Kimek Tribe - History

History

From 155 to 166 AD the Xianbei organized a state, and took over the lands of the Xiongnu empire. After that, the Dingling, the future Kipchaks, were pushed into the Sayan Mountains. The strongest tribes of the Xiongnu confederacy, known by the Chines as "Strong Huns", moved westward. With new Tocharian, Iranian, Ugrian and Caucasian allies they eventually reached Europe as the Huns, where they dominated the Alans and the Goths.

In the 2nd century AD the Chuban or "Weak Huns" settled in Tarbagatai, and later spread to Zhetysu. The Chuban remained in Zhetysu and established a princedom that existed until the 5th century AD. They were also known as the Central Asian Huns.

In the 5th century the Chuban were conquered by the Uyghurs, and separated into four tribes: Chuüe, Chumi, Chumugun, and Chuban. After 436 AD the Central Asian Huns sent an embassy to China to seek an alliance against the Rouran.

A part of the Chuüe tribe intermixed with the Göktürks and formed a tribe called Shato, which lived in southern Dzungaria, to the west of Lake Baikal. In the Western Turkic Khaganate the Chuy tribes occupied a privileged position of being voting members of the confederation, same as the Nushibi (Ch. 弩失畢, left wing) tribes. The Shato separated from the Chuüe in the middle of the 7th century, and presently are a well known ethnic group, listed in censuses taken in Tzarist Russia and in the 20th century.

After the disintegration in 743 AD of the Western Turkic Kaganate, a part of the Chuy tribes remained in its successor, the Uyghur Kaganate (740-840), and another part retained their independence. During the Uyghur period, the Chuy tribes consolidated into the nucleus of the tribes known as Kimaks in the Arab and Persian sources. The head of the Kimek confederation was titled Shad Tutuk, i.e. "Prince Governing, or Ruling”. By the middle of the eighth century, the Kimeks occupied territory between the Ural River and Emba River, and from the Aral sea and Caspian steppes, to the Zhetysu area.