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Risbek, 2010

Wandering Through Nomadic Epics

Whispers of Lost Israeli Tribes blow across a knot of mountainsspanning Afghanistan, Kashmir,, Altai, Tadjikstan, and Kyrgyzstan.Medieval Europe caught wind of the tales and fascinated themselveswith the likes of Prestor John and Red Jews - entities who maintainedtheir religious identity in an increasingly Islamic realm. Legendseventually gave way to exploration, observation and objectivity.Enlightened historians uncovered a string of Lost Tribe and Prestor Johnhoaxes developed to give Christian Europe hope during its own strugglewith Islam. Now modern academics researching Central Asian oral epicswrite off biblical similarities as mere archetypes. But two Kyrgyz epics,Manas and Semetey contain biblical styled names that appear morelike code than archetypes. The Kyrgyz hero Manas son of Jakyp() sounds suspiciously similar the founder of a biblical tribe,Manasseh, later known as Jacobs son Manasseh.

Jakyp and Jacobs biographies also mirror each other: Kyrgyz Jakyp,like biblical Jacob (Yaqb), is a cunning shepherd with two wives, alimp, and a grueling rags to riches story, whom we find behaving morelike a greedy entrepreneur than a saintly patriarch: cursing hismurderous son, fearing for his life, and snapping at his barren wife.Jakyb and Jacob mirror each other.

Manas epic, with its unique biblical parallels, also contains a wandering

angel similar to the man who wrestled biblical Jacob. Medieval authorAlisher Navoi, depicting this wanderer, may have discovered aparadoxical bridge spanning east and west through the most unlikely ofcharacters, the Islamic and Christian Messiah, who himself tells a

parable about a wandering son.

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Many Kyrgyz legends pay homage to this wandering saint, known asKyzyr. He has made his way into Persian and Turkish religion, poetryand legends. This same sage crossed into the Arabic world where theimmortal character is known as al-Khizr, the Green Prophet. Alice E.

Lasaster and other scholars believe Kyzyr (a.k.a Kydyr) could beassociated with the Green Man or Green Knight in northern Europeanlegends, while others compare him with the Hebrew Elijah or Europescontroversial Wandering Jew. Local Kyrgyz belief claims the Kydyr wasa Hebrew saint, like the prophets of old. One famous 12th century poet,

Nizami-ye Ganjavi, also grouped Kyzyr with the ancient prophets,stating Khizr... descended from Abraham and guided Moses.

The Semetey Epic, sequel to Manas, is a narrative of Manas sonSemetey. Set during the Medieval Islamization of Central Asia,Semeteys maternal uncle, a Tadjik, agrees to raise Semetey on conditionthat he never learns of his real father, Manas. When first confronted withhis true ancestry, twelve year old Semetey battles the stubbornmessenger, but eventually listens long enough to wake up and, like theson in Kydyr-Messiahs parable, returns home.

If an Israeli tribe, descended from Jacobs son Manasseh, was pressured

to deny their ethnic beliefs and conceal their semitic origin from futureoffspring, it is possible they may have encrypted their ancestry intonational epics. The name Semetey () itself appears to be acodename, close enough to Semittey (), or Semitish inmodern Kyrgyz - an appropriate name after centuries of wandering,mixing, scattering, and regrouping. Their clever riddle, whisperedthrough a series of oral epics, spans to modern times, giving breath todead fables, in a land where people still wait for the wandering Kydyr.