The Zhou Shu describes how the Göktürks called up troops and horses or levied livestock as tax. They cut notches in wood to record the number.[1] With the notched wood went an arrow with a head of jin. The whole was sealed with wax as a token of trust.[1] The Bei Shi and the Tongdian repeat the sentence.[2] The tally recorded what was owed in men, horses and beasts.

The arrow

The material of the arrowhead is written 金. The same passage uses this character for the golden wolf’s head on the Göktürk banners.[1][3] The renderings translate it as gold in the wolf’s head and as metal in the arrowhead.[3][4] One rendering makes the head an iron lance-head and has the wax seal stamped with it.[3] A second rendering makes it a pointed metal tip. In this version the notched wood is sealed with wax together with the arrow.[4] The Chinese sentence allows either reading.

Writing and wood

The Sui Shu gives a shorter version. The Göktürks had no writing, it says, and cut notches in wood to make their agreements.[5] The Zhou Shu, by contrast, says that their writing resembled that of the hu.[1] The Bei Shi carries both statements side by side.[6] This contradiction belongs to the debate over the origin of the Old Turkic script.

The Göktürks’ former overlords had kept their records in the same way. The Wei Shu says that the Rouran under Shelun had no written records. Their commanders at first counted their troops roughly with sheep droppings. Later they learned to notch wood as a record.[7] The Southern Qi history says that the Rouran kept records by notching wood and did not know writing.[8]

The arrow as a sign of command

In the west the arrow became the sign of a command. Soon after 635 the western khan Ishbara Tolis divided his realm into ten parts, set a man over each and gave each of them an arrow, so that the ten were called the Ten Arrows.[9] Afterwards one arrow came to mean one tribe, and a great arrowhead a great chief.[10] In the tenth century the Arabic writer an-Nadim was told that the “great Turkish king” used characters traced on an arrow when he wished to write to a lesser king.[11]

The Chinese chapters describe a record that needed no script. The number was cut into wood, the arrow was sent with it, and the wax made it binding. Under post and communication, Turkic Atlas sets this record beside the envoys, letters, seals and relay horses by which word travelled.

References

  1. ^ a b c d Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
  2. ^ Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 99; Tongdian, juan 197
  3. ^ a b c Julien 1864, p. 333
  4. ^ a b Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 21
  5. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  6. ^ Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 99
  7. ^ Wei Shu, juan 103
  8. ^ Nan Qi Shu, juan 59
  9. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
  10. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
  11. ^ Golden 1992, p. 173

Sources

Literature

  • Stanislas Julien, Documents historiques sur les Tou-kioue (Turcs) (1864)
  • Liu Mau-tsai, Çin Kaynaklarına Göre Doğu Türkleri (1958, Turkish edition)
  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)

Related

What links here5

Institutions and Titles
Army of the Steppe Empires · Envoys and Embassies · Post and Communication · Sheep · Warfare of the Steppe Empires

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Tally Sticks and the Golden Arrow.” Turkic Atlas, revised 7 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/institutions/tally-sticks-and-golden-arrow/

Last revised: 7 November 2026