The Lone Wolf in Inner Asia

Author(s): Michael R. Drompp

Source: Journal of the American Oriental Society , October-December 2011, Vol. 131,
No. 4 (October-December 2011), pp. 515-526
Published by: American Oriental Society

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41440510

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 The Lone Wolf in Inner Asia

Michael R. Drompp
Rhodes College

I am both pleased and honored to be with you tonight. My first conference presen
was before this society as a graduate student, and I have long appreciated the place
table that has been given to Inner Asia in its organization. It is, I think, fitting that
Asianist is presenting tonight's presidential address so soon after the death of Denis
formidable teacher and scholar who long played a leading role in the society and wa
to the development of its Inner Asian wing. He was not only my teacher, but also t
who first brought to my attention the rich imagery of wolves to be found in Inner
its peripheral cultures: Europe, the Middle East, China.
When I first began to think about this address, I was tempted to use the lone w
metaphor for the scholar of Inner Asia: intrepid, cunning, perhaps even dangerou
generally quite lonely on the vast plains of the scholarly world. But in the end I c
more literal approach to the topic. In this address I will consider wolves that, if not
"real," still appear in the animal's familiar guise rather than that of an all-too-fre
solitary scholar.
If, in Lévi-Strauss' s well-known dictum, animals are good to think with, it is a
that some animals are - with apologies to George Orwell - more "good to think wi
others. Certain animals resonate more strongly with humans than do others. Animals
like and unlike humans, with varying degrees of similarity and difference. I believe
the similarities, highlighted by difference (or "otherness"), that make certain anim
resonant within human cultures, often across a wide diversity of cultural and geo
terrain.

One can identify many such animals without much mental effort. Horses and li
eagles tend to resonate more richly than earthworms or oysters or dragonflies, sugge
size and visibility matter in this equation, as do biological and behavioral similarit
humans that provide the very resonance being considered here. Familiarity is not
crucial factor, as the example of the lion provides ample evidence; it has become a
of royal power in areas far beyond its natural habitat and in cultural loci as far-flung
and Britain. Yet in many cases, familiarity contributes to the cultural resonance tha
animals have for their human observers.
Of such animals, one of the most familiar for humans throughout much of North America
and Eurasia, and one of the most culturally fruitful, is the wolf, canis lupus. In its heyday -
that is, until humans set out to eradicate it - the wolf was the most widespread mammal in the
world except for humans themselves. 1 Humans had ample opportunities for familiarity with
wolves, in whose behavior humans could see many features that reminded them of their own

Author's note: Presidential address delivered March 13, 2011 at the AOS annual meeting in Chicago, Illinois. I
have retained the oral style of the original, but also have added notes when I thought they could prove useful to
the reader.

1. On the wolf's geographic distribution, see Robert M. Nowak, "Wolf Evolution and Taxonomy," in Wolves:
Behavior , Ecology, and Conservation , ed. L. David Mech and Luigi Boitani (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press,
2003), 242-45, particularly the maps of figs. 9.2 and 9.5; and L. David Mech, The Wolf: The Ecology and Behavior
of an Endangered Species (Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1970), 31-36.

Journal of the American Oriental Society 131.4 (20 11) 515

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516 Journal of the American Oriental Society 131.4 (201 1)

societies. The wolf pack resembles in many ways a human community, with well-established
roles reflecting age and gender. Particularly noteworthy are the raising of the young, group
play, and the activity of collaborative hunting. For human communities, wolves reflected
their own identity as a cooperative group working to obtain food for the community and to
nurture and protect their young in order to perpetuate that community.
Despite the wolf's close connection to human society, much of the imagery associated
with it has been negative. Although it has been admired in some cultures for its strength and
skill, many human societies have viewed the wolf with fear, revulsion, or a combination of
the two. Its hunting techniques translated into cruelty, its abilities in stealth seen as symbolic
of treachery, its feeding habits viewed as evidence of gluttony, the wolf was regarded as
an enemy by many human communities that it encountered - particularly those who saw
the wolf as a potential danger to themselves and their domesticated livestock. The image
of the wolf thus is often an ambivalent one: a brave, energetic, and skillful hunter, but also
a cunning thief and killer whose thirst for blood seems to know no bounds. It is this very
ambivalence that gives the image of the wolf its astonishing cultural versatility and so can
help account for its prevalence in many distinct and geographically widespread cultures.
Among nomadic peoples of Inner Asia, the positive attributes of the wolf could dominate
as people "thought with" wolves and other creatures. In particular, wolves were regarded as
fitting symbols for Inner Asian warriors. This can be seen in the eighth-century Old Turkic
inscriptions of the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia; the monuments to Kiil Tegin and his brother
Bilgä Qaghan, composed in 732 and 735 c.e. respectively, both describe the revival of the
Türks' power in the late seventh century with these words: "Because Heaven gave them
strength, the soldiers of my father, the qaghan, were like wolves and his enemies were like
sheep."2 We will return to this connection between warriors and wolves.
More striking than this military symbolism - a connection with parallels in many other
cultures - is the relative abundance of Inner Asian tales in which a single wolf serves as an
ancestor, protector, or guide for a particular human community. The lone wolf, of course, has
its own peculiar imagery which can again be ambivalent in many respects. Is the lone wolf
aloof and independent, or an outcast from the community; a strong and noble individualist,
or a detested pariah - or perhaps all these things? In the case of Inner Asia, the lone wolf
often takes on a numinous role that is not typically assigned to wolves in packs; the single
wolf transcends the normal biological limitations of wolves and is gifted with divine insight
as well as the ability to nurse - or even produce - human beings. The lone wolf thus becomes
an ally . . . and sometimes even a member of the family.
Perhaps the best example of this comes again from the early Türks (the Tujue ^5 Ш of Chi-
nese sources), who dominated Inner Asia from about 552 to about 630 c.e. and again from
about 682 to about 744 c.e. Their empire, which at its height stretched from the frontiers
of Korea in the east, passing north of China and Iran to confront the Byzantine world of the
Black Sea in the west, was centered on the Mongolian Plateau, and it is there that the great
Türk rulers established their dwellings, received emissaries from afar, and designed elaborate
stone monuments to celebrate their achievements.
According to Chinese sources, the Türks told the following story of their development as
a people. At an unspecified time in the past, the Türks had been attacked by an enemy who
defeated and then exterminated them, save for a ten-year-old boy. The tale indicates that the
enemy soldiers could not bring themselves to kill this lad and so, in an excess of "compas-
sion," cut off his feet (and, in some versions, his hands as well) and threw him into a marsh.

