The place and importance of the horse in ancient Turkish belief Shamanism

The Turks are the first nation in the world to ride a horse and tame it. In the national Turkish history, the horse was seen as murat. Every Turk has nurtured interest, trust and love towards the horse. He accepted him from himself and considered him holy. In Turkish culture and history, states were established and ruled on horses. Within this framework, a separate place has been given to the ancestor in the fields of army, social life, economics, religion, art, music, literature. The horse, an indispensable element of steppe life and the fighting tool of invincible armies, played a major role in spreading the Turks to wide geographies. Not only the agility and speed of the horse were taken advantage of, but also its bones, meat/milk. Turks have a rich history of religious preference. They have neither been firm supporters of any religion nor have they made any opposition to it. Although the national religion of the Turks is the Gok Tengri which has been in existence since the earliest times, the perception that it is Shamanism has been created due to lack of resources and different interpretations of researchers. As a matter of fact, although there are still discussions about whether Shamanism is a religion or not, in our opinion, it can be called a unique traditional belief of the Turks rather than a religion. In pre-Islamic Turkish culture, the dead were often buried with items that guided their lives. Horse burials, horse skeletons, harnesses recovered from Turkish kurgans are a sign of the importance given to the horse. In this study, after explaining the Shamanism belief in general in detail, the place and importance of the horse in the Shamanism belief were examined and the information we found was conveyed within the framework of interpretation.