For information on Du You and the Tongdian, see source 2.13.

Du You’s description of the Kyrgyz, most likely based on earlier (now lost) sources, does not mention their claim to descent from Li Ling, perhaps because he did not consider it credible. He claims that they considered black hair inauspicious rather than as evidence of Chinese ancestry. Du’s description of the customs of the Kyrgyz is also quite unflattering and paints them as immoral and uncivilized by Chinese standards.

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The Jiegu (Kyrgyz) live three thousand li to the northwest of the Uyghurs and have eighty thousand troops. To the south of their country lie the Tanman Mountains¹, which have many forests and are boggy in summer and snow-covered in winter, making them treacherous to travelers. A river flows northwards from the Uyghur lands, across the mountains and through this country.² The people live in the foothills of these mountains. All are tall, red-skinned, vermilion-haired, and blue-green-eyed. Some of them are black-haired, and they consider this inauspicious. The people are all strong and brave warriors, feared by neighboring countries. The strongest men all tattoo their hands to look more unusual. Upon getting married, women also get tattooed from the ears down to the neck. The people clothe themselves in the skins of martens and na³ and eat with their hands. Their customs are generally similar to those of the Türks. They do not exchange wedding gifts. They are sexually promiscuous by nature and have no taboo against sexual relations with foreigners. Their men and women live mingled together.

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1. These are identified as the Tannu-Ola and Sayan ranges. ↩︎
2. This is the Yenisei River. ↩︎
3. The na was a mythical beast with no front legs. Some modern scholars have interpreted it as a mythologized version of a seal species; possibly, the skin referenced here is that of the Baikal Seal. ↩︎