2. Talât Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Publications, 1968), 265.

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 Drompp: The Lone Wolf in Inner Asia 517

There he was discovered by a she- wolf who fed him with meat. As he grew to
boy had sexual congress with the wolf and impregnated her. At this time the ol
of the boy's survival and sent troops to kill him. In this they succeeded, but the
wolf escaped and was transported to the region north of Qočo in the Tarim Ba
found a mountain cave in which was a world-within-a-world - a vast and rich
she settled and gave birth to ten human sons. These grew and took wives from
their descendants - the revitalized Türks - had grown in number, they left th
mitted to the dominant power in Eastern Inner Asia at that time, the Rou-ra
they served as blacksmiths. According to some versions, they employed a sta
metal wolf's head on it as a reminder of their origins.3 The Türks later rebelle
Rou-ran and supplanted them in the middle of the sixth century c.e.4
Perhaps the most curious aspect of the Türk tale is, for us, its similarity t
famous story of the founding of Rome, in which the infant twins Romulus an
abandoned and left to die in the wilderness, only to be saved by a she-wolf w
them, thereby allowing them to grow to adulthood and establish the city th
nate the Mediterranean world for centuries. There are, of course, many differe
but the similarities are striking. The tale - or a version of it - may well be pre
image of a child suckled by a wolf (or possibly a lioness) has been found on o
predating the founding of Rome, suggesting a more ancient origin of this moti
then have been borrowed by the Romans for their own purposes.5 As Roman
the image of the wolf and the twins was to be found throughout the empire.
More curious - and compelling for my purpose here - is the fact that there a
lar tales to be found. The Roman (or pre-Roman) is apparently the oldest, wi
for it dating back at least to the early third century b.c.e. and possibly earli
turies later, in the Shiji Ü5 of the Chinese historian Sima Qian WLü®, is
the Wusun people inhabiting the region around Lake Balkash in modern
This story, told by a Chinese envoy who had returned to the Han capital in a
after many years in Inner Asia, tells of an attack on the Wusun in which th
the Wusun king but abandoned his infant son in the wilderness to die. The b
from death by a she-wolf, who suckled him, and a raven (or ravens), who place
mouth. The child was later taken in by the enemy ruler, who recognized super
at work in the boy's survival. This same child grew up to become the ruler o
In considering the role of the raven in this story, it is worth noting that some
Roman tale include in addition to the she- wolf a bird (usually a woodpecker) t
to feed the infant twins.
The Wusun story contains a striking number of the motifs found in the Tü
ticularly the attack by an enemy, the survival of a male child, the child's aband
wilderness, his being fed by a she- wolf, the temporary vassalization of the chi
stronger power, and the ultimate revival of the people through the agency of t
and his descendants. Of course, many of the Türk motifs are missing, but the s
too great to be attributed to chance.

3. For a consideration of this tale, see Denis Sinor, "The Legendary Origins of the Türks," in
schrift for Felix J. Oinas , ed. Egle Victoria Zygas and Peter Voorheis (Bloomington: Research I
Asian Studies, 1982), 223-57.
4. See Michael R. Drompp, "Imperial State Formation in Inner Asia: The Early Turkic Empi
Centuries)," Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 58 (2005): 101-1 1.
5. Otto J. Brendel, Etruscan Art , 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1995), 375-76 and f
6. Sima Qian, Shiji (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1985), 123: 3168.

