The Tatar confederation (; ; ) was one of the five major tribal confederations (''khanlig'') in the Mongolian Plateau in the 12th century.

Name and origin

The name "Tatar" was possibly first transliterated in the ''

Book of Song The ''Book of Song'' (''Sòng Shū'') is a historical text of the Liu Song dynasty of the Southern Dynasties of China. It covers history from 420 to 479, and is one of the Twenty-Four Histories, a traditional collection of historical records. ...

'' as 大檀 ''Dàtán'' ( MC: *''da^H-dan'') and 檀檀 ''Tántán'' (MC: *''dan-dan'') Golden, Peter B. "Some Notes on the Avars and Rouran", in ''The Steppe Lands and the World beyond Them''. Ed. Curta, Maleon. Iași (2013). pp. 54–56. quotes: "Datan may refer to the Tatars." " Kljaštornyj (Kljaštornyj and Savinov, Stepnye imperii, p. 57) reconstructs ''Datan'' as rendering *''dadar''/*''tatar'', the people who, he concludes, assisted Datan in the 420s in his internal struggles and who later are noted as the ''Otuz Tatar'' (“Thirty Tatars”) who were among the mourners at the funeral of Bumın Qağan (see the inscriptions of Kül Tegin, E4 and Bilge Qağan, E5)." which the book's compilers stated to be other names of the

Rourans The Rouran Khaganate ( Chinese: zh, c=, p=Róurán, label=no), also known as Ruanruan or Juan-juan ( zh, c=, p=Ruǎnruǎn, label=no) (or variously ''Jou-jan'', ''Ruruan'', ''Ju-juan'', ''Ruru'', ''Ruirui'', ''Rouru'', ''Rouruan'' or ''Tantan'') ...

;''Songshu'
vol. 95
. "芮芮一號大檀，又號檀檀，亦匈奴別種。" tr. "Ruìruì, one appellation is Dàtán, also called Tántán; they were also a separate stock of the Xiōngnú." ''Book of Song'' and ''

Book of Liang The ''Book of Liang'' () was compiled under Yao Silian and completed in 635. Yao heavily relied on an original manuscript by his father Yao Cha, which has not independently survived, although Yao Cha's comments are quoted in several chapters. ...

'' connected Rourans to the earlier

Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...

while the ''

Book of Wei The ''Book of Wei'', also known by its Chinese name as the ''Wei Shu'', is a classic Chinese historical text compiled by Wei Shou from 551 to 554, and is an important text describing the history of the Northern Wei and Eastern Wei from 386 to 5 ...

'' traced the Rouran's origins back to the Donghu,''Weishu'
vol. 103
"蠕蠕，東胡之苗裔也，姓郁久閭氏。" tr. "Rúrú, offsprings of Dōnghú, surnamed Yùjiŭlǘ"". This fascicle of the original ''Book of Wei'' was lost within centuries of its composition, and the current contents represent an abridgement of similar material interpolated from the ''

History of the Northern Dynasties The ''History of the Northern Dynasties'' () is one of the official Chinese historical works in the '' Twenty-Four Histories'' canon. The text contains 100 volumes and covers the period from 386 to 618 CE: the histories of Northern Wei, Wester ...

'', compiled about a hundred years after the original ''Book of Wei'' strata. See ''Book of Wei'', vol. 103, note 1. who were of Proto-Mongolic origin. Xu proposed that "the main body of the Rouran were of Xiongnu origin" and Rourans' descendants, namely Da Shiwei (aka Tatars), contained Turkic-speaking Xiongnu elements to a great extent.Xu, Elina-Qian
''Historical Development of the Pre-Dynastic Khitan''
, University of Helsinki, 2005. pp. 179–180 Even so, the language of the Xiongnu is still unknown, and Chinese historians routinely ascribed Xiongnu origins to various nomadic groups, yet such ascriptions do not necessarily indicate the subjects' exact origins: for examples, Xiongnu ancestry was ascribed to Turkic-speaking

