. It says that envoys who came to the Göktürks were led over fire at the frontier and so made clean before they were taken into the land. It adds that Rubruck reports the same of the envoys of the age of Genghis Khan, who were not admitted to the palace before they were led over fire.^[9] The same study derives alazlama from al, the colour of fire. In the rite a burning cloth is carried round the sick person.^[9]

References

^ a b c d e f g h i j Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3, p. 119
^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3, p. 117–119
^ Blockley 1985, p. 263
^ a b Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3, p. 117
^ a b c d e Yavuz 2025, p. 145
^ a b c Blockley 1985, p. 264
^ Radloff 1893 (zweite Ausgabe), p. 8–9,24,29
^ Verbitskii 1893, scan 33
^ a b Ögel 1995, p. 522

Sources

Menander Protector

Literature

R. C. Blockley, The History of Menander the Guardsman: Introductory Essay, Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes (1985)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
Wilhelm Radloff, Aus Sibirien. Lose Blätter aus meinem Tagebuche. Zweiter Band (1893 (zweite Ausgabe))
Vasilii Ivanovich Verbitskii, Алтайские инородцы (Altai Foreigners) (1893)
Bahaeddin Ögel, Türk Mitolojisi (Kaynakları ve açıklamaları ile destanlar) II (1995)