Kyrgyz and Kazakhs in a forgotten horse sport: Valiant chase

In Kyrgyz, “Dzhigit Kumay” and in Kazakhs “Dzhigit Kuu” as a team and evasion of this game in the form of the chase, Turkey full provision in Turkish “Yiğit Kovalama / Valiant Chasing” is. This equestrian game, which is almost forgotten, until 1922-26, was played extensively among the Turkic peoples in all Turkestan geography. To overcome the shortage of resources, which is almost nonexistent in the game, to provide a resource to researchers and future generations on the subject, this game is about to be forgotten, again to add to the national sports ring of the Turks.In a globalizing world, almost every day one of the national cultural circles’ ruptures, this situation brings uncompensated losses, and the field of study on these issues is shrinking. In the research, we aim to bring this national game back to the culture of the Turkish people by revealing all aspects of the valiant chase game (Dzhigit Kumay). Descriptive identification and comparison method were used in the study. The research covers the Central Asian Turkic communities, including Kyrgyzstan and South Siberia.The intolerance of the Soviet ideology to the survival of all traditional cultural elements of the Turkish people, the valiant chase game also took its share, until the independence of Turkestan in 1991, it was seldom played. Even after this date, only the Kyrgyz and especially the Kazakhs have tried to revive the game, but they were not successful in this.

Keywords: Kyrgyz; equestrian sport; valiant chasing