Göktürks The Göktürks (; ), also known as Türks, Celestial Turks or Blue Turks, were a Turkic people in medieval Inner Asia. The Göktürks, under the leadership of Bumin Qaghan (d. 552) and his sons, succeeded the Rouran Khaganate as the main powe ...

and Tiele as well as Para-Mongolic-speaking

Kumo Xi The Kumo Xi (Xu Elina-Qian, p.296b), also known as the Tatabi, were ancient steppe people located in current Northeast China from 207 AD to 907 AD. After the death of their ancestor Tadun in 207, they were no longer called Wuhuan but joined the ...

and

Khitans The Khitan people (Khitan small script: ; ) were a historical nomadic people from Northeast Asia who, from the 4th century, inhabited an area corresponding to parts of modern Mongolia, Northeast China and the Russian Far East. As a people desce ...

. The first precise transcription of the Tatar ethnonym was written in Turkic on the

Orkhon inscriptions The Orkhon inscriptions are bilingual texts in Middle Chinese and Old Turkic, the latter written in the Old Turkic alphabet, carved into two memorial steles erected in the early 8th century by the Göktürks in the Orkhon Valley in what is modern- ...

, specifically, the

Kul Tigin Kul Tigin ( zh, 闕特勤, Pinyin: Quètèqín, Wade–Giles: chüeh-t'e-ch'in, AD 684–731) was a general and a prince of the Second Turkic Khaganate. Etymology Necip Asım (1921) initially gave his name as ''köl'', based on the e ...

(CE 732) and

Bilge Khagan Bilge Qaghan (; ; 683 – 25 November 734) was the fourth khagan, Qaghan of the Second Turkic Khaganate. His accomplishments were described in the Orkhon inscriptions. Names As was the custom, his personal name and the name after assuming the t ...

(CE 735) monuments as and referring to the Tatar confederation. In historiography, the Proto-Mongolic

Shiwei Shiwei may refer to: *Shiwei people Shiwei () were a Mongolic people that inhabited far-eastern Mongolia, northern Inner Mongolia, northern Manchuria and the area near the Okhotsk Sea beach. Records mentioning the Shiwei were recorded from th ...

tribes are associated with the Dada or identified with specifically the Thirty Tatars. As for the Nine Tatars, Ochir (2016) considers them to be Mongolic and proposes that this tribe apparently formed in Mongolia during the 6th–8th centuries, that their ethnogenesis involved Mongolic people as well as Mongolized Turks who had ruled them; later on, Nine Tatars participated in the ethno-cultural development of the Mongols.

Rashid al-Din Hamadani Rashīd al-Dīn Ṭabīb (;‎ 1247–1318; also known as Rashīd al-Dīn Faḍlullāh Hamadānī, ) was a statesman, historian, and physician in Ilkhanate Iran. Golden (1992) proposes that that ''Otuz'' "thirty" denoted thirty clans and ''Toquz'' "nine" possibly denoted nine tribes of the Tatar confederation. Tatars were proposed to dwell in Northeastern Mongolia and around Lake Baikal, or between Manchuria and Lake Baikal.

Ethnic and linguistic affiliations

Toquz-Tatars and Otuz-Tatars from the Orkhon inscriptions are proposed to be Mongolic speakers (e.g. by

sinologist Sinology, also referred to as China studies, is a subfield of area studies or East Asian studies involved in social sciences and humanities research on China. It is an academic discipline that focuses on the study of the Chinese civilizatio ...

Paul Pelliot Paul Eugène Pelliot (28 May 187826 October 1945) was a French sinologist and Orientalist best known for his explorations of Central Asia and the Silk Road regions, and for his acquisition of many important Tibetan Empire-era manuscripts and ...

, Крамаровский М. Г. (2001)
Золото Чингисидов: культурное наследие Золотой Орды
Санкт-Петербург: Славия. p. 11." and Ulrich Theobald,

turkologist Turkology (or Turcology or Turkic studies) is a complex of humanities sciences studying languages, history, literature, folklore, culture, and ethnology of people speaking Turkic languages and the Turkic peoples in chronological and comparative c ...

