The ancient Qiang is not the name of a nation, but the collective name of the tribes in the Central Plains for the vast number of nomadic peoples in the western regions, such as Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Tibet, Sichuan, etc. They are composed of different nationalities. Their language, clothes, customs, etc. They are all different, and the only thing in common may be the nomadic lifestyle of "living by weeds".
Most of them live by herding sheep. When the ancients created characters, they combined "sheep" and "people" to form Qiang characters. The interpretation of Qiang characters in Shuo Wen Jie Zi is also: "Qiang, the shepherd of Xirong. From sheep, from people, sheep also sound. "
According to the Records of the Later Han Dynasty, during the Han Dynasty, the Qiang people lived in Guizhou in the south and Lop Nur, Turpan and Loulan in Xinjiang in the northwest. In Song Dynasty, Li Yuanhao, the Tangut Qiang captaincy, established Xixia Kingdom. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China 300 years ago, Xixia, Northern Song and Liao countries have all reached their respective heyday.
However, in A.D. 1227, it was destroyed by Mongolia in Mobei, and the Tangut Qiang people died or fled, and gradually disappeared in the northwest without a trace.
Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County, located in the northwest of Sichuan Basin, belongs to Mianyang City, Sichuan Province, and is the only Qiang Autonomous County in China.
In 2005, archaeologists excavated Yanyun Cave, about 300 meters northeast of Ganlong Cave, and found fire pits and ash pits in the late Pleistocene, as well as stone tools, stone leaves and other relics and more mammalian fossils. According to the unearthed fossil specimens, the age of this site is about 20,000 to 30,000 years ago. These archaeological achievements show that people have lived here for thousands of years.
Thousands of years ago, the ancestors of this area belonged to the ancient Qiang nationality. Dating back more than 2,000 years ago, the Qiang people living in the northwest prairie were forced to flee their homes in order to escape the war, and one of them came to the upper reaches of Minjiang River and Fujiang River, which had already entered the agricultural society. In order to adapt to the local living and geographical conditions, they began to learn farming techniques from the local indigenous Geji people in order to quickly adapt to the new living environment. In addition to the change of production mode, the Qiang nationality in northwest China has also experienced the change of housing.
When they first arrived in Songpan, they still followed the tradition of "building a wool tent by the river" in the northwest prairie, but after entering Maoxian, this tent could not adapt to the local environment. Here, Geji people take the stone watchtower as their living room, and the highest one is more than ten feet, which is called "Qionglong", that is, today's watchtower.
This unique building is a house style created by them according to the natural environment of mountains and valleys. The Qiang people in the northwest began to learn from the Geji people. In the end, they not only learned this architectural style, but also carried it forward, leaving many architectural miracles in the mountains that amazed people today.
Northwest Qiang people and Geji people have lived together for a long time, and their long-term communication and integration have made them form a common culture, although different communities still retain some different cultural characteristics. This merged group was collectively called "Qiang" by later generations and eventually became the ancestor of the Qiang people in Beichuan.
Myths and Legends of Qiang War
The process of the ancient Qiang people moving south to the upper reaches of Minjiang River and Fujiang River is not systematically recorded in ancient literature, but it is described in detail in the form of myths and legends in the widely circulated Qiang epic "Qiang Song Zhan".
According to epic records, the Qiang people living in the northwest prairie were hunted down by "magic soldiers", and the nine Qiang brothers led nine armies to move westward. However, the team was scattered in the war, and they hurried to find their own future. One of the tribes named Baigou turned south halfway, and after fleeing to Rigaling, it was attacked by the magic soldiers who followed.
At the critical moment, Tianshenmu Bita heard the news and decided to rescue him. He threw down three white stones and turned them into tall snow-capped mountains, which blocked the chasing magic soldiers and the Qiang people were able to escape. Later, they crossed the mountains between Qinghai and Sichuan, entered the upper reaches of the Minjiang River and began to settle in Reze (now Songpan County).
However, later, in Ribuba (now the seat of Maoxian County), it was harassed by fierce Geji people, and the contradiction intensified. The two sides confronted each other many times, with Tianshenmu Bita as the referee. Thanks to the help of local gods, the Qiang people won many victories, occupied Nibu Dam and settled there. They develop agricultural production and thrive here. Bai Gou, the leader, had nine sons who settled in the upper reaches of Minjiang River and Fujiang River respectively. The ninth son is Erguo (Erguoji) and lives in Juda, which is now Beichuan.