The Mongols and Nomadic Identity
The Mongols and Nomadic Identity
The Case of the Kitans in China
This paper examines the Mongol ethnic reconfiguration of the Eurasian steppe people through the case study of the Kitans in China. It argues that Mongol imperial policies played a crucial role in determining the direction of identity change among their nomadic population and contributed to the Kitan assimilation in China. While in the United Empire period many Kitans soldiers and administrators joined the Mongol ranks and “became Mongols,” in the long run, most of them ended up assimilating into China. This was due to Mongol policies of dissolving the Kitan political frameworks; their geographical dispersion and their classification with the northern Chinese (not with the Mongols or steppe people). The penetration of Mongolian social norms—that were similar to the Kitans’—into Yuan China, facilitated this process. The paper reviews and analyzes the Kitans’ process of identity change and its expressions, comparing the Kitans in China to their counterparts in Iran.
Keywords: Kitans, assimilation, Mongol empire, China, acculturation, identity, nomadic people, Jin dynasty, Yuan dynasty, migration
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