Nomadic community of Kazakhs: problems of ethnosociological reconstruction
The so-called seven-generation exogamic structure was an ethnically indicative organisational form of community relations among nomadic Kazakhs. This structure united a group of relatives within seven generations paternally and synthesised practically all main types and levels of social relations. Its known demographic limitations in time and space, localised territory as well as separation from similar structures by the exogamic barrier of family and matrimonial relations received ideological grounding in principles and norms of the genealogical tradition, i. e. shezhire, and are determined by social, economic, natural, ecological and institutional factors. Thus, seven generations form of community relations of Kazakhs represents the principal way of self-organisation of a nomadic ethnos.