Monguor

The Monguor, who call themselves Mongghul and are known in Chinese as the Tu, are a Mongolic people of northeastern Qinghai and Gansu. Their dominant tradition traces them to the Murong Xianbei who followed Tuyuhun Khan west in 284 and built the Tuyuhun empire, overthrown by the Tibetan Empire in 670; Mongol troops settled there after the thirteenth-century conquests also entered the mix, and the Chinese name Tu derives from Tuyuhun.

After the fall of Western Xia in 1227, they passed under Mongol and then Ming rule, keeping self-government under hereditary tusi. From the middle of the Ming dynasty the state confiscated their ranches and drafted their horses, pushing them toward settled agriculture.

Their religion blended Tibetan Buddhism with Taoism, Confucian rites and shamanic practice, and their Nadun festival brought masked harvest dances to Yellow River villages for two months.