The New Student's Reference Work/Tartars

Tar'tars, in the widest sense include all the tribes living in the tablelands of central and northern Asia who are not of Aryan blood, that is, the Tartars proper, the Kirghiz, the Kalmucks, the Manchu Tartars, the Mongols proper and the Tungusians. In a narrower sense they comprise the Mongolian or Turanian people of Turkestan (q. v.). These tribes are the wandering Kirghiz, the Uzbegs, who are the ruling class, the Kiptchaks, the Buddhist Kalmucks of eastern Turkestan and many other tribes. In central Asia the words Turk and Tartar are used interchangeably to mean Mongolian. Tartar tribes, as distinct from Turks, formed the bulk of the great Mongolian migrations from the 4th to the 10th century, which planted the Tartar in southern Russia. Tartars and Turks (q. v.) made up the hordes which followed Genhis Khan (q. v.) and Timur (q.  v.).