18. The White and Superior's Great Land

Dan Xiang Folket

Dan of the Aesir descent came from Asia and made themselves an empire around the Baltic Sea. Other peoples, who called themselves Dan, did not manage so well through history, such as Qi Dan or Dan Xiang.

In the history Dan Xiang's empire is called Xi Xia, meaning western Xia in Chinese, including the present autonomous region Ning Xia, Gansu and parts of the modern neighboring provinces of Sichuan, Qinghai and Shaanxi. (Chinese prefer the alfabetzing "Dang Xiang").

Following their own tradition they descended from a people called Tuoba Xianbei. Tuoba were a Xianbei people who created the Migration empire Northern Wei that included all of North China. It disintegrated in 535 AC prior to the creation of the famous Tang Dynasty in 619 AC. On the Tibetan highlands of modern Qinghai province lived in the migration time another Xianbei people called Tuyuhun. Many discoveries made in connection with Dan Xiang resemble things, found in Qinghai and Tibet.

In the seventh century AC the kings of Dan Xiang were granted permission to carry the family name Li, which made them to relatives of the Tang Dynasty emperors.

However the Tang Dynasty disintegrated and was replaced by the ethnic Chinese Song Dynasty.

In 944 AC the Dan Xiang king, Li Yiyin, revolted against the Song rulers. His son, Sun Li Deming, was recognized by the neighboring states as emperor of Xia, it were Song China in the south, and Qi Dan in the East; hence he became the Song emperor's equal. He expanded his empire north at the expense of the Turkish Oguz federation.

Names with "ming" as the suffix seem to have been quite common in Xia, at least according to Chinese sources. The first king's son was named Li De-ming and the general of the reserve army during their last fight against the Mongols was named Wei-Ming Ling Gong. But "ming" in Chinese means "name" so maybe they just had problems with describing the barbarian names.

The new king ordered all his subjects to cut their hair in the traditional short Dan Xiang style instead of the Chinese style with hair arranged in a top pillow. He cancelled his Chinese name Li Deming and assumed his Dan Xiang name, Weiming (Chinese: "mighty name"?). The new Xia kingdom created their own characters instead of the Chinese characters they had used previously.

Throughout the entire history of Xi Xia there was a struggle between supporters of Chinese language and culture and supporters of Dan Xiang's own indigenous languages and traditional culture.

Dan Xiang used "-ning" as a suffix or prefix for place names and like Qi Dan they called many cities and areas for something with -ning. Dan Xiang's Dan Xiang's former area are still today called Ning Xia.

As it is well known, countless Danish village names also end with "-ning" or "-ninge".

In Kara Khoto a picture of Budda surrounded by smaller figures was found. Note the white figure to the right of Buddha, it must be an original Dan Xiang man - one of the white and superior. The picture is exhibited in the Hermitage in Sct. Petersburg.

They named themselves "Great Xia" or "The Great Land of the White and Superior", in Chinese "Da Bei Shang Guo". The term "Tan-gut" was created by the Mongols. In Mongolian a person is called "gun", plural, that is people, is "gut". So the Mongolian expression Tan-gut means, "the Tan people". Modern Chinese believe that the Mongols called them that because they previously had good relations with the Tang Dynasty. But note that the Chinese called them something that sounded like "Dan", while other people called them something that sounded like "Tan". Just like the Dan people in eastern China; The Chinese called them Qi-Dan, while other people called them Khi-Tan. So it seems likely that "Dan Xiang" was called such because they belonged to a kind of peoples, who traditionally were called "Dan" or "Tan".

The name Xia dates back from the Migration Age, the Sixteen States Period, around 400 AC. The area was originally conquered by the Tiefu Xiong-Nu people under the leadership of King Helian Bobo. He named his new kingdom "Xia" because of the legend of the Xiong-Nu descendant of the first Xia Dynasty rulers, thousands of years back. Since then the area had been known as Xia.

Dan Xiang occasionally also used "Great Xia" for their state, in Chinese "Da-Xia". It is interesting that the Chinese also used this name for the Greek Bactria, Da-xia, who was taken over by "Da Yuezhi" one thousand years before Dan Xiang created their state.

