Where did the Uyghur people originate?
31303256#1
The history of the Uyghur people, as with the ethnic origin of the people, is an issue of contention between Uyghur nationalists and the Chinese authority. Uyghur historians viewed the Uyghurs as the original inhabitants of Xinjiang with a long history. Uyghur politician and historian Muhemmed Imin Bughra wrote in his book "A history of East Turkestan", stressing the Turkic aspects of his people, that the Turks have a 9000-year history, while historian Turgun Almas incorporated discoveries of Tarim mummies to conclude that Uyghurs have over 6400 years of history, and the World Uyghur Congress claimed a 4,000-year history. Chinese historians however generally traced the origin of the Uyghurs to the Tiele, some to the Dingling as well as other people mentioned in ancient Chinese texts such as the Guifang. Official Chinese view asserts the Uyghurs to be of Tiele origin, and only became the main social and political force in Xinjiang during the ninth century when they migrated to Xinjiang from Mongolia after the collapse of the Uyghur Khaganate, replacing the Han Chinese that they claimed were there since the Han Dynasty. Many modern Western scholars however do not consider the modern Uyghurs to be of direct linear descent from the old Uyghur Khaganate of Mongolia, rather they are descendants of a number of people, of which the ancient Uyghurs are but one.
History of the Uyghur people
31783#17
The history of the Uyghur people, as with the ethnic origin of the people, is a matter of contention between Uyghur nationalists and the Chinese authority. Uyghur historians viewed the Uyghurs as the original inhabitants of Xinjiang with a long history. Uyghur politician and historian Muhemmed Imin Bughra wrote in his book "A History of East Turkestan", stressing the Turkic aspects of his people, that the Turks have a 9000-year history, while historian Turghun Almas incorporated discoveries of Tarim mummies to conclude that Uyghurs have over 6400 years of history, and the World Uyghur Congress claimed a 4,000-year history in East Turkestan. However, the official Chinese view asserts that the Uyghurs in Xinjiang originated from the Tiele tribes and only became the main social and political force in Xinjiang during the ninth century when they migrated to Xinjiang from Mongolia after the collapse of the Uyghur Khaganate, replacing the Han Chinese they claimed were there since the Han Dynasty. Many contemporary Western scholars, however, do not consider the modern Uyghurs to be of direct linear descent from the old Uyghur Khaganate of Mongolia. Rather, they consider them to be descendants of a number of peoples, one of them the ancient Uyghurs.
Uyghurs
31783#7
Contemporary scholars consider modern Uyghurs to be the descendants of a number of people, including the ancient Uyghurs of Mongolia who arrived at the Tarim Basin after the fall of the Uyghur Khaganate, Iranic Saka tribes, and other Indo-European peoples who inhabited the Tarim Basin before the arrival of the Turkic Uyghurs. DNA analyses indicate that the peoples of central Asia such as the Uyghurs are all mixed Caucasian and East Asian. Uyghur activists identify with the Tarim mummies, remains of an ancient people who inhabited the region, but research into the genetics of ancient Tarim mummies and their links with modern Uyghurs remains problematic, both to Chinese government officials concerned with ethnic separatism, and to Uyghur activists concerned that the research could affect their people's claim of being indigenous to the region.
Uyghurs
31783#9
Rian Thum explored the concepts of identity among the ancestors of the modern Uyghurs in Altishahr (the native Uyghur name for eastern Turkestan or southern Xinjiang) before the adoption of the name "Uyghur" in the 1930s, referring to them by the name "Altishahri" in his article "Modular History: Identity Maintenance before Uyghur Nationalism". Thum indicated that Altishahri Turkis did have a sense that they were a distinctive group separate from the Turkic Andijanis to their west, the nomadic Turkic Kirghiz, the nomadic Mongol Qalmaq, and the Han Chinese Khitay before they became known as Uyghurs. There was no single name used by them to refer to themselves, the various native names Altishahris used to refer to themselves were Altishahrlik (Altishahr person), yerlik (local), Turki, and Musulmān (Muslim), the term Musulmān in this situation did not signify religious connotations, because the Altishahris would exclude other Muslim peoples like the Kirghiz when referring to themselves as Musulmān. Dr. Laura J Newby has also noted that the sedentary Altishahri Turkic people felt themselves as a separate group from other Turkic Muslims since at least the 19th century.
Uyghurs
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Yugur, the easternmost state formed by the Yugur people, was the Ganzhou Kingdom (AD 870–1036), with its capital near present-day Zhangye in the Gansu province of China. There, the Uyghur converted from Manichaeism to Lamaism, Tibetan and Mongol Buddhism. Unlike Turkic peoples further west, they did not later convert to Islam. Their descendants are now known as Yugurs (or "Yogir", "Yugur", and "Sary Uyghurs", literally meaning "yellow Uyghurs") and are distinct from modern Uyghurs. In AD 1028–1036, the Yugurs were defeated in a bloody war and forcibly absorbed into the Tangut kingdom. These Yugurs stayed Lamaist and did not convert to Islam.
