 Altai Uriankhai herders in Mongolia | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
 Mongolia | 26,654 (2010 census)[1] |
| Languages | |
| Oirat,Mongolian | |
| Religion | |
| Buddhism,Mongolian shamanism,Atheism | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Mongols, especiallyOirats | |
Uriankhai (/ˈʊriənˌxaɪ/UUR-ee-ən-KHY)[a] is a term of address applied by theMongols to a group of forest peoples of the North, who include theTurkic-speakingTuvans andYakuts, while sometimes it is also applied to the Mongolian-speakingAltai Uriankhai. The Uriankhai included the western forest Uriankhai tribe and theTransbaikal Uriankhai tribe, with the former recorded in Chinese sources asChinese:兀良哈;pinyin:Wùliánghā.
The name "Uriankhai' means "uria" (motto, war motto) andkhan (lord) in Mongolian. The Mongols applied the name to all the forest peoples and, later, toTuvans. They were classified by the Mongols asDarligin Mongols.
At the beginning of theMongol Empire (1206–1368), the Uriankhai were located in central Mongolia.
In the 13th century,Rashid-al-Din Hamadani described the Forest Uriyankhai as extremely isolated Siberian forest people living inbirch bark tents and hunting onskis. Despite the similarity in name to the famous Uriyankhan clan of theMongols, Rashid states that they had no connection.[2] After the fell of the Yuan Dynasty, theJurchens were known among theMing Chinese as "forest people" (using the Jurchen word,Woji), and this connotation later transferred to the Chinese rendering of Uriankhai,Wulianghai.[3]
In the mid-14th century, there were two different tribes called Uriankhai, one located in Outer Mongolia and the other living inLiaoyang inNortheast China.[4] The latter got its name from the fact that its ancestorJelme came from Uriankhai. In 1375,Naghachu, Uriankhai leader of the Mongol-ledNorthern Yuan dynasty in Liaoyang, invaded theLiaodong Peninsula to restore the Mongols to power. Although he continued to hold southernManchuria, theMing military campaign against Naghachu ended with his surrender in 1387,[5] and these Uriankhians known from historical sources as "Uriankhians of the three guards" (兀良哈三衛) in China.[6]
On the other hand, the Uriankhai of theKhentii Mountains were conquered byDayan Khan. After the rebellion of the northern Uriankhai people,Bodi Alagh Khan dissolved Uriankhaitumen in 1538 and it later mostly annexed by theKhalkha tumen.[7] The northern Uriankhai groups lived in central Mongolia and they started moving to theAltai Mountains in the beginning of the 16th century.[8] Some groups migrated from the Khentii Mountains toKhövsgöl Province during the course of theNorthern Yuan dynasty (1368–1635).[3]
By the early 17th century the term Uriankhai was a general Mongolian term for all the dispersed bands to the northwest, whetherSamoyedic, Turkic, or Mongol in origin.[2] In 1757 theQing dynasty organized its far northern frontier into a series of Uriankhai banners: theKhövsgöl Nuur Uriankhai,Tannu Uriankhai;Kemchik,Salchak, and Tozhu (all Tuvans); andAltai people. Tuvans in Mongolia are called Monchoogo Uriankhai (cf. TuvanMonchak <Kazakhmonshak "necklace") by Mongolians. Another group of Uriankhai in Mongolia (inBayan-Ölgii andKhovd Provinces) are calledAltai Uriankhai. These were apparently attached to theOirats. A third group of Mongolian Uriankhai were one of the 6tumens ofDayan Khan in Eastern Mongolia. These last two Uriankhai groups are said to be descendants of the Uriankhan tribe from which cameJelme and his more famous cousinSubutai. The clan names of the Altai Uriankhai, Khövsgöl Nuur Uriankhai and Tuvans are different. There are no Turkic or Samoyedic clans among the Altai or Khövsgöl Uriankhais.
Some modern Uriankhais still live in theKhentii Mountains, Mongolia.
A variation of the name,Uraŋxai Sakha, was an old name for theYakuts.[9] Russian Pavel Nebolsin documented theUrankhu clan of VolgaKalmyks in the 1850s.[10] The existence of the Uriankhai was documented by the Koreans, who called them by the borrowed nameOrangkae (오랑캐, "savages"), especially in context of their attacks against the Siniticized world in the 14th and 15th centuries.[3]
The Taowen, Huligai, and Wodolian Jurchen tribes lived in the area of Heilongjiang in Yilan during the Yuan dynasty when it was part of Liaoyang province and governed as a circuit. These tribes became the Jianzhou Jurchens in the Ming dynasty and the Taowen and Wodolian were mostly real Jurchens. In the Jin dynasty, the Jin Jurchens did not regard themselves as the same ethnicity as the Hurka people who became the Huligai. Uriangqa was used as a name in the 1300s by Jurchen migrants in Korea from Ilantumen because the Uriangqa influenced the people at Ilantumen.[11][12][13] Bokujiang, Tuowulian, Woduolian, Huligai, Taowan separately made up 10,000 households and were the divisions used by the Yuan dynasty to govern the people along the Wusuli river and Songhua area.[14][15]