The Hu people in the Beishan Mountains

In the northwest Ning Xia Hui Autonomous Region, in Damadai in the Beishan mountains a large number of Rock Carving were found in 1988. They have been found over a 15 square kilometer area. Experts believe that they are created by the "Hu" or "Hun" nomads, who have lived here "always". They represent mythological figures, sheep, horses, tigers and other animals, people and symbols. Sheep and goats were very important for the Hu nomads. (from article in China Daily 8. January 05 "Mystery of ancient carvings lives on").

A rock carving represents a woman. A rather broad and chubby type with a large round head. She has full breasts and relatively short legs. She is quite different from modern Asian types. Another depicts a man; apparently also a fairly square type.

In an article in "China Daily" is also mentioned that around ten cliff carvings show sexual scenes. This suggests that the Hu people, who made the images, may have had a fertility religion, like the Frey cult, as Freya, who had her pleasure with men.

In the historic museum in Xian is a ceramic figure of a "Hu" man on a camel, found in a Tang Dynasty tomb. He is also a rather square type.

Many of the carvings are from the Neolithic Stone Age some 7.000 years ago. Most have been made for 3.000 to 2.000 years ago. The latest have been made from ca. 1.000 AC to 1.227 AC during the time of the Xi Xia kingdom to its doom; after which year no more new petroglyphs have ben created.

The Mongol's attack on Xi Xia

In the end of the emperor Li Renxiao's reign around the turn of the century, 1200 AC, the country faced increasing difficulties in producing enough food for its large population. Perhaps because of the progressive desiccation of the area. Today the country is mainly a desert. Disgruntled peasants and soldiers rebelled, led by nobles, who felt themselves bypassed and ignored by the new civil service structure.

In 1202 AC Xia for the first time was attacked by gangs of Mongolians and Turks, who burned villages and abducted people and cattle. In 1205-6 the attacks continued with increased strength.

King Li An Chuan made peace with the Mongols in 1207 AC and gave his daughter to Genghis Khan as a bride. Li Anchuan abdicated and died in 1211 AC.

Regardless the peace treaty the Mongol armies continued to invade and terrorize Xi Xia in the following twenty years. There were acts of war in 1209-10, 1211-13, 1214-19 and 1224 until the Xi Xia's final destruction in 1225-1227 AC. In more than twenty years the country was more or less continuously under attack, despite the fact that they from the beginning had made peace, and the emperor had given his daughter to the great khan.

In 1224 AC the Xia city Yenzhou was attacked from the south of troops, led by the Mongolian Governor of North China, Bei Lu. Tens of thousands of defenders and inhabitants were killed

In 1225 AC Genghis Khan demanded that Xi Xia should send troops to the planned Mongol offensive in the west against the Khvarizm Sultanate, which included the former Sogdian cities in modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Emperor Li Xian thought it wise to send the requested troops. But his generals had had enough. They would no longer allow themselves to be terrorized. They told the Mongolian envoy, "that if they had not enough troops, they were not worthy to call themselves masters of the World." Instead Xi Xia concluded an alliance with the Jurchen people targeting the Mongols. Jurchen later became known as the Manchus.

Genghis Khan first attacked the Xia city Shazhou. The siege lasted six years it is said. A large number of Mongol and Turk soldiers, who tried to dig tunnels under the city walls, were burned to death. Genghis Khan reluctantly canceled the siege and withdrew his army back to Mongolia. Again a peace treaty was concluded and the emperor of Xi Xia promised to send hostages.

However, in 1226 AC Genghis Khan claimed that the promised hostages had not arrived, and he used this as pretext to resume the hostilities.

However documents found in Kara Khoto tells that Xia had sent hostages, including the king's son, a boy younger than ten years. But the Mongols had intercepted the travel company, killed the boy and spread his bones in the desert.

The first Mongol attack was led by a renegade Xia General, Li Qianbu. City after city was conquered, and as a rule all inhabitants were killed.

