Kashgari on the Beliefs and Superstitions of the Turks

80
Journal of the American Oriental Society 95.1 (1975)
and people in the West say they are in the East;
everyone places them farthest from themselves.
In an anecdote reported by Nizami-i 'Ariidi67 a
caravan "travelling towards Tamghaj" comes
across a wild man which the guides "who were
Turks" explain to be a Nasnas. Marvazi68 writes:
"It is said that in the deserts stretching between
Badakhshan and Kashgar there is a considerable
number of this animal." In commenting on this
67 E. G. Browne, [NidhAmi-i-'Aridi] Chahdr Maqdla
(Hertford, 1899), p. 18-19.
68 V. Minorsky, Sharaf al-Zamdn Tdhir Marvazi on
China, the Turks and India (London, 1942), p. 60.
passage, Minorsky69 cites Mutahhar IV,92 who says
that a kind of Nasnas is found in the region of
Bamir, which is a desert stretching between Kashmir,
Tibet, Vakhan and China; "Kashghari," says
Minorsky, "born in the vicinity of Pamir, had to
remove the nasnds to a farther terra incognita . .."
The only other Turkic dictionary I can find that
mentions Nasnas is one of the Qipcaq glossaries,70
where, however, there is a blank space next to
the Arabic word.
69 Ibid., p. 105.
70 Ettuhfet-iiz-zekiye ..., 36 a 13.
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