Peter Benjamin Golden Peter Benjamin Golden (born 1941) is an American professor emeritus of History, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University. He has written many books and articles on Turkic peoples, Turkic and Central Asian studies, such as ''An int ...

,Golden, Peter B. (1992). ''An Introduction to the History of the Turkic peoples''. Series: ''Turcologica'', IX. Wiesbaden: Otto-Harrassowitz. Altaist Volker Rybatzki, etc.). On the other hand, they were proposed to be Turkic speakers (e.g. by ''

Encyclopedia Britannica An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

'' or Kyzlasov apud Sadur 2012). Additionally, ''

'' proposes that Tatars were possibly related to the

Cumans The Cumans or Kumans were a Turkic people, Turkic nomadic people from Central Asia comprising the western branch of the Cumania, Cuman–Kipchak confederation who spoke the Cuman language. They are referred to as Polovtsians (''Polovtsy'') in Ru ...

and

Kipchaks The Kipchaks, also spelled Qipchaqs, known as Polovtsians (''Polovtsy'') in Russian annals, were Turkic nomads and then a confederation that existed in the Middle Ages inhabiting parts of the Eurasian Steppe. First mentioned in the eighth cent ...

. Ochir (2016) proposes that Mongolic and Mongolized Turkic peoples participated in the ethnogenesis of the Nine Tatars, whom Ochir considers to be Mongolic. Soviet and Russian orientalist argues that the Toquz Tatars and Otuz Tatars were instead Turkic-speaking, as the Persian-authored 10th century geographical treatise

Hudud al-Alam The ''Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam'' (, "Boundaries of the World," "Limits of the World," or in also in English "The Regions of the World") is a 10th-century geography book written in Persian by an anonymous author from Guzgan (present day northern Afg ...

stated that

Tatars Tatars ( )Tatar
in the Collins English Dictionary are a group of Turkic peoples across Eas ...

were part of the Toghuzghuz, quote (p. 94): "The Tātār too are a race (''jinsī'') of the Toghuzghuz" whom Minorsky identified with the

Qocho Qocho or Kara-Khoja ( zh, t=高昌回鶻, p=Gāochāng Huíhú, l=Gaochang Uyghurs, c=, s=), also known as Idiqut, ("holy wealth"; "glory"; "lord of fortune") was a Uyghur kingdom created in 843, with strong Chinese Buddhist and Tocharian ...

kingdom in eastern

Tianshan The Tian Shan, also known as the Tengri Tagh or Tengir-Too, meaning the "Mountains of God/Heaven", is a large system of mountain ranges in Central Asia. The highest peak is Jengish Chokusu at high and located in Kyrgyzstan. Its lowest point is ...

, founded by Uyghur refugees following the collapse of the

Uyghur Khaganate The Uyghur Khaganate (also Uyghur Empire or Uighur Khaganate, self defined as Toquz-Oghuz country; , Tang-era names, with modern Hanyu Pinyin: or ) was a Turkic empire that existed for about a century between the mid 8th and 9th centuries. It ...

, whose founders belonged to the

Toquz Oghuz The Toquz Oghuz (Lit. "''Nine Clan"'') was a political alliance of nine Turkic Tiele tribes in Inner Asia, during the early Middle Ages. The Toquz Oghuz was consolidated and subordinated within the First Turkic Khaganate (552–603) and rema ...

confederation. At the same time, Kyzlasov is against the identification of the Tatars of the Orkhon inscriptions with Dada from Chinese sources. However, Ochir thinks that the ''Datan'' ~ ''Dadan'' ~ ''Dada'' in Chinese sources since the 9th century indeed denoted Tatars, whom the Gōktürks had mentioned on the Orkhon inscriptions as Otuz-Tatar and Toquz-Tatar and whom Chinese had called Rourans. Writing in the 11th century, Kara-Khanid scholar

Mahmud al-Kashgari Mahmud ibn Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Kashgari; ; , Мәһмуд Қәшқири; , Махмуд Қашғарий was an 11th-century Kara-Khanid scholar and lexicographer of the Turkic languages from Kashgar. His father, Husayn, was the mayor of ...

included Tatars among the

Turkic peoples Turkic peoples are a collection of diverse ethnic groups of West Asia, West, Central Asia, Central, East Asia, East, and North Asia as well as parts of Europe, who speak Turkic languages.. "Turkic peoples, any of various peoples whose members ...

