# Ingush societies

Ingush societies or shahars (Ingush: ГIалгIай шахьараш, romanized: Ghalghaj šæx́æræš) were ethnoterritorial associations of the Ingush based on the geographical association of several villages and intended for conditional administrative-territorial delimitation of the Ingush ethnic group. The formation and functioning of most of them dates back to the late Middle Ages (16th – 19th centuries). During this period, their boundaries, number and names changed.
The names of societies mainly came from the names of the area of their localization, that is, they were based on the geographical principle. Despite the fact that during this period the Ingush lived in relatively closed conditions of mountain gorges, which contributed to more demarcation in terms of territoriality than rallying around a single center, they retained the self-consciousness of a single ethnic group based on a common culture and a single language.
Ingush societies in the literature are sometimes called shahars (Ingush: шахьар, romanized: šæx́ær, lit. 'society, district') The term "shahar" meant in the ancient states of Western Asia the destinies into which they were administratively and territorially divided. Societies (shahars) of medieval Ingushetia were also territorial units.

## Etymology

The Ingush name for societies is shahar (шахьар) which is derived from Persian word shahr (شهر).

## History

The collapse of the Alanian state in the 13th century and the outflow of its population to the mountains, entrenched to the east and west of the Darial by building fortresses, served as the basis for the formation of new ethno-territorial communities. Villages located in the mountainous zone were grouped mainly along local gorges, which contributed to their ethnopolitical consolidation into separate territorial societies/regions (Ingush: ГIалгIай Шахьараш). By the end of the 16th century, apparently, the main territorial societies of the Ingush had already formed. Based on the data of Russian sources of the 16th-17th centuries, naming several territorial communities of the Ingush, it is concluded that in Ingushetia and in the XV century. there were approximately the same number of territorial societies, each of which united several villages.
Over time, the number and boundaries of societies changed, this happened as a result of migration processes of the Ingush population, including those associated with the return of the Ingush to the plane (plain). They began quite early, soon after Timur left the North Caucasus. At a very early stage, they were in the nature of individual military-political actions undertaken by the Ingush on the flat lands in order to counteract the consolidation of alien nomadic peoples on them.
The change in the names and number of societies also occurred due to the transfer of rural governments from one village to another. So, for example, the Kist (Fyappin) society began to be called the Metskhal society, and the Ghalghaï society was divided into two - Tsorin and Khamkhin.

## List of societies

* Sholkhi society
* Angusht society
* Dzherakh society
* Fyappiy society
* Khamkhin society
* Tsorin society
* Galashian society
* Nazranian society
* Orstkhoy society
* Akkin society
* Malkhin society