Did the earliest "farewell" of mankind in the Pamir Plateau mean that everyone left there? The answer, of course, is no, such as the Tajiks.
The main body of the Tajik ethnic group is in Central Asia, mainly distributed in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and other countries and regions, and the Tajik ethnic group in China only needs to be concentrated in the Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in Xinjiang. The Tajiks are the main ethnic group in Tajikistan, and the Tajik population in China is about 50,000 people.
This is the population distribution of the Tajiks, and for the Tajik humans and languages, today it is defined as follows: it belongs to the Indo-Mediterranean type of the Europa race, and the ethnic language is Tajik, including the two major dialects of Celekul and Wakhan, which belong to the Pamir branch of the Iranian language family of the Indo-European language family.
Thalakur is the main spoken language of communication in the daily life of the tajik inhabitants of Tashkurgan, with more than 30,000 Tajiks speaking Théracul and more than 10,000 Wahan speaking. But strangely enough, these two languages are difficult to use, which leads us to this idea:
Selecour is its own language or earlier language, while Wakhan is the influence and intervention of later generations. Selecul is also known as Saricul, Sarekol, meaning "highland", pinyin transliteration as Selekur, English as Sarikoli, this word and "Tajik" from the word "Taji", seems to have a certain similarity, "Taji" the word "taji" means "crown", "crown" also has the meaning of "high", the height of status.
The vocabulary of Thelecul is very similar to other Eastern Iranian languages, and exhibits some similarities and differences with Western Iranian languages (such as Persian), without official writing, also known as Tajik in China, but not the same as Tajik in Tajikistan. Because tajik in Tajikistan is Persian, it is only called Tajik in Central Asia, so Tajik in Tajikistan is classified as a sub-language branch of Western Iran.
The two languages spoken by a people are thus artificially classified into one branch, more or less crude, and more accurately, a hard existence that blurs history.
Wahan, also known as Wahan, Wahan, Wahan dialect, etc., belongs to the East Iranian branch of the Indo-European Iranian language family, and is commonly spoken in Kanjuti and Nagar in northern Kashmir, Pakistan, southeast of Tajikistan and the Wakhan Corridor in northeastern Afghanistan. The most direct and best way to understand the origin of the Wakhan language is to understand a geographical term, the Wakhan Corridor.
The Wakhan Corridor is bordered by Tajikistan on the southern edge of the Pamir Plateau to the north, Pakistan and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir to the east of the Hindu Kush Mountains to the south, the Puchi River and its tributary Pamir River in the upper reaches of the Amu Darya River in the west, and the Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County in China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region to the east. It is an east-west narrow strip from Badakhshan Province in Afghanistan to Xinjiang, China, with the entire corridor about 300 kilometers long from east to west, only 15 kilometers at its narrowest point from north to south, and about 75 kilometers at its widest point. China and Afghanistan border each other at the eastern end of the narrow Wakhan Corridor, with a border of only 92.45 km.
Historically, this area and the Pamir Plateau were once Chinese territory, part of the ancient Silk Road, and an important channel for exchanges between Chinese civilization and Indian civilization. The Eastern Jin Dynasty monk Faxian, the Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang, and the founder of the Chinese translation of the Western Buddhist Scriptures, Anthony Gao, all once went here to India to study Buddhism. During the Tang Dynasty, China set up the "Onion Ridge Guard", and its jurisdiction was the entire western region of Xinjiang, including the Pamir.
In 1759, after quelling the rebellion of the Dzungars and the Great and Small and Zhuomu rebellions, the Qing government unified the vast area north and south of the Tianshan Mountains, consolidating the legal position of the Pamirs in the Chinese territory. For a long time, the Qing government set up officials and garrisoned the Pamir region, and always exercised effective jurisdiction over the Pamir region. However, on the eve of the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War, the Qing dynasty government was unable to look west, and eventually the region was divided.