. He located the Tatars west of the

Kyrgyzes The Kyrgyz people (also spelled Kyrghyz, Kirgiz, and Kirghiz; or ) are a Turkic ethnic group native to Central Asia. They primarily reside in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and China. A Kyrgyz diaspora is also found in Russia, Tajikistan, and Kaza ...

.Maħmūd al-Kašğari. "Dīwān Luğāt al-Turk". Edited & translated by

Robert Dankoff Robert Dankoff is Professor Emeritus of Ottoman & Turkish Studies, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. Robert Dankoff was born on 24 September 1943 in Rochester, New York. In 1964, he received a Bac ...

in collaboration with James Kelly. In ''Sources of Oriental Languages and Literature''. Part I. (1982). pp. 82–83 When listing the 20 Turkic tribes, Kashgari also included non-Turks such as

, Khitans,

Tanguts The Tangut people (Tangut language, Tangut: , ''mjɨ nja̱'' or , ''mji dzjwo''; ; ; ) were a Sino-Tibetan languages, Sino-Tibetan people who founded and inhabited the Western Xia, Western Xia dynasty. The group initially lived under Tuyuhun aut ...

, and Chinese (the last one rendered as <

Karakhanid The Kara-Khanid Khanate (; zh, t=喀喇汗國, p=Kālā Hánguó), also known as the Karakhanids, Qarakhanids, Ilek Khanids or the Afrasiabids (), was a Karluk Turkic khanate that ruled Central Asia from the 9th to the early 13th century. Th ...

*'' Tawğaç''). In the extant manuscript's text, the Tatars are located west of the

; however, the manuscript's world-map shows that the Tatars were located west of the Ili river and west of the Bashkirs, whom Kashagari already located west of Tatars. Claus Schönig attributed such contradictions to errors made when the text and the map were copied. Kashgari additionally noted that Tatars were bilingual, speaking Turkic alongside their own languages; the same for the Yabaqus, Basmïls, and Chömüls. Yet available evidence suggested that the Yabaqus, Basmïls, and Chömüls were all Turkic speakers; therefore,

Mehmet Fuat Köprülü Mehmet Fuat Köprülü (December 5, 1890 – June 28, 1966), also known as Köprülüzade Mehmed Fuad, was a highly influential Turkish sociologist, Turkologist, scholar, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Deputy Prime Minister of the Rep ...

concludes that in the 11th century, the Yabaqus, Basmïls, Chömüls,

Qays Qays ʿAylān (), often referred to simply as Qays (''Kais'' or ''Ḳays'') were an Arab tribal confederation that branched from the Mudar group. The tribe may not have functioned as a unit in pre-Islamic Arabia (before 630). However, by the ea ...

and Tatars – the last two of whom Köprülü considers to be Turkified Mongols – could speak Kashgari's Karakhanid dialect as well as their own Turkic dialects, yet those peoples' own dialects differed from Karakhanid so substantially that Kashgari considered them other languages.Köprülü, Mehmet Fuat (author), Leiser, Gary & Dankoff, Robert (translators), (2006), ''Early Mystic in Turkish Literature'', p. 147-148 According to Klyashtorny, the name "Tatar" was the Turkic designation for Mongols. As Ushnitsky writes, the ethnonym "Tatar" was used by the Turks only to designate "strangers", that is, peoples who did not speak Turkic languages. The Turkic tribes living among their Mongol-speaking neighbors were also called "tat" or "tat-ar". According to Bartold, the peoples of Mongolian origin who spoke the Mongolian language had always called themselves Tatars. Subsequently, this word was completely supplanted by the word "Mongol".

