Salar of the Yellow River Bend and the White Camel from Samarkand

Where the Yellow River makes a great bend through the hills of eastern Qinghai lives a small Muslim people of Turkic root, the Salar. Their forefathers, their cherished legend holds, came from far Samarkand in Central Asia, leading a white camel laden with a Quran, until the camel turned to stone at a spring by the river whose soil and water matched those they carried from home. There, on the marches of the plateau, they settled and became farmers, boatmen, and orchard-keepers of the great river.

This account follows the Salar from their origins among the Oghuz Turks of Central Asia and the legend of the white camel, through their river-valley villages and their life about the mosque, into their Turkic tongue, their Muslim faith and the ancient Quran of Samarkand, and the orchards, the river, and the festivals of Islam that mark them. It ends with the Salar of today, a small Turkic Muslim people of the Yellow River bend keeping their faith and their memory alive in modern China.

The Turkic Muslims of the Yellow River Bend
Salar, Salur, and the Name of the People
The Salar Tongue of Turkic Root
The Yellow River Valley of Xunhua
The Villages, the Camel Legend, and the Old Order
The Household, the Mosque, and the Bonds of the Faithful
Islam, the Mosque, and the Quran from Samarkand
The Faith, the Falcon, and the Ways of the Salar
The Farmers, the Boatmen, and the Makers of the Valley
Wheat, Fruit, and the Table of the River
The Eid, the Wedding, and the Feasts of Islam
From Samarkand to the Bend of the Yellow River
The Salar in Modern China

The Turkic Muslims of the Yellow River Bend

Where the Yellow River, running down from the Tibetan plateau, makes a great bend through the hills of eastern Qinghai, lives a small Muslim people of Turkic root, the Salar. Numbering some hundred and thirty thousand, they dwell in the county of Xunhua and about it, on the banks of the river near the Jishi gorge, a people whose forefathers, their legend holds, came from far Samarkand in Central Asia many centuries ago.

The Salar speak a language of the Turkic family, kin to the tongues of the Turkmen and the other Oghuz Turks of Central Asia, and this Turkic root, so far from the other Turkic peoples of China, is the clearest mark of their distant origin. They are held to descend from a body of Turkmen who migrated eastward from Central Asia in the days of the Mongol empire and settled on the Yellow River.

A cherished legend tells how the ancestors of the Salar, leaving Samarkand, set out eastward leading a white camel laden with a Quran and with soil and water from their home, seeking a new land, and how, after long wandering, the camel knelt and turned to stone at a spring by the Yellow River whose soil and water matched those they carried, and there they settled. The stone camel and the ancient Quran are cherished still.

To speak of the Salar is to speak of a small Turkic Muslim people of the Yellow River bend, farmers and boatmen of the river valley, bound by their faith and by the memory of the long journey from Samarkand. Set among the Tibetans, the Hui, and the Han of the Qinghai marches, they hold a singular place among the peoples of China as keepers of a Turkic tongue and a Central Asian memory.

Salar, Salur, and the Name of the People

The people are known as the Salar, the name they give themselves, and it is by this name that the state recognises them as one of its nationalities and sets aside the Xunhua Salar autonomous county on the Yellow River. The name is their own word for who they are, borne from the distant west to the bend of the river and held through the centuries on the Qinghai marches.

The name Salar is connected by scholars to the Salur, one of the great tribes of the Oghuz Turks of Central Asia, from whom the Salar are held to descend, and the tie to the Salur points to the origin of the people in the Turkmen world of the Central Asian steppes and oases. The name thus carries the memory of the Salar’s distant roots in the west.

In the old Chinese records the Salar appear under various renderings, marking a people long settled on the Yellow River and often counted, for their faith, with the wider body of the Muslims of the northwest. Yet their distinct Turkic tongue set them apart, and the surveys of the modern age marked them as a people in their own right under the name Salar.

Whatever the rendering, the people know themselves as one, the Salar, a Turkic Muslim folk of the Yellow River bend, keepers of their tongue, their faith, and the memory of the journey from Samarkand. The name Salar, and its tie to the Salur of the Oghuz, marks them among the peoples of China as a far eastern outpost of the Turkic and Central Asian world.