The exchange and intermingling of cultures, or civilizations, is embodied in the language of a people in the oldest and most authentic way, and this is how the Wahan language spoken by the Tajiks comes from. The Tajiks have long been found in many parts south of the Tianshan Mountains of China. Since then, "Tajik" has gradually become the national designation of the people of this region. The Tajiks, who thrive in a vast area of Xinjiang, and the Tajiks who migrated east from the western Pamir at different times and settled in the Tashkurgan area, are the ancestors of the Tajik people in China.
Today, many netizens say that among the 56 ethnic groups in China, the Tajik are the only ethnic group in China that speaks the Iranian language, and that the Uzbeks and Tajiks are descendants of the Aryans. Leaving the contents of the Uzbeks behind, we have always considered this statement to be inappropriate in the case of the Tajiks alone: first of all, the Tajiks speak two languages, which are difficult to communicate, and can also explain the truth to a certain extent. This has been basically explained in the previous article. Secondly, in the Pamir Plateau, Central Asia and Xinjiang, China, talking about the so-called Aryans is itself an empty and nihilistic concept, that is, the practice and rhetoric of overemphasizing ethnicity based on race.
The modern human genome basically explains or proves the history of the migration of the world's peoples, and also overturns what was previously seen as truth. A genetic map (Y chromosome) of the world's human races developed by Americans suggests that the Slavs were the real Aryans. Among the Indo-European speakers in India, Aryan genes account for 39.5%.
The Aryans were originally an ancient nomadic people in the steppes of the southern Ural Mountains in Russia, migrating to the plains between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers in Central Asia. These people were known as the Aryan-Punjabis, and around the 14th century BC, the Aryan-Punjabis moved south into the northwestern part of the South Asian subcontinent, which is the Aryans mentioned in ancient Indian texts, who expelled the Gudharivids to the south, created the Vedic culture and established the caste system, and brought the Aryan-Punjabi language to India. Eventually the Ancient Aryans and the Gudharopishs fused into today's distinctive South Asian subcontinents.
Archaeology has also proved this: in 1987, the Arkaim Gorge in the southern Ural Mountains was supposed to be flooded because the local government was preparing to build a huge dam there to fill the arid areas, and millions of projects were stopped for no reason. Scientists discovered a strange ring in the center of the canyon, and the local government allowed archaeologists to excavate the area in 12 months.
When the final excavations were completed, scientists were stunned by the Jacobian, who had the same history as Egypt and Babylon: Experts in charge of the archaeological expedition to the Urals said the results seemed unbelievable. The inhabitants of Yelikhoven represented the most peculiar branch of ancient Indo-European civilization, becoming the Aryan civilization.
These people may have come to Xinjiang, China, and may have a certain origin with the Cypriots in Chinese historical records, but the Cypriot titles in Chinese historical books must be very scientific, because even if they have come, they have also been assimilated by cypriots, and it is meaningless to call them Aryans. Therefore, we believe that the Tajiks are the descendants of the Lisai people in Chinese history, at least today in China.
Located in the Karachi Gorge, about 70 kilometers south of the county seat of Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County, there is a historical attraction, Princess Fort. It is in front of the roaring Tashkurgan River, and then leans on the towering blue sky of Pisling Dasaka, which is suddenly tall and steep, with city walls, heavy gates, crypts and stone chambers, the mountain where the ancient castle is located is steep, and there is a ravine on the north side to pass through the Pisling Osaka, at an altitude of 4,000 meters, which is the throat of the southern silk road and a place with a very special story.
From here, go through the three bridges of the Wakhan Corridor, drive against the Ming Tiegai River for about ten kilometers, you can see - the famous Mingtie Gai Daban, where the snowy mountains are towering, and the ice tongue formed by the glaciers is directly under the mountain. On the slope of the 4,200-meter-high Luobu Gezi Ditch, the monument of "Xuanzang Taking the Ancient Road of Donggui" is commemorated. On the slope of the Luobu Gaizigou leading to Mingtie Gaidaban, stands the monument of "Xuanzang Taking the Passage of Donggui Ancient Road".