History

The Rourans, Tatars' putative ancestors, roamed modern-day Mongolia in summer and crossed the

Gobi Desert The Gobi Desert (, , ; ) is a large, cold desert and grassland region in North China and southern Mongolia. It is the sixth-largest desert in the world. The name of the desert comes from the Mongolian word ''gobi'', used to refer to all of th ...

southwards in winter in search of pastures. Rourans founded their

Khaganate A khanate ( ) or khaganate refers to historic polity, polities ruled by a Khan (title), khan, khagan, khatun, or khanum. Khanates were typically nomadic Mongol and Turkic peoples, Turkic or Tatars, Tatar societies located on the Eurasian Steppe, ...

in the 5th century, around 402 CE. Among the Rourans' subjects were the

Ashina tribe Ashina may refer to: * Ashina tribe, a ruling dynasty of the Turkic Khaganate * Ashina clan (Japan), one of the Japanese clans * Ashina District, Hiroshima, a former Japanese district * Empress Ashina (551–582), empress of the Chinese/Xianbei dyna ...

, who overthrew their Rouran overlords in 552 and annihilated the Rourans in 555. One branch of the dispersed Rourans migrated to the

Greater Khingan The Greater Khingan Range or Da Hinggan Range ( zh, s=大兴安岭, t=大興安嶺, p=Dà Xīng'ān Lǐng; IPA: ) is a volcanic mountain range in the Inner Mongolia region of Northeast China. It was originally called the Xianbei Mountains, whi ...

mountain range where they renamed themselves after Tantan, a historical Khagan, and gradually incorporated themselves into the

tribal complex and emerged as 大室韋 ''Da (Great) Shiwei''. The Otuken region, constantly mentioned in the Orkhon inscriptions as the place of residence of the Turks, according to Mahmud Kashgar, was once in the country of the Tatars. According to

Vasily Bartold Vasily Vladimirovich Bartold (; – 19 August 1930), who published in the West under his German baptismal name, Wilhelm Barthold, was a Russian orientalist who specialized in the history of Islam and the Turkic peoples ( Turkology). Biogra ...

, this message suggests that the Mongols already then reached the west to the area where their neighbors from different sides were Turkic tribes. Persian historian

Gardizi Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd-al-Ḥayy ibn Żaḥḥāk ibn Maḥmūd Gardīzī (), better known as Gardizi (), was an 11th-century Persian historian and official, who is notable for having written the ''Zayn al-akhbar'', one of the earliest history books ...

listed Tatars as one of seven founding tribes of the Turkic Kimek confederation. The Shine Usu inscription mentioned that the Toquz Tatars, in alliance with the Sekiz-Oghuz, unsuccessfully revolted against Uyghur Khagan Bayanchur, who was consolidating power between 744 and 750 CE. After being defeated three times, half of the Oghuz-Tatar rebels rejoined the Uyghurs, while the other half fled to an unknown people, who were identified as

Karluks The Karluks (also Qarluqs, Qarluks, Karluqs, , Qarluq, Para-Mongolic languages, Para-Mongol: Harluut, zh, s=葛逻禄, t=葛邏祿 ''Géluólù'' ; customary phonetic: ''Gelu, Khololo, Khorlo'', , ''Khallokh'', ''Qarluq'') were a prominent no ...

. According to Senga and Klyashtorny, part of the Toquz-Tatar rebels fled westwards from the Uyghurs to the

Irtysh The Irtysh is a river in Russia, China, and Kazakhstan. It is the chief tributary of the Ob (river), Ob and is also the longest tributary in the world. The river's source lies in the Altai Mountains, Mongolian Altai in Dzungaria (the northern p ...

river basin, where they later organized the

and other tribal groupings (either already there or also newly arrived) into the Kimek tribal union. According to the Russian orientalist Vasily Ushnitsky, reports of medieval Muslim sources about the Tatar origin of the Kimak dynastic clan are the argument of the supporters of the Mongolian origin of the Kimaks and Kipchaks. The news about the Tatars, from whom the Kimaks separated, according to

Josef Markwart Josef Markwart (originally spelled Josef Marquart: December 9, 1864 in Reichenbach am Heuberg – February 4, 1930 in Berlin) was a German historian and orientalist. He specialized in Turkish and Iranian Studies and the history of the Middl ...