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5 1 8 Journal of the American Oriental Society 131.4 (20 11)

Between Rome and the land of the Wusun more hints of the lupine motif can be found.
A specter of the she-wolf nurse creeps awkwardly into tales of the infant Zoroaster. In this
story, the child is placed in the den of a wolf and her cubs; as usual, our expectations are
confounded and the child is not harmed. But rather than being nursed by the she-wolf, the
child is suckled by a white sheep that enters the den. In this context one wonders why the
wolf, regarded as a creature of evil in the Zoroastrian tradition, was brought into the tale at
all; Mary Boyce argued that this was a remnant of a likely importation which "evolved in
late Parthian or Sasanian times under the influence of the legend of Romulus and Remus."7
But the tale apparently has been sanitized. Still, images of twins - and also single infants, as
well as a pairing of a human infant with a wolf cub - being suckled by a she- wolf have been
found on seals and amulets in the Near East, particularly in the Sasanian context. 8 There are
other analogues as well, such as a seventh-century Sogdian mural in Ustrushana depicting
the she-wolf with twin boys. These are clearly Romulus and Remus, as there are other scenes
from Roman legend depicted in the accompanying murals.9
Unlike the Türks, neither the Romans nor the Wusun claimed the she-wolf as an ances-
tress, regarding her instead as a divinely guided nurse to the abandoned boy or boys she
found and nurtured. But there are other cases in which wolves were regarded as progenitors.
The Mongols, for example, traced the lineage of Chinggis Khan to the union of a male wolf
and a doe. Here it should be noted that many scholars have argued that tales of animal nurses,
which are nearly global as cultural expressions, particularly in identifying a hero-to-be, may
well be sanitized versions of legends of animal ancestors, just as human ancestors with ani-
mal names may also conceal earlier tales of animal ancestors. The latter process can be seen
clearly in the case of the Mongols. The Secret History of the Mongols , composed during the
thirteenth century, begins with the mating of a blue-grey wolf and a fallow doe. 10 In the later
Mongol tradition, these were turned into humans who are named "Blue-Grey Wolf" and -
through a barely discernible act of linguistic sleight of hand - "Beautiful Doe." 11 One could
point to other examples.
Memories of the Türk she-wolf persisted among later Turkic peoples as well. Writing in
the eleventh century (but quoting earlier authorities), the Persian author Gardïzl recounts a
story in which the "sparse hair and evil disposition" of the Turkic peoples are explained by
the childhood of their putative ancestor Yãfith (Japheth, son of Noah). As a child, Yäfith was
stricken with a disease that his mother could cure only by feeding him ant eggs and wolf
milk. The ant eggs caused him to have sparse hair, while the milk of the she-wolf brought
about his "wicked nature." These traits were then inherited by his descendants, including
Türk, the ancestor of the Turkic peoples. 12 The milk of the she-wolf suggests an echo of the
Türk and other myths, although now the wolf's nurturing is provided through a human inter-

7. Mary Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. 1: The Early Period (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 279 and n. 9.
Wolves were among animals considered repulsive to Zoroastrians; see Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. 1,
298-300.

8. Guitty Azarpay, "The Roman Twins in Near Eastern Art," Iranica Antiqua 23 (1988): 349-64. Azarpay
believes that this reflects diffusion of the Roman tale into the Iranian world.
9. See Burchard Brenjes, "Zur Kunst und Religion der Afshinen der Ustrushana," in Orientalia Iosephi Tucci
Memoriae Dicata , vol. 1, ed. G. Gnoli and L. Lanciotti (Rome: Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente,
1985), 191-97, esp. 196 and plates 9 and 10a.
10. Igor de Rachewiltz, The Secret History of the Mongols: A Mongolian Epic Chronicle of the Thirteenth
Century (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 1 .
11. de Rachewiltz, The Secret History of the Mongols , 224.
12. K. Czeglédy, "Gardïzl on the History of Central Asia (746-780 a.D.)," Acta Orientalia Academiae Scien-
tiarum Hungaricae 27 (1973): 261.

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 Drompp: The Lone Wolf in Inner Asia 519

mediary. The humanization of the wolf's nurturing act (which parallels the rep
savior animal by an animal substitute - often a shepherd or hunter - in many
render the tale more logical. But it does serve to cleanse it of any suggestion o
contact or origin. Another connection may be found in the text known as Oghu
ten in Old Uighur script probably in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, alth
extant copy is more recent, probably from the fifteenth century. 13 The text rec
of the hero Oghuz Qaghan. After proclaiming himself ruler over the (Turkic) O
Oghuz Qaghan sets out on a series of conquests, announcing that his people's w
"blue-grey wolf" ( kök bori). Later, a huge male wolf with blue-grey fur and a b
provides guidance for the qaghan during his campaigns, even speaking to offer
For modern historians who studied the early Türks, the notion of wolf ance
tially unsupported by any concrete evidence beyond the story mentioned abov
unfortunately, only in Chinese versions. This ultimately led the great lexicog
Gerard Clauson to publish in 1964 an article, "Turks and Wolves," in which h
the whole thing was a scurrilous sham intended to denigrate the Türks in Ch
describing their rulers as descended from a wild animal. 15 Unfortunately for S
unbeknownst to him at the time, a discovery had been made in Mongolia just
before his article was published that changed everything.
In 1956, the Mongol archeologist Ts. Dorjsüren carried out some excavation
Mongolia, some ten kilometers west of the town of Bugut in the province of A
religious character of the site was suggested by the presence of a number of f
different eras, including burial mounds, ancient petroglyphs and "deer stone
appeared to be a ruined altar. It was evident that the site had a sacred meaning
of peoples over a long period of time - at least from the Bronze Age to the M
For some years Dorjsüren' s discovery was little noticed by the rest of the wor
The most impressive item found at the site was a large brown sandstone stel
and a half meters tall, which had been almost entirely buried prior to Dorjsü
vations. Although damaged, particularly at the top (which had been the only
stele protruding above ground), its original shape was readily re-established.
base is a large carved turtle from which rises a flat, rectangular slab containin
in two different languages, Sogdian and (apparently) Sanskrit, the latter writt
script. These inscriptions cover the sides of the stele. At the curved top of the
remains of the top - is the carved bas-relief image of a wolf, beneath which ar
limbs. 17 The monument had been badly damaged, its inscriptions severely e
images at the top partially missing. It was eventually removed from its orig
placed in the open-air courtyard of the Arkhangai provincial museum in Tsets
stands today. A large piece of the stele's top, which had broken away from the
housed within the museum.