More than 2,000 years ago, the Western Han Dynasty set up the "Western Regions Capital Protection" in the Western Regions, which enabled the tribes in the eastern Pamir to establish administrative subordination with the Central Dynasty. Subsequently, envoys and merchants to the Ōtsuki clan, The Sabbath and other countries continued to pass through the Pamir region, and the Pamir became the only way for east-west transportation on the ancient "Silk Road", which made the economic and cultural exchanges between the Tajik and Han ethnic groups and other fraternal peoples more and more frequent, and promoted the development of the ancient Tajik society.
Around the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, the Tajik ancestors living in the Pamir Plateau established the State of Lipantuo. The word "Shupantuo" means "mountain road" or "mountain flat land" in Eastern Iranian. Located at the Confucius Pass of the Silk Road, Shupantuo plays a bridging role in economic and cultural exchanges between the East and the West. During the Tang Dynasty, when Xuanzang passed by here, he heard a moving story: the local thirsty Pantuo king called himself Zhi Nati Po Qu Tan Luo, which means "Han Ri Tian seed".
Legend has it that there was once a king of Polis who married a Han chinese princess. The welcoming team returned here, and due to the chaos of the war, they found a lonely mountain and a dangerous peak to stay, surrounded by strict guards, and no outsiders could go up the mountain. Don't want to go through 3 months. The princess was pregnant. The welcoming mission was terrified. According to the princess's personal maid, every day at noon, a handsome man rode down from the sun to meet the princess, causing the princess to become pregnant.
How? The above statement is certainly unacceptable to the Prince of Persia, and the princess cannot return to her mother's house with her stomach up. Therefore, the emissaries and guards set up camp on the spot, "built a palace and a pavilion" on the top of the mountain, officially settled the princess, and embraced her as king. Emissaries and guards cultivated grain on the Pamir Plateau near the hill. The following year, the princess gave birth to a boy with a magnificent appearance, and since then she has multiplied and become the ancestor of the "Shupantuo Kingdom" when Xuanzang passed.
The name "Han Ri Tian Seed" is very interesting: King Shu Pan Tuo was named because his mother was a Han Chinese and his father was a seed of The Day and Heaven. Legends here not only tell the worship of the sun by the peoples who lived in this area in the past, but also reflect the exchange and integration of the ancient Tajiks and Han people.
Historically, according to the geographical characteristics of the Pamir Plateau with mountains, valleys and water, the Tajiks took advantage of the natural conditions of the Pamir Plateau with abundant pastures and abundant water sources to graze livestock on high mountain pastures and plant crops in low-valley farmland, forming a pattern of combining agriculture and animal husbandry, with animal husbandry production as the mainstay and concurrent agriculture. In the large and small valleys at an altitude of about 3,000 meters, there are Tajik villages and pastoral areas. Pastoral production and the agricultural economy of wide sowing and thin harvest have formed a state of scattered villages, and the distance between households is also relatively long. The Tajiks sow hardy crops such as barley, peas, and spring wheat every spring, drive their herds to the alpine grasslands to graze in the early summer, and return to the villages in the autumn to harvest and spend the winter, and live a semi-nomadic and semi-settled life. They once believed in Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and other religions.
The State of Shupantuo has left a profound influence on the history of the Tajik people in our country. According to the Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty and other historical records, the State of Shupantuo excavated channels in and around Tashkurgan at that time, built water conservancy projects, and vigorously developed irrigated agriculture; built post stations and houses that provided free accommodation for past travelers to ensure the smooth flow of the Silk Road; built castles, cities, and social and cultural development. During the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the country was the most powerful, and the capital was surrounded by about ten miles and 12 castles. At that time, more than 10 monasteries were built in the country of Shupantuo, with a number of 500 monks, and the king also used force to "invite" a famous monk from a neighboring country who was known as one of the "Four Rizhao Worlds" at that time, and built a monastery for him with a "lofty pavilion and a majestic Buddha's image", making Shupantuo the center of Theravada Buddhism in this region.