The Salar Tongue of Turkic Root

The Salar speak a language of the Turkic family, of its Oghuz branch, kin to Turkmen and, more distantly, to Turkish and Azerbaijani, and quite distinct from the Turkic tongues of the Uyghurs and the Kazakhs of Xinjiang, which belong to other branches. This Oghuz Turkic speech, far in the east on the Yellow River, is a witness to the Salar’s origin among the Turkmen of Central Asia.

Set among Tibetan, Chinese, and Hui neighbours far from the other Turkic peoples, the Salar language took in a great many words from Chinese and from Tibetan, and from the Arabic and Persian of Islam, so that its vocabulary is rich in borrowings, while it kept its Oghuz Turkic grammar and core. It is the everyday tongue of the Salar villages, distinct from all the languages around it.

For most of their history the Salar had no writing of their own for their tongue, and used the Arabic script for religious purposes and Chinese for the wider world, while their own language was carried in speech and in song. The learning of the faith was pursued in Arabic and Persian in the schools of the mosques, and the mother tongue remained the language of the home and the field.

In the modern age standard Chinese has spread through schooling and daily life, and most Salar are bilingual, using Chinese for the wider world and their own Turkic tongue at home. The Salar language, unwritten and set among larger tongues far from its Turkic kin, is a rare and precious survival, an eastern outpost of the Oghuz Turkic world whose keeping is a matter of care.

A Salar girl with Quranic verses in Arabic

The Yellow River Valley of Xunhua

The homeland of the Salar is the valley of the Yellow River where it bends through the hills of eastern Qinghai, above all the county of Xunhua on the south bank, with communities across the river and in the neighbouring parts of Gansu. Here the great river, running down from the plateau, cuts through the Jishi gorge and opens into a valley where the Salar have farmed and fished for centuries.

This is high country, on the edge of the Tibetan plateau, cut by the deep valley of the Yellow River, with dry hills rising on either side and the fertile riverbank below. The Salar settled the valley where the water and the milder climate allowed the growing of grain and, above all, of fruit, for the Xunhua country is famed for its orchards, its pears and apricots and walnuts, watered by the river and warmed by the sheltered valley.

On the banks of the great river the Salar built their villages of earth and their mosques, and they became not only farmers of the valley but boatmen and ferrymen of the Yellow River, crossing and working the water that ran through their land. The river was the artery and the shaper of their homeland, giving water, fish, and a way through the hills.

Rooted to the valley of the Yellow River about Xunhua, and gathered in their autonomous county on the bend of the great river, the Salar made their homeland on the marches of the plateau. It is a land of river, gorge, and orchard, of earthen village and mosque, where a small Turkic Muslim people, far from their western roots, kept their tongue and their faith through the long centuries.

The Yellow River near Xunhua in the Salar country

The Villages, the Camel Legend, and the Old Order

In the days before the reach of the modern state, the Salar lived in their river-valley villages as farmers, fruit-growers, and boatmen, under the sway of custom, the guidance of elders, and, above all, the religious leaders of the mosque. Each village gathered about its mosque, and the ahong, the religious teacher, held a place of the highest authority, guiding the community in faith and in the affairs of daily life.

The legend of the white camel and the journey from Samarkand ordered the Salar sense of themselves, and the stone camel and the ancient Quran said to have been carried from the west were the sacred tokens of their origin, cherished and honoured. This memory of the long migration bound the people to their distant roots and to the faith they carried east.

Life turned on the farming of the valley, the growing of grain and the tending of the famed orchards, and on the working of the Yellow River as boatmen and ferrymen, and wealth was reckoned in land, in the orchards, and in the standing of the family and the mosque. The faith of Islam ordered the whole of Salar life, its prayers, its fasts, its feasts, and its rules of conduct.

Governed by custom, by elders, and above all by the religious leaders, and ruled from afar by the empire, the Salar lived as Muslim farmers and boatmen of the Yellow River bend. A small Turkic people bound by their faith and their tongue, far from their western roots, they kept their community, their language, and their religion through the long centuries on the marches of the plateau.