13. See A. M. Shcherbak, Oguz-name. Mukhabbat-nãme. Pamiatniki drevneuigurskoi i starouzbekskoi

pis'mennosti (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Vostochnoi Litertury, 1959), 101-7.
14. W. Bang and G. R. Rachmati, "Die Legende von Oyuz Qayan," Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historichen Klasse 1932: 690-701.
15. Gerard Clauson, "Turks and Wolves," Studia Orientalia 28 (1964): 3-22.
16. See Cengiz Alyilmaz, "On the Bugut Inscription and Mausoleum Complex," in Êrãn ud Anêrãn: Studies
Presented to Boris IV ič Marsak on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday , ed. Marco Compareti, Paola Raffetta, and
Gianroberto Scarda (Venice: Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina, 2006), 51-60. The article contains numerous photo-
graphs of the site.
17. Drawings and precise measurements are given in Takao Moriyasu and Ayudai Ochir, eds., Mongorukoku
genson iseki, hibun chõsa кепкуй hõkoku (Osaka: The Society of Central Eurasian Studies, 1999), plates la and lb.

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520 Journal of the American Oriental Society 1 3 1 .4 (20 11)

The stele, now known as the Bugut monument, eventually gained attention in the wider
scholarly world through an article published in 1972 by two Russian scholars, the Turkologist
Sergei Kliashtornyi and the Sogdianist Vladimir Livshits. They provided a description and
photographs of the monument, a translation of the Sogdian inscription (which is significantly
longer and more legible than the Brãhml inscription), along with a discussion of the text, its
meaning, and its historical context. The inscription allowed them to date the monument to
approximately 581 c.e. and to identify it as an official - and most likely commemorative -
stele erected by the ruling elites of the Türks only a few decades after the founding of the
Türk Empire. 18 While their focus was the stele's Sogdian inscription, the two scholars also
commented briefly on the monument's iconography, particularly that of the damaged top.
The historical context allowed them to identify the wolf as a symbol of the Türks' foundation
myth, which had just a few years earlier been called into question by Clauson. Influenced
by this tale of a boy saved by a she-wolf who became his mate and the progenitrix of the
Türk people, they interpreted the limbs carved on the monument as part of "an oddly but
clearly depicted human figure" under the wolf's torso. 19 This interpretation of the monu-
ment's images was widely accepted, although it is not without its problems.
The Bugut monument remains the earliest known native source for the history of the
First Türk Empire. As the earliest known cultural and political expression of the Türks, it
offers scholars a rare window through which to observe this poorly understood civilization.
As would be expected, and as I have already suggested, the stele's inscriptions have thus
far been the element most intriguing to scholars. These are in languages that, while not
the Türks' own, apparently were important for the Türks. The Sogdians are well known to
have been active as merchants and missionaries throughout much of Asia during the Mid-
dle Ages.20 Chinese sources attest to the importance of the Sogdians in the Türk Empire,
where they served as court advisors and ambassadors. The fact that the Bugut stele's primary
inscription is in Sogdian reveals their influence, as does the discovery of an additional (albeit
much shorter) Sogdian-language inscription produced during the era of the First Türk Empire
and found in modern Xinjiang.21 At present, these are the only two known written sources
produced by the First Türk Empire. The shorter Brâhmï inscription on the Bugut monu-
ment, apparently too badly damaged to allow any kind of meaningful translation, reveals a
less well-known, but still significant, Indian cultural influence in early medieval Inner Asia.
Finally, it is significant to note what is not present: a Chinese inscription. While the Türks
employed Chinese elements in some of the stele's components, such as the turtle base and
the general shape of the monument, they elected not to employ the Chinese language.
The fact that neither of the stele's two inscriptions is in a Turkic language was disappoint-
ing to Turkologists, who were already familiar with several major stone inscriptions of the
eighth century left by the elites of the Second Türk Empire and written in the Old Turkic

18. S. G. Kljaštornyj and V. A. Livšic, "The Sogdian Inscription of Bugut Revised," Acta Orientalia Academiae
Scientiarum Hungaricae 26 (1972): 69-102.
19. Ibid., 71.
20. See Etienne de la Vaissière, Histoire des marchands sogdiens (Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes
Études Chinoises, 2002). This work contains an extensive bibliography on the subject.
21. The Sogdian inscription of Mongolküre, also known as the stone figure of Little Khonakhai, was discovered
in 1953 in northwest Xinjiang in the valley of the Tekes River, a tributary of the Ili River. This brief inscription,
found on the bottom half of a stone statue of a man, has been dated to ca. 600 c.e., or not much later than the Bugut
inscription. See Lin Meicun, "A Survey of the Turkic Cemetery in Little Khonakhai," in Les Sogdiens en Chine,
ed. Étienne de la Vaissière and Eric Trombert (Paris: Ecole Française d'Extrême-Orient, 2005), 377-96; and Takashi
Õsawa, "Aspect[s] of the Relationship between the Ancient Turks and Sogdians - Based on a Stone Statue with
Sogdian Inscription in Xinjiang," in Ërân ud Anêrãn , 471-504.