Around the 10th century, the Tajiks began to believe in Islam. In the 11th century AD, under the persuasion of the famous Tajik poet and Ismaili missionary Nasser Khosru, he began to follow ismailiism, a branch of The Islamic Shia. There is less religious practice among the Tajiks and few mosques. Some elderly people pray twice a day at home, and the general public only prays on holidays.
During the Song and Yuan dynasties, Tashkurgan was known as Selekul, and the descendants of Shupantuo also became Selekul. The name of the Tajik spoken Selekul is derived from this place name - located in the eastern part of the Pamir Plateau, the homeland of the Shupantuo state, is a Tajik settlement. In the history books of the Yuan Dynasty, it is also called Sari Huan or Withdrawn Black Kun, black means northern, Kun is Kunlun Mountain.
Before the Qing Dynasty, due to the geographical environment and other factors, the social and economic development of the Tajik people was relatively slow. Animal husbandry and agricultural production are relatively extensive, and the production level has been stagnant for a long time in a relatively low state. Due to the lack of iron tools, the Tajiks have been plowing the fields using the Pamir-specific, tall horns of wild sheep.
At the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, the trade exchange between Selecul Huizhuang and Kashgar, Yarkand and other places was gradually carried out, and a certain amount of grain, cotton, iron and other production and daily necessities were imported into the Tajik area every year. In particular, with the help of the Han, Uyghur, and Kyrgyz people, the Tajiks have made rapid improvements in improving farming methods, improving water conservancy, processing livestock products, breeding yaks, and big-tailed sheep.
In December 1949, the five-star red flag was planted on the snow-capped Pamir Plateau, and the Tajik people truly began a bright and happy new life. In 1954, the Tashkurgan Autonomous Region was established, and in 1955 the autonomous region was changed to an autonomous county. In other Tajik settlements, Tajik ethnic townships have also been established.
In Tajik villages, most of them are square flat-roofed, wood-and-stone houses. The walls are mostly made of stone and turf, thick and strong. Top the branches and smear them with dirt mixed with wheat straw. The door opens to the east, generally close to the corner. The skylight in the center of the top is ventilated and transparent. Herders go up the mountain to graze their cattle in the summer, live in felt houses, or build mud huts on pastures. The family form is a patriarchal extended family. The male elderly are the heads of the family, and the production activities and life of the family members are arranged by the parents. In Tajik families, the birth of a baby is a great joy. Whoever gives birth to a boy is to fire a gun three times or shout three times, wishing him great success when he grows up, and if he gives birth to a girl, he puts a broom under his head and wishes him good housework when he grows up.
The Tajiks have a fine tradition of respecting women. If they go to someone's house together to be a guest, or attend a wedding, funeral, worship, etc., the host treats the oldest woman among the guests as the most honorable guest, and invites her to enter the door, while others enter in the order of first woman and then man, first big and then small. In the Tajik interior kang, the right side is the upper seat, and the left side is the lower seat. After the guests enter the house, the female guest sits on the right, the male guest sits on the left, and the oldest female guest sits on the right. If a sheep is slaughtered for the guests, a plate containing a delicious sheep's head and tail should be placed in front of the oldest female guest first as a sign of respect. However, in the funeral, the "depth" of male superiority and female inferiority was shown, and the man's tomb was about two meters deep, and the woman's chest was only on the chest. According to traditional custom, the remains of Tajiks who died in a foreign land must be transported back for burial. On the night of the vigil and the day of the funeral, relatives, friends and fellow villagers must come to mourn and accompany them, but the woman cannot go near the cemetery.
The Tajiks practice monogamy. Intermarriage within one's own ethnic group. Marriage generally goes through many processes and rituals such as mate selection, proclamation, betrothal, marriage and so on. After the marriage date is agreed upon between the man and the woman, the older woman from the man meets the future bride alone and puts on a ring and a red turban to indicate that the girl has a partner. After marriage, the bride is embellished with a string of white buttons on her braids to distinguish her from the girl. (Text/Lu Sheng)