Shezhire: How Kazakhs map ancestry and identity through juzes, clans and tamga
In Kazakhstan, genealogy is more than a record of births and marriages—it is a map of identity. The shezhire, the Kazakh family tree, weaves individual lineages into the broader fabric of three historical groupings known as juzes and the clans, or ru, that form them.
The tradition’s origin story reaches deep into legend. After the Great Flood, the Prophet Noah’s son Japheth is held in Kazakh lore to be the ancestor of their people. In that telling, Japheth had three sons—Chin, Turan and Chin-Mazhin—and Kazakhs trace themselves to Turan, associated with Turks, Massagets, Kassakhs, Sakhs and others.
The writer Gerold Belger, a Kazakh author of German descent, likened following this branching lineage to “hare traces on newly fallen snow”—plenty of trails, some clear, some faint, difficult to read without a special mindset and patience. One of the tradition’s enduring puzzles is the formation of the juzes—often translated as “hundred” in Kazakh, though the term’s etymology is debated.
Some see a juz as an aggregation of several clans; others emphasize its origins as a military formation. As nomadic warfare waned, the martial meaning receded, but all three juzes share a foundational claim to a common progenitor: Alash, viewed as the founder of the Kazakhs.
Knowledge of genealogy was regarded as a prized inheritance. It underscored memory’s centrality and, by forbidding marriage within the same clan, was seen as helping preserve a strong gene pool. The account maintains that history does not record hostility between the juzes.
Most Kazakhs belong to one of three historical groupings: the Elder Juz (Uly Juz), the Middle Juz (Orta Juz) and the Younger Juz (Kishi Juz). Each juz consists of several ru—the basic axis of nomadic organization—and each clan keeps its own shezhire and tamga, a symbol used to brand livestock, mark weapons and architecture, and inscribe tombs.
In earlier times, each ru and juz had its own flag. Some lineages stand outside the juz structure. The tore are described as direct descendants of Genghis Khan and traditionally associated with political leadership. Religious families known as kozha trace their roots to Arabian missionaries.
The tolengit, linked to Oirat captives, and a few other groups are also noted beyond the juzes. These genealogical records are gathered in the Tor Shezhire—the “Main Shezhire”—a kinship schema preserved in epics, legends, parables and poems. The word shezhire itself derives from an Arabic term for “tree,” adopted after Islam reached the steppe.
It is synonymous in use with “jety-ata,” or “seven forefathers”: each Kazakh is expected to know their kin affiliation, trace lineage customarily back seven generations, and remember the clan’s battle cry, the uran. Historically, this tripartite system was associated with three natural climatic zones.
The Elder Juz, comprising eleven major clans—Kanly, Sirgeli, Zhalair, Sary Uysin, Shanyshkyly, Ysty, Shapyrashty, Oshakty, Alban, Suan and Dulat—inhabited the south and east. The Middle Juz, with six major clans—Argyn, Nayman, Kerey, Kipchak, Konyrat and Uak—held the northern expanse and parts of central Kazakhstan.
As Kazakh society modernizes, the shezhire endures as a cultural compass—rooting individuals in ancestry, binding clans through shared tamga and memory, and linking the many branches of the nation to a common trunk.