The last two peoples are often grouped together as Circassians.

The Circassians originated in the northwestern quarter of the Caucasus, which is bounded on the north by the Kuban River. They practiced a mixed economy. Those in the higher valleys and mountain forests practiced small-scale agriculture and hunting, and often preserved old Christian or pagan customs. Those in the foothills and plains practiced horse breeding, farming, and trade.

They usually espoused Sunni Islam, though in their towns.  Christian and Jewish Circassians could be found.  The Circassians were famed throughout the Middle East for the beauty of their women and the courage of their men.  Physically most Circassians are European in appearance, with perhaps a slight oriental cast to their features. Many Circassians are blond and blue-eyed, while others show a common feature of the Caucasus: very light skin coupled with black or extremely dark hair.  A lithe and erect physique was favored, both for the men and the women.  Circassian villages even today have large numbers of healthy elderly people, many over a hundred years of age.

Their culture was and still is strongly dominated by a warrior ethic.  The battle garb of the men, the Cherkesska, is a fitted caftanlike coat with cartridges sewn across the chest, a sheepskin hat, and soft-soled knee-high boots of fine leather.  This costume has been borrowed by many neighboring peoples, most notably the Slavic Cossacks, so that it is often thought of as being Russian.

Until recently the eight Circassian tribes showed varying degrees of a caste system similar to that surviving in modern India.  There were priest-kings; nobles who served as warriors; freemen who carried on trade, large-scale farming, and manufacturing; and lastly peasants—former prisoners of war who were either small farmers or who acted as retainers to the princes and nobles.  In 1864, five years after their defeat at the hands of the czarist armies, most of the freemen and peasants emigrated and settled in the Ottoman Empire.  Today the majority of the world’s one million or so Circassians now live scattered throughout the Middle East and in cities in Europe and the United States.

During the Soviet period, a body of written literature and poetry emerged in two Circassian languages, Kabardian and the Chemgwi dialect of Adyghean.  Nevertheless, all the tribes maintained lively and vigorous oral traditions, both within and without the Soviet Union.  The most archaic oral tradition seems to be that of the Nart sagas.  These are a large corpus of oral tales involving the Narts, a race of heroes. While traditionally termed sagas, they are actually short myths or tales.