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 Drompp: The Lone Wolf in Inner Asia 521

language and runiform script. The use of Sogdian at Bugut in the sixth centur
the Turkic runiform script of the eighth century, is less surprising when we u
the latter had not yet been developed. 22
There can be no doubt that the inscriptions on the Bugut stele offer the m
ate window through which to consider early Türk history and culture. But in
"read" the monument, it is important to consider not only the written texts, but
elements of the stele, particularly its shape, composition, and iconography. T
elements that would have been most meaningful to the vast majority of sixth-
and other visitors to the site, most of whom would not have been able to read t
themselves.

As we consider these other aspects of the monument, several interesting things should
be noted. Perhaps most striking at first is the turtle base, which is relatively undamaged.
Sinologists would recognize this immediately as the ubiquitous symbol of durability used
as a base for many Chinese steles. What makes the turtle awkward here is the fact that there
are no turtles in Mongolia, and probably were none in the sixth century when the stele was
erected.23 Also borrowed from the morphology of Chinese steles is the shape of the slab
that rises from the turtle's back and contains the two inscriptions - the precise purpose of a
traditional Chinese stele.

As I have indicated, the forms at the top of the Bugut stele are damaged. Only part of the
image has survived, depicting a wolf's shoulder and head, along with two limbs underneath.
The wolf's head points downward to the left; this position has the wolf "draped" over the
stele, much as the Chinese typically did with dragon images at the tops of their own steles.
This suggests that the monument originally contained two addorsed wolves, one facing in
each direction. While only the left-facing wolf remains on the stele today, this interpretation
is strengthened by the additional piece of the stele housed in the museum. This is a remnant
of the top right section that contains depictions of limbs and (apparently) a wolf's lower jaw
that would go on the stele's top right to mirror the image on its left.24 It thus seems almost
certain that, as with dragons on Chinese steles, two wolves were mirrored back-to-back on
each of the monument's two major faces, presenting to the viewer an image of two addorsed
wolves facing away from each other, their heads pointed downward to the left and the right.
The position of the wolves reflects Chinese compositional practice, but the image of the
wolves, however damaged, points to the presence and importance of the Türks in the stele's
cultural inventory. This is reinforced, as would be expected, by the contents of the Sogdian
inscription.
Some of the most important steles from the Second Türk Empire, including the epitaphs
of Kül Tegin and Bilgä Qaghan, include turtle bases, and both also are topped by addorsed
Chinese-style dragons "draped" over the monuments in the same position as the wolves of
Bugut: heads down, eyes open, jaws agape.25 Stylistically, the Bugut wolves have no obvi-
ous antecedents in Inner Asian art; while they have been made to conform to Chinese dragon

22. See András Róna-Tas, An Introduction to Turkology (Szeged: Attila Józef Univ., 1991), 56-57. According
to the author, the runiform script is not attested until the 720s.
23. See N. V. Anan'eva et al., Zemnovodnie i presmykaiushchiesia mongolii: Presmykaiushchiesia (Moscow:
KMK Ltd., 1997).
24. See Moriyasu and Ochir, Mongorukoku genson iseki, hibun chösa кепкуй hõkoku, pl. le as well as Alyilmaz,
"On the Bugut Inscription and Mausoleum Complex," 52.
25. These are indeed dragons and not wolves, despite the remarks of Alyilmaz, "On the Bugut Inscription and
Mausoleum Complex," 52.

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522 Journal of the American Oriental Society 131.4 (201 1)

