Bli CBICEU INB BEIREI

Most of Caucasian Albania is now part of Azerbaijan between Armenia, Dagestan, Georgia, and Iran. This region is where Strabo and other historians placed Amazons, where Queen Thalestris followed the Cyrus River and turned south along the Caspian coast to catch up with Alexander (Chapter 20), and where Pompey captured Amazons in 65 BC. Azerbaijani historian Fahrid Alakbarli identifies the ethnic groups mentioned in Greek and Latin works, such as Amazons, Albanians, Gelas, Legas, and Gargarians, with places and peoples of Azerbaijan. Ancient Azerbaijan was part of the Scythian conquests in the eighth-seventh centuries BC, and Saka tribes also settled this region at that time. The first century AD saw the arrival of Turkic Oghuz and Kipchak (Qipchaq) steppe nomads from Central Asia. The ancient Saka presence in western Azerbaijan is reflected in place-names such as Sakasena (“Saka land”) and Shaki (“Saka”) in the mountains where it was said that Amazons joined other local tribes battling Pompey. Alakbarli suggests that the “Amazons” who came to aid the Albanians against Pompey were probably Saka bands whose “women served as warriors and chiefs” like the men. There may have been separate male and female detachments of Saka-Scythian-Sarmatian mounted archers, reasons Alakbarli, leading ancient Greeks and Romans to call the men “Scythians” and the women “Amazons.”10

Traditions arose in Azerbaijan about brave Oghuz and Kipchak horsewomen of Central Asian nomad tribes that migrated west from Kazakhstan. Oral Oghuz Turkic legends took written form in the medieval Azerbaijani epic Kitabi-Dada Gorqud (Book of Dede Korkut; Turkmen, Gorkut-ata). In northwestern Azerbaijan there are still ashugs, bards, who sing these ballads. One legend describes how the wife of Dirse Khan, an Oghuz chief, led a band of forty mounted maiden warriors (for similar tales in Central Asia, see chapter 24). Another story tells of the Oghuz prince Beyrek who declares he wants to marry “a girl who is faster than I am, who can mount a horse before I can, and who can bring me my enemy’s head before I can reach him.” In other words, “the kind of girl I want” is “not a wife but a companion” a daredevil heroine.11

That girl would be Banu Chichak (“Lady Flower”) a Kipchak “princess” renowned as a skilled “rider, hunter, archer, and wrestler.” But when Beyrek meets her on the steppe by chance, she pretends to be Chichak’s attendant. She challenges the young man to three contests. “If you can ride faster than my horse and shoot an arrow farther than I can, then you can beat Banu Chichak; if you can defeat me in wrestling, then you’ll be able to win her.” They compete and with great effort the exhausted Beyrek manages to best the girl. Delighted to find a worthy mate, Chickak reveals her true identity and they agree to marry.