Kyrgyz shamans and rites (religious house) in 1200, The Yenisei Kyrgyz

The Kyrgyz religion is known from outside notices.

A Chinese description of the ninth century says the shamans are called gan (kam) and that sacrifices to the spirits are made in the open field at any time. The Persian geographer Gardizi (eleventh century) and Yaqut (early thirteenth) say they worship natural objects and animals, pray facing south and honour Saturn and Venus, and Gardizi and al-Marwazi describe ministers who fall into a trance to foretell disaster or invasion. A tenth-century Persian text says they venerate fire and burn the dead; the Chinese add that the body was wrapped, burned and the bones buried a year later.

Wikipedia's article on the Kyrgyz Khaganate adds that the Church of the East 'became widespread among the Kyrgyz aristocracy' (no date given) and that objects like the doors of a Christian panagia were found in the Koibaly-I cemetery of the Minusinsk basin, dated to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, which is after 1200. Nothing names a Kyrgyz shrine, temple or priest for 1200. The rites hold no land; the record is a faith of a people, drawn as a point at the Kyrgyz heartland.

Who holds it

Title: Shamans (kam) of the Kyrgyz; no name
Since: not known
Born: not known
Family: not applicable
Confidence: low

Wikipedia 'Kyrgyz Khaganate' and the Russian article on the Yenisei Kyrgyz.

Overlord

None shown.

What it holds

Shamanism, fire and sky rites of the commoners
Some Church of the East believers among the nobles (undated)

Allies and rivals

Serves the Kyrgyz inal and the princes; the Christian nobles may have ties to the Uyghur and Naiman Christians (not shown).

How things stand that morning

Present; nothing dated to the winter. The Kyrgyz sit behind the Sayans and out of the steppe wars.

Places of note

The Kyrgyz heartland (locator): Locator for the Minusinsk basin; no shrine is known.

Where the sources disagree

The sheet assignment asks for 'the Kyrgyz shrines'. No shrine is named in any source read; this record is a people's faith with a locator point, not a site.
Wikipedia says that the Kyrgyz Khaganate adopted Manichaeism after the conquest of the Uyghurs and built temples; we did not check this and have no evidence for it in 1200.

Evidence: Chinese notice of the ninth century and Persian notices of the tenth to thirteenth, read through Wikipedia's articles; no 1200 source.

On the map: A locator point; no shrine or site is known.

Primary sources for The Yenisei Kyrgyz

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
Compendium of Chronicles, Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah Hamadani (1300 to 1311, at Tabriz). The official Ilkhanid history, compiled from Mongol oral tradition and the lost Altan Debter. Read online
Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
History of the Yuan, Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office (1369 to 1370). Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. Read online

Sources and studies

Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.