Bonan

The Bonan are a Mongolic Muslim people of Hezhou on the Gansu-Qinghai border, named after the Bao'an garrison in their homeland. Their ancestors were Mongol and semu soldiers garrisoned at Tongren in the Yuan and early Ming, staying when Mongol rule collapsed and intermarrying with Hui, Tibetan and Han neighbours.

Originally Tibetan Buddhists, they took their name from the Bao'an town and garrison founded by the Ming in 1585 under Hezhou guard. In the eighteenth century Hui Sufi Ma Laichi converted many to Islam, and strife with Tibetan neighbours pushed the Muslim Bonan north to Xunhua.

They speak Bonan, an archaic scriptless Mongolic language, using Mandarin for writing and trade. Wheat and rye farmers, they are famed as smiths, their folded-steel Bao'an waist knives prized across the northwest. Veil colours mark married and unmarried women; Buddhist kin left in Tongren kept the same speech.