At 21:30 on January 10, 2022, the Beijing Winter Olympic Bobsleigh - Team Relay Competition began at the National Bobsleigh Center. Because of the husky, one of the top Internet celebrity "three fools of sledding", the sport is familiar to many people (although we are not familiar with the sport itself).
Of course, not everyone thinks of husky when they think of "sleigh" – do you know which ethnic group on the mainland is the first known people to use sleds?
First, the Murowei clan in the fog
Today's China is a multi-ethnic state with fifty-six nationalities. Throughout the ages, if the ethnic groups and tribes of the Land of Shenzhou are identified one by one, I am afraid that there are more than five hundred and sixty -- one of them is named Murong Wei, which has left a distinctive mark in history as the earliest known tribe that used sleighs.
However, the source of Mu wei is not clear. The name "Murong Wei" was first mentioned in the Book of Wei (written in the fifth year of Northern Qi Tianbao, 554), and was a general term for the many tribes living north of the Khitan in the Central Plains at that time. Therefore, this "room wei" must not be the other "room wei". Where did the Murowe tribe come from? After years of research, the academic circles have formed many views with the "Donghu Xianbei Theory" as the mainstream.
In recent years, archaeology has shown that from the end of the Western Han Dynasty to the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, the Xianbei people, who originated in the Great Xianbei Mountains (that is, the northern section of the present-day Daxing'anling Mountains), migrated south and eventually settled in the "homeland of the Xiongnu". During the period of migration to settlement of the Xianbei people, many of the existing ethnic groups in the north did not have a clear direct connection with the Great Xianbei Mountain - so that during the Northern Dynasty, another ethnic group arose in the Great Xianbei Mountain, which is unlikely to be the migration of other ethnic groups, but it is more likely that some of the Xianbei people did not move south at the beginning, and grew again here - that is, the Formation of the Muwei Tribe.
Of course, there is other evidence that Murong Wei is most likely from Donghu Xianbei. During the reign of the Taiping Zhenjun of the Northern Wei Dynasty, the Marquis of Murong Weiluo sent emissaries to meet the Northern Wei monarchs and informed the Northern Wei that there was a relic left by a humble ancestor near the residence of the Marquis of Murong Weiluo. When the Northern Wei Dynasty learned of this news, the special envoys went to worship. Before the arrival of the Northern Wei emissaries, the Wuluohou people had already regarded this place as a holy place—and the identification of the Xianbei ancestors by the Houbu of Murwei Wuluo also implied that the two tribes had the same origin.
But Donghu Xianbei said that he has not yet been able to convince everyone. Some scholars, proceeding from linguistics, have proposed that Murong Wei is from SuShen; some scholars, based on the New Book of Tang, believe that Murong Wei is a descendant of Ding Ling (the earliest known tribe in the mainland to master skiing technology); some scholars believe that Murong Wei is a descendant of the ancient tribe of Feng Wei in the Central Plains; some scholars believe that Murong Wei is Murong Wei, which is a family of its own... In short, although there is a "Donghu Xianbei said" to take the lead, where Murong Wei came from is still a mystery.
Second, the turmoil and tranquility of life
But then again, we don't yet know where Murwei came from, and what kind of life the Murwei people once had. After the rise of the White Mountains and the Black Water, Murowei made a living from the more primitive fishing and hunting, animal husbandry, agriculture and handicrafts.
From the middle and late Tang Dynasty onwards, a part of the Murong Wei people moved out of the mountains and came to the present-day Hulunbuir Grassland, the northern part of the Yinshan Mountains, and even the hinterland of the Mongolian Plateau to seek new development opportunities. Under the influence of neighbors such as turks, Khitans, and Dangxiang, some tribes in Murong Wei smoothly transitioned from primitive economy to a typical nomadic economy during the five dynasties of the late Tang Dynasty. The dawn of civilization shone brightly in the various parts of the Room.
Third, the enthusiasm of ice and snow
As mentioned above, Murong Wei rose to prominence in the area of present-day Daxing'anling and was also regarded by some scholars as a descendant of the Ding Ling clan. As a tribe that grew up in the ice and snow, Murong Wei naturally has a deep relationship with ice and snow sports.
The Sui Shu Murwei Biography records: "The Northern Chamber Wei (one of the various departments of the Chamber Wei)... The ground is covered with snow, afraid of pits, riding on wood." The "wood" that can be used to "ride" may have been an early sleigh.
In the ancient Central Plains literature, because the skis at that time mostly used wood as the main raw material, and replaced the horse in the ice and snow and became the main means of transportation, the Central Plains people called the ski "wooden horse" or "bamboo horse". The "woolen snowboard" that has been reborn in the Altai region is a kind of "Trojan horse" that has been passed down to the world for thousands of years. Therefore, the Book of Sui only refers to the North Room Wei as "riding on wood", which may mean that the North Room Wei used some kind of wooden ski equipment, but it was different from the wooden horse--and then people thought that the Room Wei may be the earliest tribe known to use sleds.
After the records of the Book of Sui, there were also three kinds of sleds (or "ice sleds") with more prominent characteristics in the history of the mainland: one was a dog car (or "tow truck") invented by the Hezhe people who were mainly active in the territory of present-day Heilongjiang, with dogs as the main driving force, and once became the main means of transportation for the Hezhe people in winter; the other was the climbing plough (or "rake plough") that was once popular in the area of present-day Jilin and Heilongjiang, which is considered to be a horse-powered means of transportation developed from dog carts One is the popular ice bed (also known as "dragging bed", "ice car", etc.) in the Beijing-Tianjin area, which is powered by human power and integrates sports and amusement.
Compared with dog carts, climbing plows, etc., although the "wood" of Mu wei is earlier, it is obviously less well-known. But it also appears in the northeast with the white mountains and black water, who can say that dog carts, climbing plows, etc. are not the descendants who inherited the "wood" of Mu wei? Just as the origin of Muroway is still a mystery waiting to be revealed, the story of Murowei and the sleigh is obviously still waiting for us to continue to excavate.