CATTLE IN WORLD VIEW OF CENTRAL ASIAN NOMADS:ON THE PROBLEM OF IMAGE FORMATION
Cattle is main element of basic wealth of nomadic cattle breeder of Central Asia known as «taban khoshuu mal» (five types of cattle). It occupies the main place in the system of nomadic life support. Data of archaeological and genetic researches of cattle DNA indicate that cattle in Central Asia are derived from one of the ancestors of cattle Bostaurus. Central Asian cattle is one of its subspecies known as Bostaurus turano-mongolicus. The center of domestication of Bostaurus was the Middle East territory. In Central Asia, the bones of domestic cows and bulls are found in the Eneolithic. An ambiguous attitude towards cattle has developed in the environment of the Turkic-Mongolic peoples. It is expressed in correlating of the cow image with the lower/afterlife world, and including the cow in the category of animals with «cold breath». We believe that the negative image of the cow, as the causer of the appearance of winter, is a distortion of the archaic image of the constellation of Taurus which was in ancient Mesopotamia. At the same time, the parallel existence of the cult of celestial grey bull Buqa-noqon in Buryat tradition. Buqa-noyon is a mythical ancestor of one of the Buryat tribal union - Bulagat. This cult was also spread among her ethnic groups of the Buryats and Mongols, Turkic-speaking peoples of Siberia. The distribution of this cult and its ritual complex allows us to talk about its ancient Turkic origins. The ambivalence of the image of the cow / bull is due to the influence of two different traditions, one of which, the earliest, accompanied the migration of the population and the spread of cattle breeding to the steppe and forest-steppe areas of Inner Asia. Another, the late tradition back to the tradition of the early medieval Turkic-speaking ethnic groups in Central Asia, and is associated with the bull cult of Uighur-Oguz. In their environment, the mythical character in the image of the bull is included in the genealogy as an ancestor.