Episode Details

Manas — The Earliest Recordings — Part 8 of 31 (The Memorial Feast of Kokotoy — Part One)

Khan Kokotoy dies in his old age, and his son Bok Murun proclaims the great memorial feast in his honour: countless camels and yellow piebald mares for the foremost horse in the race, sheep without number for the feast itself. The summons rides out through all the sides of heaven — to Kokcho and to Joloi Kan, to Nes-Kara and to Kongyr Bai of Kashgar, to believer and unbeliever alike — and comes at last to Manas, who gives the messengers no answer. Bok Murun traces the long road his people must travel to the feast ground; and Manas calls his companions, rides out, pitches his gold-white tent by the Kebesti mountain, and — seeing the dust rise from the six-gated fortress — rides in between the peoples to part them, that the feast not be spoiled. From the earliest written Manas, recorded from Kyrgyz singers in 1862–1869 and published by Wilhelm Radlov in 1885 (Proben der Volkslitteratur, Part V), in a fresh English translation made for KacheliTV. This is the Manas of the first singers ever written down, not the later giant tellings.

Chapters:

00:00 The Death of Kokotoy

06:27 The Road to the Feast

10:31 Manas Rides Out

KacheliTV — world classics, read aloud.