Khitan people
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Khitan (or Khitai, Chinese: 契丹; pinyin: Qìdān) were an ethnic group which dominated much of Manchuria in the 11th century and has been classified by Chinese historians as one of the Eastern proto-Mongolic ethnic groups Donghu (東胡族 dōng hú zú). They established the Liao Dynasty in 907 but fell to the Jin Dynasty of the Jurchen in 1125. Their name survived in the Russian word for China (Китай, Kitay), as well as the archaic English (Cathay), Portuguese (Catai), and Spanish (Catay) appellations of the country.
Ancestors of the Khitan were the Yuwen clan of the Xianbei, an ethnic group situated in the area covered by the modern Liaoning and Jilin provinces. After their regime was conquered by the Murong clan, the remnants scattered in the modern-day Inner Mongolia and mixed there with the original Mongolic population. They had been identified as a distinct ethnic group since paying tribute to the Northern Wei Dynasty in the mid-6th century.
"Afraid that their use of Chinese advisers and administrative techniques would blur their own ethnic identity, the Khitan made a conscious effort to retain their own tribal rites, food, and clothing and refused to use the Chinese language, devising a writing system for their own language instead" (2006 Encyclopaedia Britannica). They also made Peking the capital for the first time in the city's history.
The Khitan were known as خطا in Arabic (Khata) and are mentioned by Muslim chroniclers, such as Ibn al-Athir, al-Thahabi and Ibn Khaldun.[citation needed] They had several clashes with the Khwarezmid Empire, winning at first, and imposing annual tribute on some, with territorial concessions (e.g. Tirmiz was handed over to them at one point).[citation needed] They eventually suffered a catastrophic defeat at the hands of Muhammad II of Khwarezm and no longer posed a serious threat to Muslims in adjacent regions.
Although a number of the nobility of the Liao Dynasty escaped the area westwards towards Turkestan, establishing the short-lived Kara-Khitan or Western Liao dynasty, they were in turn absorbed by the local Turkic and Iranic populations and left no influence of themselves. As the Khitan language is still almost completely illegible, it is difficult to create a detailed history of their movements.
For a while after the invention of the Korean Hangeul script in the mid-15th century, the name of the Khitans continued to appear in Korean texts as Georan/Kǒran (거란). The ethnonym eventually fell out of use, however, and vanished along with the distinct ethnic identity of the Khitan people.
There is no clear evidence of there being any descendant ethnic groups of the Khitan in modern-day Northeast China, but some recent genetic studies have tended to support the hypothesis that the Daur ethnic group of Inner Mongolia contains at least some direct descendants of the ancient Khitan [1].