, confirms the fact of the movement to the west of the Turkified Mongolian elements. As for the division of Tatars who remained east, by the 10th century, they became subjects of the Khitan-led Liao dynasty. After the fall of the Liao, the Tatars experienced pressure from the Jurchen-led

Jin dynasty Jin may refer to: States Jìn 晉 * Jin (Chinese state) (晉國), major state of the Zhou dynasty, existing from the 11th century BC to 376 BC * Jin dynasty (266–420) (晉朝), also known as Liang Jin and Sima Jin * Jin (Later Tang precursor) ...

and were urged to fight against the other Mongol tribes. The Tatars lived on the fertile pastures around Hulun Nuur and Buir Nuur and occupied a trade route to

China proper China proper, also called Inner China, are terms used primarily in the West in reference to the traditional "core" regions of China centered in the southeast. The term was first used by Westerners during the Manchu people, Manchu-led Qing dyn ...

in the 12th century. From the 10th to 13th centuries,

Shatuo Turks The Shatuo, or the Shatuo Turks (; also transcribed as Sha-t'o, Sanskrit SartZuev Yu.A., ''"Horse Tamgas from Vassal Princedoms (Translation of Chinese composition "Tanghuyao" of 8-10th centuries)"'', Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences, Alma-Ata, I ...

joined Tatar confederation in the territory of the modern Mongolia, and became known as

Ongud The Ongud (also spelled Ongut or Öngüt; Mongolian: Онгуд, Онход; Chinese: 汪古, ''Wanggu''; from Old Turkic ''öng'' "desolate, uninhabited; desert" plus ''güt'' "class marker") were a Turkic tribe that later became Mongolized a ...

or White Tatars branch of the Tatars.Paulillo, Mauricio. "White Tatars: The Problem of the Öngũt conversion to Jingjiao and the Uighur Connection" in ''From the Oxus River to the Chinese Shores: Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia (orientalia - patristica - oecumenica)'' Ed. Tang, Winkler. (2013) pp. 237–252

Southern Song The Song dynasty ( ) was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Ten Kingdoms, ending ...

ambassador Zhao Hong wrote in 1221 that in

Genghis Khan Genghis Khan (born Temüjin; August 1227), also known as Chinggis Khan, was the founder and first khan (title), khan of the Mongol Empire. After spending most of his life uniting the Mongols, Mongol tribes, he launched Mongol invasions and ...

Mongol Empire The Mongol Empire was the List of largest empires, largest contiguous empire in human history, history. Originating in present-day Mongolia in East Asia, the Mongol Empire at its height stretched from the Sea of Japan to parts of Eastern Euro ...

, there were three divisions based on their distance from the

Jurchen Jin Jurchen may refer to: * Jurchen people, Tungusic people who inhabited the region of Manchuria until the 17th century ** Haixi Jurchens, a grouping of the Jurchens as identified by the Chinese of the Ming Dynasty ** Jianzhou Jurchens, a grouping of ...

-ruled China: the White Tatars (白韃靼 ''Bai Dada''), the Black Tatars (黑韃靼 ''Hei Dada''), and the Wild Tatars (生韃靼 ''Sheng Dada''),Theobald, Ulrich (2012
"Dada 韃靼, Tatars"
in ''ChinaKnowledge.de'' who were identified, by Kyzlasov, with the Turkic-speakers - including the

Öngüd The Ongud (also spelled Ongut or Öngüt; Mongolian: Онгуд, Онход; Chinese: 汪古, ''Wanggu''; from Old Turkic ''öng'' "desolate, uninhabited; desert" plus ''güt'' "class marker") were a Turkic tribe that later became Mongolized a ...

s (of Turkic

Shatuo The Shatuo, or the Shatuo Turks (; also transcribed as Sha-t'o, Sanskrit SartZuev Yu.A., ''"Horse Tamgas from Vassal Princedoms (Translation of Chinese composition "Tanghuyao" of 8-10th centuries)"'', Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences, Alma-Ata, I ...

origin), Mongolic speakers -to whom belonged Genghis Khan and his companions-, and the Tungusic speakers, respectively. ''

The Secret History of the Mongols The ''Secret History of the Mongols'' is the oldest surviving literary work in the Mongolic languages. Written for the Borjigin, Mongol royal family some time after the death of Genghis Khan in 1227, it recounts his life and conquests, and parti ...

