The Khatso people (), commonly known as the "

Mongols Mongols are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, China ( Inner Mongolia and other 11 autonomous territories), as well as the republics of Buryatia and Kalmykia in Russia. The Mongols are the principal member of the large family o ...

Yunnan Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

", is a Mongolic

ethnic group An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

, mainly distributed in Tonghai County in the

Yunnan Province Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...

of southwestern China. The Khatso people are descendants of the army personnel of the

Yuan dynasty The Yuan dynasty ( ; zh, c=元朝, p=Yuáncháo), officially the Great Yuan (; Mongolian language, Mongolian: , , literally 'Great Yuan State'), was a Mongol-led imperial dynasty of China and a successor state to the Mongol Empire after Div ...

History

Before the mid-13th century, Yunnan was held by many war-like independent states such as the Nanchao and

Dali Kingdom The Dali Kingdom, also known as the Dali State (; Bai language, Bai: Dablit Guaif), was a Bai people, Bai dynastic state situated in modern Yunnan province, China, from 937 to 1253. In 1253, it was Mongol conquest of China, conquered by the Mo ...

s. The

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 ...

under

Möngke Khan Möngke Khan (also Möngke Khagan or Möngke; 11 January 120911 August 1259) was the fourth khagan of the Mongol Empire, ruling from 1 July 1251 to 11 August 1259. He was the first Khagan from the Toluid line, and made significant reforms to im ...

conquered the Dali Kingdom in 1253. Until 1273, a Chinggisid prince received

viceroyalty A viceroyalty was an entity headed by a viceroy. It dates back to the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the sixteenth century. British Empire India * British Raj, India was governed by the Governor-General of India, Governor-General and Vi ...

over the area.

Kublai Khan Kublai Khan (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder and first emperor of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China. He proclaimed the ...

appointed the first governor, Turkmen Sayid Ajall, in Yunnan in 1273. Yunnan and

Hunan Hunan is an inland Provinces of China, province in Central China. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the Administrative divisions of China, province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to the east, Gu ...

were the main bases for Mongol military operations in

Indo-China Mainland Southeast Asia (historically known as Indochina and the Indochinese Peninsula) is the continental portion of Southeast Asia. It lies east of the Indian subcontinent and south of Mainland China and is bordered by the Indian Ocean to th ...

. The Yuan gave the name Yunnan district with

Kunming Kunming is the capital and largest city of the province of Yunnan in China. The political, economic, communications and cultural centre of the province, Kunming is also the seat of the provincial government. During World War II, Kunming was a Ch ...

as the headquarters. After the expulsion of the Mongols from China in 1368, the

Ming Dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

destroyed the Yuan loyalists in Yunnan under

Basalawarmi Basalawarmi (, , died January 6, 1382), commonly known by his hereditary noble title, the Prince of Liang, was a Yuan dynasty prince and loyalist who fought against the Ming dynasty. He was a descendant of Khökhechi, the fifth son of Kublai Kha ...

in 1381 and occupied it. In 1381, "Ming Dynasty troops routed the Yuan army by the shore of the Baishui River. The Mongol soldiers, their hopes to return to their homeland having been dashed, had no alternative but to settle down in the province." In the early 1980s, village elders sent a delegation to

Inner Mongolia Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of China. Its border includes two-thirds of the length of China's China–Mongolia border, border with the country of Mongolia. ...

to re-learn their long lost

Mongolian culture The culture of Mongolia has been shaped by the country's nomadic tradition and its position at the crossroads of various empires and civilizations. Mongolian culture is influenced by the cultures of the Mongolic, Turkic, and East Asian people ...

. They adopted customs similar to Mongols in the north gradually, and wrestling became their favorite sport when they saw how popular it was with other Mongols. Xingmeng Township - P1360339

There are about 13,000 Khatso people, and their culture is heavily influenced by the local Yi culture.

Language

Khatso people speak the

Katso language Katso, also known as Kazhuo or Khatso (autonyms: ', '; ), is a Loloish language of Xingmeng Township (兴蒙乡), Tonghai County, Yunnan, China. The speakers are officially classified as ethnic Mongols in China, Mongols, although they speak a Lol ...

, a

Loloish language The Loloish languages, also known as Yi (like the Yi people) and occasionally Ngwi or Nisoic, are a family of 50–100 Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily in the Yunnan province of Southwestern China. They are most closely related to Bur ...

, to communicate with each other, and use

Southwestern Mandarin Southwestern Mandarin (), also known as Upper Yangtze Mandarin (), is a Mandarin Chinese dialect spoken in much of Southwestern China, including in Sichuan, Yunnan, Chongqing, Guizhou, most parts of Hubei, the northwestern part of Hunan, the nor ...

with outsiders.Jiang Ying, Zhao Yan-zhen etc, "New Problems for Kazhuo Young People in Their Mother Tongue Acquisition", ''Journal of Research on Education for Ethnic Minorities'', Beijing, 2008 (No.2), General No.85, Vol.19

References

{{Ethnic groups in China Ethnic groups in China Mongol peoples

History

Language

See also

References