Narrating mythical genealogy: examples from the Chingiznāma-Oghuznāma Complex

Abstract

This article focuses on mythico-historical texts belonging to the Chingiznāma-Oghuznāma Complex, an oral and written tradition that emerged over the course of seven centuries in post-Mongol Central Asia and the Middle East. It disentangles the narrative strategies creatively employed by authors and tradents who deconstructed and reconstructed narratives that blend the genealogy of Chingiz Khan with the epic story of Oghuz Qaghan, showing how they mobilized and developed the plots and motifs at their disposal to meet the political, ideological and communal requirements of their times. Focusing in particular on the changing ways in which the texts foreground particular mothers and the maternal line over nobility granted through paternal descent, the article highlights narrative traces of multiple religious beliefs and postulates-Jewish and Christian, as well as Inner Asian theistic and Islamic. It also demonstrates that some later texts refute claims to descentbased continuity in power and rule altogether.