prototypes, they are clearly wolves and not sufficiently similar to Chinese dragons to have
been derived from them save for their positioning on the stele.
And what are we to make of the limbs that seem to emerge from under each wolf? Close
inspection reveals that the human interpretation of these as an arm and a leg is highly prob-
lematic for a number of reasons, of which I will note only a few here. First, each of the limbs
has only three rounded digits, making them end in features that appear more like paws than
human hands or feet. Second, if the limbs are human, then each of the wolves has no limbs in
the places where they should be; in fact, on the better preserved left image, the "arm" seems
to issue directly from her shoulder. Finally, and most significantly, we know that according
to the Türk origin myth the human boy's feet (and, in some versions, his hands as well) were
cut off by enemy soldiers prior to his encounter with the she-wolf. If these are the human
limbs of the Türk boy, there should be no feet (and possibly no hands) in the stele's images.
A visual reconstruction of the monument, along with a clear understanding of the Türk myth
and Chinese artistic practices, makes it likely that these sets of limbs are in fact the forelegs
of the addorsed wolves, and do not represent a human presence. They are placed precisely,
albeit somewhat crudely, where the front limbs of analogous dragons are found on contem-
poraneous Chinese steles 26 - steles that must have served as models for the artist or artists
who created the Bugut monument.
This interpretation of the monument's iconography does not do violence to the thesis that
the figure at the stele's top is an allusion to the Türk foundation myth. The Türk imperial
symbol of the wolf took the place of the Chinese dragon, which had itself long been a sym-
bol of the Chinese emperor and imperial authority. The absence of the human ancestor of
the Türks ultimately is not problematic in terms of the stele's purpose. The addorsed wolves
on the Bugut monument were forced into "Chinese" positions, but their visual and cultural
impact would have served as a strong reminder of the lupine (and hence supernatural) regen-
eration of the Türks after their near annihilation. For those viewers who could not read the
stele's inscriptions, the presence of the she- wolf was crucial, reminding Türks of their cul-
tural identity and of the numinous origin of their qaghans. At the same time, those familiar
with Chinese steles would have perceived immediately that the images of the Türks' she-
wolf were fashioned and placed in clear imitation of the Chinese imperial dragon - another
numinous creature. The image of the she-wolf thus serves as a "shorthand" version of the
Türk imperial myth.
Sadly, the Bugut Sogdian inscription - at least those parts of it that are legible - says
nothing whatsoever about the she-wolf or the myth surrounding her. 27 Rather, it is concerned

26. See Dorothy C. Wong, Chinese Steles: Pre-Buddhist and Buddhist Use of a Symbolic Form (Honolulu:
Univ. of Hawai'i Press, 2004).
27. David Gordon White is in error when he claims that the "ancestry myth" of the Türks is inscribed on the
stele; see his Myths of the Dog-Man (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1991), 136. The myth is represented in
allusive pictorial form only. White is also mistaken when he asserts that the monument "is crowned by an image of
a she-wolf suckling an infant" - inaccurate information derived from Jean-Paul Roux, La religion des Turcs et des
Mongols (Paris: Payot, 1984), 189. The myth states clearly that the wolf fed the child meat (rather than suckling
him); adult wolves do in fact feed regurgitated meat to their whelps. If the boy is present on the monument - which
I believe is doubtful - he is not an infant, nor is he being suckled. This error of asserting that the Bugut she-wolf
is depicted in the act of suckling a human boy (most likely made under the influence of the Roman myth) is found
in several other sources, including Louis Bazin, "Turcs et Sogdiens: Les enseignements de l'inscription de Bugut
(Mongolie)," in Melanges linguistiques offerts à Émile Benveniste , ed. Françoise Bader et al. (Louvain: Éditions
Peeters, 1975), 37; Jean-Paul Roux, "Les inscriptions de Bugut et de Tariat sur la religion des Turcs," in Studia
Turcologica Memoriae Alexii Bombaci Dicata, ed. Aldo Gallotta and Ugo Marazzi (Naples: Istituto Universitario
Orientale, 1982), 454; and Alyilmaz, "On the Bugut Inscription and Mausoleum Complex," 52.

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 Drompp: The Lone Wolf in Inner Asia 523

primarily with recent political events in the Türk state. What this text has to t
to interpret, given the sorry state of the monument when it was excavated. Ind
lation provided by Kliashtornyi and Livshits made the wolf seem a bit out of
according to them, the Sogdian inscription mentions the establishment of a
munity within the Türk realm. More recent work, however, has thrown doubt o
presence at Bugut. A Japanese team re-examined the monument in 1997; the n
provided by Yutaka Yoshida differs significantly from that presented by the R
and lacks any reference to Buddhism. 28
The importance of the Bugut monument can hardly be overestimated. Not
most important and oldest native source for the First Türk Empire, but it also
for the erection of large inscribed stone monuments by the Türk and Uyghu
dominated the Mongolian Plateau from the middle of the sixth century to the
ninth. The Bugut monument began the process as a state-sponsored "pronoun
a permanent message for all who saw it. Those who could read the inscription
that in Sogdian - could be edified regarding the leaders of the Türk realm and
plishments. Those unable to do so could still understand the significance of t
symbol of Türk imperial power and its rulers' numinous connections. The stele
on many levels.
What the monument cannot tell us is how and why this tale of a child (or tw
abandoned in the wilderness to die, saved by the agency of a she-wolf (who m
aided by a bird or birds) so that he could restore his people and hence ultimate
to a new state, came to be spread across Eurasia in a vast territory stretching f
terranean to the Mongolian Plateau. The "how" may ultimately be impossible
but the fact that a myth or tale could be dispersed over an enormous territory
benefit of modern technologies, cannot be disputed. Perhaps the best-known e
story of Cinderella, who has danced her way from the royal ball, despite bei
only one shoe, to find her place in cultures throughout Eurasia. This tale's ea
iteration is in the ninth-century Chinese text Youyang zazu МЩдШШ, where it
to a non-Han people living in the Tang Empire's far south.29 It has been, and
throughout much of Eurasia and later spread to the Americas as well. One co
other examples.
The tenacity of such tales can be remarkable, and this is true for the Türk m
In modern times scholars studying the Nart tales of the Caucasus discovered
the birth of the hero Örüzmek - a figure who crosses multiple ethno-linguis
is found only among the Turkic-speaking Karachay people, and not among thei
neighbors who have different stories of the hero's birth. In the Karachay tale
many familiar motifs: a she-wolf who feeds the infant hero-to-be, a cave, and
smithing - not to mention the divine intervention that is also found in these
bines the various elements into something greater than the sum of their motif
The image of the wolf among the Türks seems particularly significant, esp
wolf is the symbol used most regularly as a plastic referent to the entire Türk
regeneration myth - a "condensed version" of the tale to remind the viewer