History of the Uyghur people
31783#18
Discovery of well-preserved Tarim mummies of a people European in appearance indicates the migration of an Indo-European people into the Tarim area at the beginning of the Bronze age around 1800 BCE. These people probably spoke Tocharian languages and were suggested by some to be the Yuezhi mentioned in ancient Chinese texts. However, Uyghur activists claimed these mummies to be of Uyghur origin, based partly on a word, which they argued to be Uyghur, found in written scripts associated with these mummies, although other linguists suggest it to be a Sogdian word later absorbed into Uyghur. Later migrations brought peoples from the west and north-west to the Xinjiang region, probably speakers of various Iranian languages such as the Saka tribes. Other people in the region mentioned in ancient Chinese texts include the Dingling as well as the Xiongnu who fought for supremacy in the region against the Chinese for several hundred years. Some Uyghur nationalists also claimed descent from the Xiongnu (according to the Chinese historical text the "Book of Wei", the founder of the Uyghurs was descended from a Xiongnu ruler), but the view is contested by modern Chinese scholars.
Uyghurs
31303256#2
Some Uyghur nationalist claimed that they were descended from the Tocharians. Discovered well-preserved Tarim mummies of a people European in appearance indicates the migration of an Indo-European people into the Tarim area at the beginning of the Bronze age around 2,000 BCE. These people probably spoke Tocharian, and were suggested by some to be the Yuezhi mentioned in ancient Chinese text and who later founded the Kushan Empire. The Uyghur claim is based partly on a word, which they argued to be Uyghur, found in written scripts associated with these mummies, although other linguists suggested that it was a Sogdian word later absorbed into Uyghur. Later migrations brought peoples from the west and northwest to the Xinjiang area, probably speakers of various Iranian languages such as the Saka tribes. Other ancient people in the region mentioned in ancient Chinese texts include the Xiongnu who fought for supremacy in the region against the Chinese for several hundred years. Some Uyghur nationalists claimed descent from the Xiongnu (as well as being related to the White Huns), however this view is contested by modern Chinese scholars. This Xiongnu claim originated from various Chinese historical texts; for example, according to Chinese history "Weishu", the founder of the Uyghurs was descended from a Xiongnu ruler.
History of the Uyghur people
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Uyghur independence activists express concern over the Han population changing the Uyghur character of the region, yet the historical native land of the Uyghurs is not the whole land of Xinjiang, but Tarim basin. Professor James A. Millward pointed out that the capital of Xinjiang Urumqi was even originally a Han and Hui (Tungan) city with few Uyghur people before recent Uyghur migration to the city, but foreigners mistakenly think that Urumqi was originally a Uyghur city and that the Chinese destroyed its Uyghur character and culture. Moreover, the Han and Hui mostly live in northern Xinjiang Dzungaria, and are separated from areas of historical Uyghur dominance south of the Tian Shan mountains (southwestern Xinjiang), where Uyghurs account for about 90% of the population. While a few people try to give a misportrayal of the historical Qing situation in light of the contemporary situation in Xinjiang with Han migration, and claim that the Qing settlements and state farms were an anti-Uyghur plot to replace them in their land, Professor James A. Millward pointed out that the Qing agricultural colonies in reality had nothing to do with Uyghur and their land, since the Qing banned settlement of Han in the Uyghur Tarim Basin and in fact directed the Han settlers instead to settle in the non-Uyghur Dzungaria and the new city of Urumqi, so that the state farms which were settled with 155,000 Han Chinese from 1760–1830 were all in Dzungaria and Urumqi, where there was only an insignificant amount of Uyghurs, instead of the Tarim Basin oases.
Uyghur nationalism
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Most Uyghur inhabitants of the Besh Balik and Turpan regions did not convert to Islam until the 15th century expansion of the Yarkand Khanate, a Turko-Mongol successor state based in western Tarim. Before converting to Islam, Uyghurs were Tengriist, Manichaeans, Buddhists, or Nestorian Christians.
History of the Uyghur people
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Throughout its history, the term "Uyghur" has taken on an increasingly expansive definition. Initially signifying only a small coalition of Tiele tribes in Northern China, Mongolia, and the Altai Mountains, it later denoted citizenship in the Uyghur Khaganate. Finally, it was expanded into an ethnicity whose ancestry originates with the fall of the Uyghur Khaganate in the year 842, which caused Uyghur migration from Mongolia into the Tarim Basin. This migration assimilated and replaced the Indo-European speakers of the region to create a distinct identity as the language and culture of the Turkic migrants eventually supplanted the original Indo-European influences. This fluid definition of "Uyghur" and the diverse ancestry of modern Uyghurs create confusion about what constitutes true Uyghur ethnography and ethnogenesis.
Uyghurs