'' claimed that the Tatars were mortal enemies of the Mongols: they betrayed

Khamag Mongol Khamag Mongol (; ) was a loose Mongolic tribal confederation on the Mongolian Plateau in the 12th century. It is sometimes considered to be a predecessor state to the Mongol Empire. The existence of a somewhat mysterious tribal power known ...

's khan

Ambaghai Ambaghai () or Hambaqai Khan (? – died 1156) was a Khan of the Khamag Mongol, succeeding his cousin Khabul Khan. He was one of the great-grandsons of Khaidu Khan and the cousin and predecessor of Hotula Khan. He was the Leader of the Taic ...

to be executed by the Jurchen

and also treacherously poisoned chief Yesukhei, father of

; consequently, in 1202, Genghis Khan allied with Ong Khan, conquered the Tatars, and had Tatar men taller than a linchpin executed, and spared only women and children. The surviving Tatars were absorbed into Genghis Khan's tribe, and the Tatar confederation ceased to exist. Since the Tatars were a tribe of thousands, their absorption greatly enlarged Genghis Khan's tribe.

Tatars and Mongols

Mongolian historian Urgunge Onon proposes that Mongols were initially known to Europeans as Tatars because Tatars were compelled to fight as vanguards before the main body of Mongol cavalry and the ethnonym Tatars would then be transferred to all Mongols.Onon (2001). p. 16 However, Bartold, Ushnitsky, Klyashtorny, Theobald, and Pow notice that even ethnic Mongols were often called Tatars, especially in unofficial sources either authored by foreigners (e.g. Turks, Chinese, Vietnamese, Jurchens, Javanese) or by ethnic Mongols themselves (e.g. general

Muqali Muqali (; 1170–1223), also spelt Mukhali and Mukhulai, was a Mongol general ("bo'ol", in service) who became a trusted and esteemed commander under Genghis Khan. The son of Gü'ün U'a, a Jalair leader who had sworn fealty to the Mongols, he ...

or even Khan Ögedei). quote (p 563): "Regarding the Volga Tatar people of today, it appears they took on the endonym of their Mongol conquerors when they overran the Dasht-i-Kipchak. It was preserved as the prevailing ethnonym in the subsequent synthesis of the Mongols and their more numerous Turkic subjects who ultimately subsumed their conquerors culturally and linguistically as al-Umari noted by the fourteenth century 2, p. 141 I argue that the name 'Tatar' was adopted by the Turkic peoples in the region as a sign of having joined the Tatar conquerors – a practice which Friar Julian reported in the 1230s as the conquest unfolded. The name stands as a testament to the survivability and adaptability of both peoples and ethnonyms. It became, as Sh. Marjani stated, their 'proud Tatar name.'" Pow proposes that the Mongolic-speaking tribes used the endonym Tatar during the first 30 to 40 years of the

's expansion, before self-identifying as Mongols, originally a dynastic-state label taken after the 12th-century Great Mongol State (大蒙古國); meanwhile, the old endonym Tatar fell out of favor and would be used to as a derogatory term for rebellious Mongolic-speaking tribes; Pow further speculates that the name-change was motivated by insecurities: either because the enemies held in contempt the name Tatar, or because the subjects used the endonym Tatar for Mongolic-speaking elites, or because rivalries among Genghis Khan's descendants necessitated the delineation of "in" and "out" groups.

Legacy

Turkic-speaking peoples of

Cumania The name Cumania originated as the Latin exonym for the Cuman–Kipchak confederation, which was a tribal confederation in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe, between the 10th and 13th centuries. The confederation was dominated by two Turk ...

, as a sign of political allegiance, adopted the endonym of their Mongol conquerors, before ultimately subsuming the latter culturally and linguistically.

Notes

References

{{coord missing, China, Mongolia Mongol states Former countries in Chinese history Mongol peoples Former confederations Former monarchies Nomadic confederacies