Uyghur-Uzbek mythology

The mythology Uyghur or Uighur describes the myths and legends of the Turkic-speaking people with a Sunni Muslim majority living in the Uyghur autonomous region of Xinjiang (called Eastern Turkestan by the Russians and British at the end of the 19^e century and previously placed in "Chinese Tartary") in China and in Central Asia.

They are related to the Uzbeks. Their tongue Turkish is Uyghur. Originally from a region between the Selenga (in Mongolia) and Lake Baikal (present-day Buryatia, in Russia), they founded the Uyghur Khaganate, located in present-day Mongolia, of Turkish culture of Manichaean religion which is the cradle of their civilization. Allies of Chinese against the Empire of Tibet, their khaganate was destroyed in the IX^e century by the Kirghiz, forcing them to descend further south.

the manicheism took root and developed in the various Uyghur states until towards the end of the I^er millennium. Likewise, Nestorian Christianity, which reached Mongolia and China, was long present among the Uyghurs.

The Uzbeks, once known as Sartes, take their name from Özbeg (1282-1341), a khan Mongolian of the Golden Horde which reigned from 1312 to 1341. It was the related Chaybanid dynasty, conqueror of present-day Uzbekistan in 1507, who gave this name to their people.