28. Moriyasu and Ochir, eds., Mongorukoku genson iseki, hibun chosa кепкуи hõkoku, 123-2
29. See Arthur Waley, "The Chinese Cinderella Story," Folklore 28 (1947): 226-38; and R. D
derella in China," in Cinderella: A Casebook , ed. Alan Dundes (New York: Wildman Press, 198
30. See Peter B. Golden, "A Qaračay Nart Tale of Lupine Origins: An Echo of the Asina Tradi
Pritsak Armagani/A Tribute to Omeljan Pritsak, ed. Mehmet Alpargu and Yücel Öztürk (Saka
Basimevi, 2007), 149-65.

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524 Journal of the American Oriental Society 131.4 (201 1)

complete story and its implications. The Bugut inscription is our most important piece of
evidence for this beyond the Chinese sources, which not only contain the Türk myth but also
provide other evidence for the importance of the lupine motif. Chinese sources indicate, for
example, that the Türks' flagpoles had metal finials in the shape of wolves' heads, and that
the ruler's guards referred to themselves as "wolves" (Chinese fuli Rï$8, rendering Old Tur-
kic böri ).31 The Chinese work Tongdian ЯЛ, completed at the beginning of the ninth cen-
tury C.E., indicates several epithets for subordinate rulers under the Türks' supreme qaghan,
one of whom was called böri qayan , meaning 'wolf qaghan'. The source states that this title
was given to those who were particularly bloodthirsty. 32
What, then, does the presence of the wolf signify in the Türk myth? Even if we cannot
ascertain exactly how the story of the nurturing she- wolf spread throughout much of Eurasia,
can we determine why? I have noted earlier that the image of the wolf is a powerful one in
many cultures, possessing an ambiguous - and hence versatile - combination of attributes.
Wolf imagery is found over a vast geographical expanse and within a large number of con-
texts, including the seemingly contradictory roles of life-giving nurturer and death-dealing
hunter. In most modern sedentary societies, the negative image of the wolf has tended to
predominate, but in many early societies, particularly those in which hunting played an
important role, the wolf could also serve as a symbol of bravery, skill, and cooperation, and
so became an important representation of the hunter/warrior. The shared activity of coopera-
tive hunting has created a close association between people and wolves. The wolf possesses
qualities of the successful hunter - and, by extension, the successful warrior. Mircea Eliade
asserted that "the archaism of the religious complex of the wolf is beyond doubt." From his
point of view, this religious complex "lies in the religious universe of the primitive hunter
. . . dominated by the mystical solidarity between the hunter and the game." Again: "A man
is a predator-warrior by right of birth when he is descended from a Wolf- Ancestor ... or he
becomes such through initiation, through ritual transformation into a carnivore. . . . The uni-
versal element of all these beliefs lies in the magico-religious experience of solidarity with
the wolf, whatever the means used to bring it about may be."33 In Europe, wolves have been
associated with many deities, including Mars (by the Romans) and Apollo (by both Greeks
and Romans). Romulus and Remus, sons of Mars nurtured by the she-wolf, were warriors.
Odin, the "War-Father" of some Germanic peoples, was accompanied by two wolves. It is
worth noting that he was also accompanied by two ravens, recalling the association with
wolves and ravens in the Wusun story, and wolves and birds in a broader sense (as in some
versions of the Roman story). Germanic warriors were thought to be "transformed" into
bears or wolves while preparing for battle. Northern European mythology also placed chaos
in the body of a wolf - Fenrir, a creature so strong that the gods had to bind him with guile
and who was destined to break his bonds at Ragnarök, the twilight of the gods, to wreak his
revenge and bring about the death of Odin himself.
Some scholars have seen the wolf as a symbol of transition, a connection between the
material world of the living and the spirit world of the dead. In the Northern Eurasian cul-
tures that practice religious traditions often referred to under the term "shamanism," wolves
and other animals are often links to the spirit world. In many such societies the shaman, after
undergoing initiation, is thought to be able, while in an altered state of consciousness, to

31. Linghu Defen et al., Zhou shu (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1983), 50: 909.
32. Du You, Tongdian (Shanghai: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1935), 197: 1068.
33. Mircea Eliade, Zalmoxis, the Vanishing God: Comparative Studies in the Religions and Folklore of Dacia
and Eastern Europe, tr. Willard R. Trask (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1972), 14-18.

