Nadun

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Nadun is a traditional festival held by the Monguor people (known as the Tu Zu in Chinese). The festival's name resembles the Nadam festival of the Mongols, but different in format and content.

Monguor people ethnic group

The Monguor, the Tu people, the White Mongol or the Tsagaan Mongol, are one of the 56 officially recognized ethnic groups in the China. The "Tu" ethnic category was created in the 1950s.

The Mongols are a Mongolic ethnic group native to Mongolia and to China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. They also live as minorities in other regions of China, as well as in Russia. Mongolian people belonging to the Buryat and Kalmyk subgroups live predominantly in the Russian federal subjects of Buryatia and Kalmykia.

Contents

Origins

The Monguor “Nadun” and the Mongolian “Nadam” are special nouns designated to an annual festival and reflect their shared origins from the northern nomadic people, such as the Xianbei, who were recorded to have “one major gathering every spring for leisure and fun”. [1] Whereas the Mongolian Nadam preserved the nomadic features of horse race, wrestling, and archery, the Monguor Nadun has encoded their history through masked dance performances and presents as an annual military drill combined with joyful celebrations of harvest. It is specifically held in the Sanchuan/Guanting area in Minhe County, located on the north bank of the Yellow River, at the easternmost point of Qinghai, as the River flows eastward into Gansu, which holds the most densely populated Monguor settlement today. [2]

The Monguor language is a Mongolic language of its Shirongolic branch and is part of the Gansu–Qinghai sprachbund. There are several dialects, mostly spoken by the Monguor people. A written script was devised for Huzhu Monguor (Mongghul) in the late 20th century, but has been little used. A division into two languages, namely Mongghul in Huzhu Tu Autonomous County and Mangghuer in Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County, is considered necessary by some linguists. While Mongghul was under strong influence from Tibetan, the same holds for Mangghuer and Chinese, and local dialects of Chinese such as Gangou were in turn influenced by Monguor.

Mongolian language language spoken in Mongolia

The Mongolian language is the official language of Mongolia and both the most widely-spoken and best-known member of the Mongolic language family. The number of speakers across all its dialects may be 5.2 million, including the vast majority of the residents of Mongolia and many of the Mongolian residents of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. In Mongolia, the Khalkha dialect, written in Cyrillic, is predominant, while in Inner Mongolia, the language is dialectally more diverse and is written in the traditional Mongolian script. In the discussion of grammar to follow, the variety of Mongolian treated is Standard Khalkha Mongolian, but much of what is to be said is also valid for vernacular (spoken) Khalkha and for other Mongolian dialects, especially Chakhar.

Xianbei ancient people in Manchuria and Mongolia

The Xianbei were an ancient nomadic people that once resided in the eastern Eurasian steppes in what is today Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, and Northeastern China. They originated from the Donghu people who splintered into the Wuhuan and Xianbei when they were defeated by the Xiongnu at the end of the 3rd century BC. The Xianbei were largely subordinate to larger nomadic powers and the Han dynasty until they gained prominence in 87 AD by killing the Xiongnu chanyu Youliu. However unlike the Xiongnu, the Xianbei political structure lacked the organization to pose a concerted challenge to the Chinese for most of their time as a nomadic people. After suffering several defeats by the end of the Three Kingdoms period, the Xianbei migrated south and settled in close proximity to Chinese society and submitted as vassals, being granted the titles of Dukes. As the Xianbei Murong, Tuoba and Duan tribes were one of the Five Barbarians who were vassals of the Han Chinese Western Jin and Eastern Jin dynasties, they took part in the Uprising of the Five Barbarians as allies of the Han Chinese Eastern Jin against the other four barbarians, the Xiongnu, Jie, Di and Qiang. The Xianbei were at one point all defeated and conquered by the Di Former Qin empire before it fell apart at the Battle of Fei River at the hands of the Eatern Jin. The Xianbei later founded their own states and reunited northern China China as the Northern Wei. These states opposed and promoted sinicization at one point or another but trended towards the latter and had merged with the general Chinese population by the Tang dynasty.

Format

Held by villages in turn along the Yellow River, the Nadun celebration circles through the entire Sanchuan/Guanting region in Minhe, the Nadun festival is inherently tied to agricultural work. It functions as the Monguor form of “Thanksgiving” in the Western culture and expresses gratitude for an abundance of harvest blessed by Heaven referred to as “Tiangere.” The event lasts over two months, starting from the twelfth of the seventh month to the fifteenth of the ninth month by the Chinese lunar calendar, and spans for a total of 63 days, giving rise to its eponym as "the world’s longest festival. [3] [4] [5]

Yellow River second longest river in China

The Yellow River or Huang He is the second longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth longest river system in the world at the estimated length of 5,464 km (3,395 mi). Originating in the Bayan Har Mountains in Qinghai province of Western China, it flows through nine provinces, and it empties into the Bohai Sea near the city of Dongying in Shandong province. The Yellow River basin has an east–west extent of about 1,900 kilometers (1,180 mi) and a north–south extent of about 1,100 km (680 mi). Its total drainage area is about 752,546 square kilometers (290,560 sq mi).

Thanksgiving holiday in North America

Thanksgiving Day is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in Canada, the United States, some of the Caribbean islands, and Liberia. It began as a day of giving thanks and sacrifice for the blessing of the harvest and of the preceding year. Similarly named festival holidays occur in Germany and Japan. Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States, and around the same part of the year in other places. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well.

Western culture Norms, values and political systems originating in Europe

Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization, Occidental culture, the Western world, Western society, and European civilization, is the heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies that originated in or are associated with Europe. The term also applies beyond Europe to countries and cultures whose histories are strongly connected to Europe by immigration, colonization, or influence. For example, Western culture includes countries in the Americas and Australasia, whose language and demographic ethnicity majorities are European. Western culture has its roots in Greco-Roman culture from classical antiquity.

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References

  1. ↑ Ma, Changshou [馬長壽] (1962). Wuhuan yu Xianbei [The Wuhuan and Xianbei] 烏桓與鮮卑. Shanghai [上海], Shanghai ren min chu ban she [Shanghai People's Press] 上海人民出版社. p. 175-176.
  2. ↑ Stuart, Kevin and Jun Hu (1993). "That all may prosper: the Monguor Nadun of the Guanting/Sanchuan Region, Qinghai, China." Anthropos 88: 15-27.
  3. ↑ Lü, Xia [呂霞] (2001). Xin ji gu tu, peng cheng wan li [Heart tied to the homeland, the eagle flies thousands of miles] 心系故土, 鹏程万里. Zhongguo tu zu [China's Tu Nationality] 中国土族. 4: 27-29. p. 28.
  4. ↑ Hu, Fang [胡芳] (2004). "Da hao--Tu xiang 'nadun' [The Great Tu 'Nadun'] 大好--土乡'纳顿'." Zhongguo tu zu [China's Tu Nationality] 中国土族 22(2): 14-16. p. 14.
  5. ↑ Ma, Daxue [马达学] (2005). "Qinghai tu zu 'Nadun' wen hua xian xiang jie du [An Interpretation of the cultural phenomenon of 'Nadun' of the Tu Nationality in Qinghai] 青海土族'纳顿'文化现象解读." Qinghai shi fan da xue xue bao [Journal of Qinghai Normal University] 青海师范大学学报 108(1): 79-84. p. 79.
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