Introduction
The Tangut people call themselves Mi-nyak, the Chinese call them Dangxiang but Mongols call them Tangut. They are part of the Sino-Tibetan people.This article explores the earliest origin of the Tangut people, where they came from, who they are and where they went.
Homeland
The homeland of the Tangut is in the Yinchuan plain near the Ordos Basin in modern-day Ningxia along the Yellow River. |
| Homeland - Tangut king (inset) |
Original homeland
The original homeland of the Tangut was in upper Yellow River basin in the 'U-shaped' region in Qinghai plateau next to the upper Min River. |
| Original homeland - Prinmi people (inset) |
By the Tang dynasty in the 7th century AD, there were eight Tangut clans which are Xifeng (細封), Feiting (費聽), Wangli (往利), Pochao (頗超), Yeci (野辭), Fangfang (房當), Miqin (米擒) and Tuoba (拓跋).
The Tuoba clan was the most dominant, Tuoba means 'highland' in the Tangut language, this word was mistaken by some researchers of a similar sounding Tuoba clan of the Mongolic people. These two words probably sounded differently in their original languages but translated the same phonetically due to limitation of Chinese translation.
Migration to Ningxia
In 638 AD, the ruler of the Tangut agreed to become a part of the empire of the Tang dynasty. When the Tibetan kingdom invaded their original homeland in Qinghai, the Tangut first migrated to Qingyang (慶陽) in eastern Gansu in 663 AD.In 881 AD, the Tangut under the leadership of Tuoba Sigong helped the Tang dynasty in quelling an internal rebellion by Huang-Chao.
As a reward, the Tang dynasty emperor bestowed them lands in Shaanxi province with Xiazhou (夏州) as its capital and controlled four cities. The Tuoba leaders were also bestowed the Chinese surname Li by the Tang emperor.
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| Migration path to Ningxia from upper Yellow River |
In 1002 AD, the Tangut royal family led by Li Jiqian migrated its capital to Lingzhou.
In 1016 AD, Li Jiqian's son Li Deming built a new capital called Xinzhou (modern-day Yinchuan city in Ningxia) and also submitted to the Song empire.
Li Deming's son, Li Yuanhao succeeded him as the Tangut leader in 1032 AD when he passed away.
In 1016 AD, Li Jiqian's son Li Deming built a new capital called Xinzhou (modern-day Yinchuan city in Ningxia) and also submitted to the Song empire.
Li Deming's son, Li Yuanhao succeeded him as the Tangut leader in 1032 AD when he passed away.
Western Xia kingdom
Unlike his ancestors who adopted many aspects of Han Chinese culture, Li Yuanhao decided to remove Han Chinese culture from his tribe by cutting their hair, wearing animal fur, created their own writing system and changed their surname to Wei-Ming.
In 1036 AD, Li Yuanhao expanded his territory along the Hexi corridor as far west as Shazhou (refer to map below) in Northern Gansu. He formed the kingdom of Western Xia in 1038 AD. |
| Western Xia kingdom |
Tangut script
The Tangut had been using Chinese characters ever since they migrated down in the 7th century AD.In 1036 AD, Li Yuanhao, the Tangut king, ordered the creation of a new writing system which is known as Tangut script. It was based on the same principle as Chinese characters with one meaning for each character.
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| Tangut script alongside Chinese script equivalent |
Western Xia was a Buddhist kingdom; therefore, many Buddhist texts previously written in Chinese texts were rewritten in the Tangut script and stored in their libraries.
A Russian explorer Pyotr Kuzmich found these texts in Khara-Khoto city in Inner Mongolia and took them to keep at a library in St Petersburg in Russia.
Invasion of Mongol
In 1217 AD, the Mongols requested Western Xia's army to help the Mongols conquer Central Asia but their request were rejected and were also insulted.Starting from 1226 AD, the Tangut people in every city which the Mongols took were massacred as revenge for this insult. According to a Persian history book, the Mongols committed a near genocide of the Tangut people.
In 1227 AD, the Mongols finally destroyed Western Xia kingdom and annexed their territory. Their royal mausoleums situated in the eastern foothills of Helan mountain near their capital were partially destroyed.
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| Ruins of Western Xia mausoleums |
Several artefacts were found inside their royal tombs which showed the style of their clothing.
Descendants of survivors
The Tangut was massacred to near extinction except for a very small group who chose to betray their own people to keep their own relatives alive.
The descendants of the rest of the survivors which were found by checking their ancestral records, were scattered across the provinces of Anhui, Henan and Hebei in northern China. They were later assimilated into the Han Chinese but their culture has elements of their Tangut ethnicity.
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| Ancestral record of Tangut Yang clan in Henan |
The Qiangic subgroups (mentioned in the next section) who didn't migrate from the Qinghai plateau are not the survivors of this massacre as commonly thought.
The Tangut people had forgotten where their original homeland was after 600 years of separation. Furthermore, neither Tangut scripts nor ancestral records was found in their original homeland to prove that some returned to their original homeland after the massacre.
Qiangic subgroups
Tangut is a part of the Qiangic branch of the Sino-Tibetan people. The Qiangic subgroups live mostly in western Sichuan bordering Qinghai province.The Qiangic subgroups are
- Tangut
- Muya/Mi-nyak
- Qiang aka Rma
- Pumi/Prinmi
The Tangut is believed to have branched off from the Muya/Mi-nyak subgroup based on similarities of customs in addition to the language. However, the Muya don't have their own writing script unlike their Tangut brothers.
Most of the Qiangic subgroups including the Tangut worship white color. The Prin-Mi people means 'white-people'; their legend stated that they came from Ganzi prefecture before migrating south.
The Muya live mostly in Garze/Ganzi Prefecture in northwestern Sichuan province.
The subgroup of Qiang is the name given to them by the Chinese but they call themselves Rma.
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| Qiangic subgroups (map of Sichuan province) |
Please note that the 'ancient Qiang' means the northwestern branch (Tibetic, Kirat) of the Sino-Tibetan people and isn't the same as the modern Qiang which belongs to the central branch.
Language
The Tangut language is now extinct but the video below showcase what the language of the Tangut people would have sounded like by listening to the folk songs of their ethnically close brothers.
Conclusion
The Tangut is a subgroup of the Qiangic people who originally came from the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. They formed a kingdom in Ningxia and northern Gansu but they were massacred to near extinction by the Mongols.Fortunately, the other subgroups of the Qiangic people such as Muya still survive in China.
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| Muya people |
Related links
Origin of Sino-Tibetan tribes
http://eastasiaorigin.blogspot.com/2018/08/origin-of-sino-tibetan-tribes.html
http://eastasiaorigin.blogspot.com/2018/08/origin-of-sino-tibetan-tribes.html
Sources
- Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh By Rashīd al-Dīn Ṭabīb (1247–1318).
- Secret History of the Mongols/ Mongγol-un niγuca tobčiyan. 1252 AD.
- Western Xia studies, research college in Ningxia University by Lin Jianlu and Yang Wan.
- Eight River basin of Tibetan-Burmese languages (八江流域的藏緬語). By Sun Hongkai, China Social Science Press.
- http://www.imperialchina.org/Xi-Xia-Dynasty.html
- https://kknews.cc/history/2ekpj9.html
- https://kknews.cc/history/z2ma4z3.html
- https://kknews.cc/travel/2nabr.html
Last updated: 17 Oct 2021
Copyright © eastasiaorigin.blogspot 2017-2021. All rights reserved.
Copyright © eastasiaorigin.blogspot 2017-2021. All rights reserved.
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