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 Drompp: The Lone Wolf in Inner Asia 525

travel to the spirit realm by riding on a spirit animal or in the shape of a spir
function of various animals as mounts for shamanic journeys is well known
and extends beyond that region. Carlo Ginzburg, a historian of medieval Eur
"Between animals and souls, animals and the dead, animals and the beyond, th
profound connection." 34
It is clear that in all our wolf tales, supernatural power is at work to save
children who have been left to die in the wild. The question then arises:
embodiment or emanation of that power, or simply its unthinking instrument?
the instrumentalist view may be appropriate, but in the Türk myth the wolf h
possess extraordinary powers, including the unexpected ability to mate with a
The grown boy's sexual congress with the wolf and her subsequent impregnati
minating intersection of the human and the numinous. Although not found in
est analogues, where the animals are nurturers but not ancestors, we have noted
have suggested that myths and folktales involving animals nurses may be sanit
of earlier tales in which animals are indeed the true, original ancestors of a gi
point of the animal is not simply to provide a means for the child to survive; it
great spiritual power that protects the child even when his "natural" parents h
him. Or, in the Türk case, the wolf is herself the "natural" ancestress. Leo Ste
ies of shamanic societies in Northern Asia suggest that mating with a spirit
of the process of divine election as a shaman, and thus crucial to the shaman's
or her special abilities. This "spiritual marriage" is thus part of the shaman's
he or she is transformed into a being capable of communication with supernat
I should note that other motifs of the Türk tale, such as smithing, can also be
shamanic traditions, but there is no time to consider them here. The greater point
we would not suppose that Türk rulers were practicing shamans, they could
and rituals associated with the religious complex of "shamanism" to show the
to - and support from - spiritual powers.
Numinous lone wolves thus are associated with human beings in a variety o
ers of life and nurturers, companions of gods, symbols of warriors, bringer
destruction, and links to the spirit world of the dead. Why did the Türks choos
ate, with useful changes, a foreign story to explain their foundation - indeed
tion - when they achieved a position of political power in Inner Asia?
When people use animals "to think with," they tend to focus on an animal'
abilities. Animals often represent powers that are not possessed by people: a
a fish's ability to live under water, a sheep's production of wool. If certain a
are present in people, the animal's power is often greater: the deer is fleeter
sight is keener, the ox is stronger. A natural outgrowth of this is human envy
and fear. The intelligence of human beings of course has often put them in a
tion. But even when they are "below" us in a hierarchy of nature that we perh
accept, wild animals in particular are difficult to control. As such they repres
chaos. Hence, if wild nature deigns to nurse - and thus protect and serve - h
this provides irrefutable proof of human centrality in the world. Spiritual p
animal form in many cultures, particularly in those whose religious system

34. Carlo Ginzburg, Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches ' Sabbath, tr. Raymond Rosenthal (Ne
Books, 1992), 263.
35. Leo Sternberg, "Divine Election in Primitive Religion," in XXIe Congrès International de
(Göteborg: Museum, 1925), 472-512.

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526 Journal of the American Oriental Society 131.4 (201 1)

"shamanistic." Animals thus represent numinous power that can - and will - aid humans.
They embody spiritual forces which choose to help "fated" humans achieve authority within
a given society. Thus the she- wolf' s saving of the Türk boy is, I believe, intimately con-
nected to the issue of political legitimacy.
Legitimacy is, of course, necessary for the survival of any political power. In the study
of Inner Asian polities, scholars have often wondered how such far-flung empires, made up
of many distinct peoples with significant linguistic and cultural differences, could survive
as long as they did. The factors that held these states together had to include economic and
political forces, which must have been crucial. A subordinate people within the Türk Empire,
for example, had to gain something by belonging to the larger polity and/or lose something
by not belonging. Türk rulers placed great emphasis on acquiring wealth for subordinate
peoples, and made it clear that they would wage war on those who did not submit. These
were powerful incentives to belong.
Despite those incentives, political cohesion was frequently a problem for Inner Asian
states. It is well known, for example, that the Mongol Empire had begun to disintegrate
before it reached its apogee in terms of territorial size. Less well appreciated, but particularly
important for our purposes, is the fact that the eighth-century Old Turkic inscriptions are
dominated less by a litany of conquest than by one of conquest and re-conquest. The Türk
Empire, like that of the Mongols, faced division due to rivalries within the ruling elite, but
it also faced the constant centrifugal forces of subordinate peoples striving to pull away and
recover their independence, perhaps in hopes of themselves becoming the dominant power.
Given the particular circumstances of Inner Asian empires, it makes sense that Türk rulers
would seek ways in which to bolster their legitimacy through religiously potent symbol-
ism. These symbols would have to resonate not only with the Türks themselves, but with
other peoples within their empire as well. The story of the she-wolf presented powerful
symbols connected to Inner Asian religious beliefs and practices that would signal across
ethno-linguistic boundaries that the Türk qaghans were favored by Heaven, which had
exerted its power to save the Türks from destruction and place them in a position of divinely
sanctioned political authority. The symbolism of the wolf thus "works" within the Inner
Asian context - and beyond. That symbolism was reinforced by the Bugut stele, in which an
important symbol of foreign power, the Chinese dragon, was supplanted by the Türks' own
symbol of numinous power and political authority. The Bugut monument, as well as the Türk
foundation myth, provided legitimacy for Türk rulers in the symbolic terms they employed.
Whether these were borrowed or autochthonous did not ultimately matter. They were made
Turkic. The Türk qaghan who erected the stele manipulated symbols of numinous power to
assert his legitimacy. At the top of the stele, between Heaven and Earth, the she- wolf medi-
ated between the human and spiritual realms, granting her numinous imprimatur to those
who would claim and honor her as their mother - as the medieval Türks did willingly.

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