The Dubo lived north of the Uyghurs and south of a small sea, in three divisions that governed themselves.[1] They hunted and fished. They ate the roots of the lily and clothed themselves in sable and deer skin, the poor in woven bird feathers.[2] The Chinese histories group them with the Tiele. The Xin Tangshu, in its notice on the Kirghiz, calls the Dubo, the Mielie and the Geezhi the Wooden-Horse Tujue, after the skis on which they ran over the ice.[3] Wooden Horses describes the device.

In the Sui and Tang histories

The Sui Shu lists the Dubo among the Tiele peoples, as the people “south of the Northern Sea”. The Tiele as a whole, the text says, have no rulers and belong to the eastern or western Göktürks.[4] The Tongdian calls the Dubo a separate kind of Tiele, thirteen days’ march from the Uyghurs.[5] They govern themselves in three divisions, it says, and build huts of woven grass. They have no cattle or sheep and know no farming.[5] The land is full of lily. They take the roots for food, and they add fish and the game they shoot.[5]

The Xin Tangshu repeats the account and adds the neighbours. The Dubo country borders the small sea on the north, the Jiankun on the west and the Uyghurs on the south. Jiankun is the Chinese name for the Kirghiz.[1] The Dubo have no reckoning of the seasons. In marriage a rich man gives horses and a poor man deerskin and roots of grass. The dead are put in a wooden coffin and laid in the mountains or hung from a tree, and the mourning is as among the Göktürks.[2] They have no punishments. A thief pays back twice the value of what he took.[2]

The Wooden-Horse Tujue

A second passage of the Xin Tangshu stands in its notice on the Kirghiz. East of the Kirghiz, it says, are three tribes of Wooden-Horse Tujue: the Dubo, the Mielie and the Geezhi. Their chiefs all bear the title jiejin.[1] The same Chinese word stands in the title of the Kirghiz ruler given as Bilga Ton Irkin. Therefore jiejin is taken to be irkin.[6] Their houses are roofed with birch bark, and they have many good horses. They run on the ice on wooden horses. The rider rests his foot on a board, holds a bent piece of wood under his arm, and with one kick covers a hundred paces.[1] They raid by night and hide by day. The men of the Kirghiz were able to make them subjects.[1]

The two passages do not agree. In the first the Dubo have no animals and live in huts of grass. In the second they have many horses and live under birch bark.[1] The three divisions of the Dubo in the first passage may be the Dubo, the Mielie and the Geezhi of the second. One people would then be described in two ways.[7] The Chinese text does not say so.[1] The Xin Tangshu itself gives 都波 as a second writing of 都播. The two are taken for one people.[1]

The embassy of 647

In 647 the Dubo sent an envoy to the Tang court, as the Tongdian, the Xin Tangshu and the Jiu Tangshu record.[8] The Xin Tangshu says that they went on the occasion of the visit of the Gulikan, who had come that year with ten horses.[1] The Cefu Yuangui dates the Dubo embassy to the twelfth month. It says that they sent it when they heard that the Gulikan had come.[9] The Jiu Tangshu lists the Dubo among nineteen distant countries that sent tribute that year. It adds that the court set up sixty-six relay stations from north of the Göktürks to the Uyghur lands, to reach the northern wastes.[10]

Seat and descent

The Sui Shu speaks of the Northern Sea, the Xin Tangshu of a small sea.[11] Some scholars identify the small sea with Lake Kosogol and set the Dubo south of it, north of the Uyghurs and east of the Kirghiz.[7] Others put them near Kosogol between the sixth and the eighth century, with a part of the Tiele living west of the lake as far as the upper Yenisei.[12] The reference literature puts the Tu-po south of Lake Baikal.[13] Whether the two waters of the Chinese texts are one is not settled.

For their descent the literature gives three views. The first identifies the name with Tuba, the name that Samoyedic peoples bore. In this view the Dubo were Samoyedic tribes that were already Turkicized when the Chinese called them Göktürks.[7] The second makes the Tuvan Todzha descend from the Dubo.[12] The third connects the name with the Tuba of the Altai Turks and the Tuvans. It regards their descent as Samoyedic, Ketic and Mongolic as well as Turkic.[13]

Some scholars count the Dubo, Mielie and Geezhi among the vassal tribes that marched out with the Kirghiz when the Kirghiz levied their army.[14] The Chinese text says only that the men of the Kirghiz were able to make them subjects.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  2. ^ a b c Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Tongdian, juan 199
  3. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Tongdian, juan 199; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  4. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  5. ^ a b c Tongdian, juan 199
  6. ^ Drompp 2005, p. 36
  7. ^ a b c Barthold 1927, p. 14
  8. ^ Tongdian, juan 199; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 3
  9. ^ Cefu yuangui, juan 970
  10. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 3
  11. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  12. ^ a b Kocobekov 2015, p. 17
  13. ^ a b Golden 1992, p. 415
  14. ^ Savinov 1978, p. 211

Sources

Literature

  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • V. V. Barthold, Kirgizy: istoričeskij očerk [Киргизы: исторический очерк] (1927)
  • D. G. Savinov, Etnokul'turnye svjazi enisejskich kyrgyzov i kimakov v IX–X vv. [Этнокультурные связи енисейских кыргызов и кимаков в IX–X вв.] (1978)
  • Muratbek Kocobekov, Kırgızların Sayan-Altay Bölgesi'ndeki Komşuları (2015)
  • Michael R. Drompp, Tang China and the Collapse of the Uighur Empire: A Documentary History (2005)

Related

What links here3

Battles & Events
The Ten Steeds of 647
Peoples
Kurykan
Customs & Pastimes
Wooden Horses

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Dubo.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/ethnicities/dubo/

Last revised: 8 November 2026