Alcoholic beverages in steppe culture

Alcoholic beverages are the most important reason in Turkish-Mongol society's executing their faith and applications. Despite the importance of alcohol in Turkish-Mongol cultures, there is not a detailed study about the place and importance of alcohol in steppe culture except than a few studies. That is why our thesis entitled "Alcoholic Beverages in Steppe Culture" is prepared to fill the void and state the importance of alcohol in steppe culture. Thanks to this both the information about the alcohol in steppe environment gathered and the beliefs of Turkish-Mongol cultures about alcohol is evaluated. In the study the epics and stories, being one of the most significant sources in Turkish-Mongol history, especially from Chinese, Arabic, Persian, Greek and Russian sources, the drinks that the Turkish-Mongol societies used are examined in the cultural perspective. By making use of the resources enlightening the subject, in order to put all aspects of Turkish-Mongol societies' first periods and following cultural continuity, steppe societies' social, religious, economic, cultural, administrative and military structures are investigated. Beyond any doubt, alcohol is not a simple topic which can be investigated just by historical documents. With this purpose, besides historical documents, archeology, geography, medicine, linguistic studies are also analyzed. The most challenging issue in our study is to combine these different subjects' findings with historical findings and simplifying the topic so as to make it understandable. In the introduction of this study after summarizing the history of alcoholic drinks, the effect of steppe life's in the formation of alcoholic drinks is mentioned. According to the information that are gathered from the different sources, our study consists of six sub sections. In the first part, there is information about the tools that are used for alcoholic drinks in view of steppe culture of Turkish-Mongol societies. In the second part, the topic that is important about our thesis which is the drinks that are drunk in steppe culture is mentioned. The most detailed part of our study the third part is about the role of alcohol in Tengri, and Shamanism beliefs and some traditions to put forward the importance of alcohol in steppe culture of Turkish-Mongol beliefs. While doing this the relevant documents are examined, and the position of alcohol is presented in ritual ceremonies, sacrifice, beliefs in spirits and autumn festivals. In the fourth part the role of drink in social life and its importance is introduced. In the fifth part, the usage of alcoholic drinks and the statue of drink in certain topics in the steppe culture which holds the reign of world belief are presented. The sixth part is about the usage of drink in art, proverbs, idioms, requiem and poems. The weight of the information of our research is focused on the third part, hence this part covers a bigger section than all the other parts. This is entirely about the distribution of the information by topics. Moreover, as there is information about the steppe culture it is included but when the information is not sufficient the data is gathered about the Siberia societies. For this reason, there is information mostly about Siberia region. In the conclusion part, all the information is generally evaluated. By investigating Turkish-Mongol cultural structures it is seen that the alcoholic drinks are used in all aspects of life. The main reason why it is so spread is their considering the alcohol as holly and loading supernatural powers to it.