KIRGHIZ, klr-gez', KIRGHIS, or KIR GHIZ-KAZAKS, a widely-spread nomadic people of Asia, of Turkish-Tartar race, who inhabit the steppes that extend from the lower Volga and the .Caspian Sea in the west to the Altai and Thian-Shan Mountains in the east, and from the Sea of Aral in the south to the Tobol on the north. They are divided into hordes, the Great Horde inhabiting both Russian and Chinese territory; the Middle Horde, Siberia, and the Little Horde the Volga-Ural steppes in European Russia. The term Kirghiz, though applied by Europeans to the whole of these peoples, properly belongs only to the Kara-Kirghiz (Black Kirghiz, called also Buriits or Pruts). Those to whom Europeans give the name Kirghiz are called by the Asiatics Kazaks. The Kirghiz-Kazaks speak the Turkish dialect of the Uzbeks. In their physical type they belong to the Mongo lian race. They profess the Mohammedan faith, though they do not practise polygamy. They are below the general average of Euro pean stature, and are remarkably healthy and vigorous. Their food is chiefly mutton and horse-flesh, with koumiss or fermented mare's milk, from which they extract an intoxicating spirit. Their dwellings consist of a hemispher
ical tent, the frame of which is of boughs, the covering of felt. Their manufactures are ex clusively domestic, and consist of woolen cloths, felts, carpets, hair-ropes, leather, metal orna ments for horse-trappings, knives, etc. They carry on a trade by barter with the Chinese and Russians, exchanging sheep, horses, camels, cattle, wool, skins, etc., for tea, cutlery, silks and other manufactured goods. A considerable portion of the Kirghiz dwell in Chinese terri tory, for the most part in Turkestan, but the greater number of them are nominally under Russian dominion. Of these European Russia contains some 150,000. Consult Levshin, Alexis, (Description des hordes et des steppes des Kirghiz-Kazaks' (trans. from the Russian by Ferry de Cigny, 1840) ; Vambery, 'Die primi tive Kultur des turko-tartarischen Volkes' (Leipzig 1879) ; Karutz, R , 'Unten Kirgisen and Turkmenen aus dem Leben der Steppe' (Leipzig 1911) ; Parker, E. H., 'A Thousand Years of the Tartars' (1895).