Genghis Khan's Death

The Mongol's treatment of defeated enemies

It is hard to understand the cold psychopathic cruelty that the Mongols showed towards their defeated enemies.

The city of Merv in present northeastern Iran was completely destroyed and its 700,000 inhabitants were all killed.

During the siege of the Persian city of Nishapur Genghis Khan's son in law was killed by an arrow from one of the city's defenders. When the city fell, the Mongols took a terrible revenge. All residents were beheaded and their heads were carefully stacked into pyramids in front of the widow, men women and children separately. Even dogs and cats from the streets of the city were beheaded. The Persian historian Rashid al-Din wrote that more than one million people were killed in connection with the capture of Nishapur.

The main rule was that when a city had been conquered, the Mongols selected all the craftsmen and sent them to Mongolia or other places, where there was a need for them to build siege engines and the like. The children and the young girls were taken as slaves, and the rest were killed.

Once they had decided to wipe out a city's population the procedure was that the surviving inhabitants were ordered to show up in a field outside town. Each Mongol soldier was then ordered to kill ten, twenty or fifty people each. To prove that they had done it, they had to deliver as many cut ears to their commanders.

The climax must have been the massacre of Xi Xia in 1227 AC, in which not only some cities, but an entire polpulation and an entire nation were slain.

The black Castle

How did Dan Xiang look like?

From the illustration of a Buddhist Sutra and a painting of a Buddhist monk found by Kozlov in Kara Khoto, it seems that Dan Xiang were persons with white skin and dark or brown hair and beard. Their eyes seemed to sit quite close to each other, and the men had a tendency to early baldness.

A portal in Ning Xia shows a bird-human surrounded by two men. They seem to be some pretty broad types with large round heads. They are beardless or clean shaved, and their mouths are not very big.

At the museum in Ning Xia can be seen a bird woman in prayer. She has a big nose and high nose bridge, but however relatively narrow eyes.

Bearing columns in buildings have been decorated with some giant women. They have large round eyes, full lips, quite marked cheekbones and big full breasts.

Marco Polo traveled through present Gansu Province in 1265. The Polos stayed in Dun Huang for a whole year, while they were awaiting permission to travel on. At that time, the province together with Ning Xia was called for "Tangut", as it was the Mongolian name for the country, which had made up this province, before the Mongol conquest in 1226. Marco Polo sees very naturally the inhabitants, he meets, as "Tangutans", as they were inhabitants of the province "Tangut". However, the real original "Tanguts" had then been dead and gone for 39 years.

Marco Polo wrote (Book 1 - Chapter 57): The people consist of Nestorian Christians, Idolates and worshippers of Mahomet. - The People, who are Idolates are merchants and craftsmen, and they also grow an abundance of corn. The province has an extent of 26 day-journeys.

The people, who are idolates, are fat people with small noses, black hair, and no beard, except for a few hairs on the upper lip. The Women have also very smooth and white skin, and are in every respect beautiful creatures. The men are very sensual, and marry many wives, which is not prohibited according to their religion."

The Russian explorer, Przhevalskii, was in Gansu in 1876. He was the first European in these parts of the World in modern time. At that time, the province together with the Ning Xia province were still called "Tangut".

He wrote: "The Tangutans or Si-fan, as the Chinese call them, are of the same race as the Tibetans. They inhabit the mountainous regions of Kan-su, Koko-nor and the area along the upper parts of the Yellow River as far as Murui-ussu and perhaps longer. They consider these countries, which they call by the name "Amdo" as their own special teritory, although they here are mixed with Chinese and Mongolians.

Outwardly they represents a striking contrast to the latter two races, and as we have already said, they are somewhat similar to gypsies. Their height is above average, with a full figure and broad shoulders, their hair, whiskers and beard are invariably black, the eyes are dark and rather large, never narrow as the Mongols', their noses are in general straight, although sometimes eagle nose, also sometimes turned upwards. The lips are thick and protruding, their cheekbones are not as prominent as the Mongols', their face is long, never flat, their head shape is round, the teeth are white and regular, their skin is brown, the women are smaller and darker in compleksion than the men.