A Salar Muslim settlement near Jishi, 1932

The Household, the Mosque, and the Bonds of the Faithful

Salar society rests on the household, the kin, and, binding them together, the community of the faithful gathered about the mosque. The family is the foundation, the extended household living within its walled earthen courtyard, and above it the ties of kin and the bonds of the village, but over all stands the community of Islam, the fellowship of believers that gives the people their deepest unity.

The mosque is the heart of every Salar village, and the ahong, the religious teacher who leads the prayers and teaches the faith, holds a place of the highest authority, guiding the community in religion and in much of daily life. The village gathers at the mosque for the prayers and the festivals, and the learned men of the faith are honoured above all others.

The Salar, like the other Muslims of the northwest, were divided among the different brotherhoods and orders of Islam, the menhuan and the schools of teaching, which spread through the region and at times contended with one another. These religious divisions ran through the communities and shaped their life, for a person belonged not only to a village and a kin but to a school of the faith.

Marriage was made within the community of the faithful, arranged by the families according to the custom and the law of Islam, and marked by a lively wedding with its own Salar customs, its songs and its rites. Women kept the household and wore the head-covering of the faith, and the family and the mosque together, rather than any wider state, gave the Salar the frame of their life on the river.

A Salar community with fields and river, 1932

Islam, the Mosque, and the Quran from Samarkand

Islam is the heart of Salar life, the faith the people carried east from Samarkand and have held with firmness through the centuries on the Yellow River. From their very beginning as a people the Salar have been Muslims, and their religion is not one part of their life among others but the very frame and foundation of who they are, binding them together and setting them apart from their Tibetan and Han neighbours.

The five daily prayers, the fast of Ramadan, the giving of alms, and the other duties of Islam shape the rhythm of Salar life, and the mosque, with its prayer-hall and minaret, stands at the heart of every village. The ahong leads the prayers and teaches the faith, and the schools of the mosques, where the Quran and the Arabic learning are pursued, train the religious men who guide the people.

The greatest treasure of the Salar is the ancient Quran said to have been carried from Samarkand by their forefathers on the white camel, kept for centuries in a mosque of Xunhua, one of the oldest hand-written Qurans in China and a sacred relic that ties the people to their origin and their faith. Its keeping is a matter of the deepest reverence and pride.

The Salar, like the other Muslims of the northwest, belonged to the various brotherhoods and orders of Islam, and the region knew, in the days of the later empire, great religious strife among them. Yet through all the changes the Salar have held to their faith with firmness, and the mosque, the ahong, the prayer, and the ancient Quran remain the heart of the life of this small Turkic Muslim people.

The prayer hall of a Salar mosque in Xunhua

The Faith, the Falcon, and the Ways of the Salar

The traditions of the Salar are bound up above all with their faith and with the memory of their origin. The legend of the white camel and the journey from Samarkand, told and retold, is the heart of the Salar sense of themselves, and the stone camel and the ancient Quran are the sacred tokens of the tradition, honoured and cherished as the marks of the people’s coming.

The rites of Islam order the great occasions of life and the year, the naming of a child, the marriage, and the death, all kept according to the custom and the law of the faith, and the festivals of Islam, the two Eids and the other holy days, are the high points of the Salar year. The Salar wedding, with its own songs, its rites, and its customs, is among the liveliest of their traditions.

The keeping of falcons and the hunting with them was an old tradition among some of the Salar, a mark of the horseman and the hunter drawn from their Central Asian roots, and the working of the Yellow River as boatmen, with the skin rafts and the ferries of the great river, was a skill and a tradition of the valley people.

The dress of the Salar marks them as a Muslim people of the northwest, the men in the white or black cap of the faith and the elders with the beard, the women covering the head with the veil in the manner of Islam. Through the faith, the legend of the camel, the lively wedding, and the working of the river, the Salar mark their identity and the passages of life in ways carried from their western roots and their eastern home.

The Farmers, the Boatmen, and the Makers of the Valley

The crafts of the Salar are the crafts of a farming and river people of the Yellow River bend. Chief among their skills was the farming of the valley and, above all, the tending of the famed orchards of Xunhua, the pears, the apricots, the walnuts, and the other fruits that the sheltered river valley bore, a skill of grafting, watering, and care handed down through the generations.

The working of the Yellow River was another great skill of the Salar, who became boatmen and ferrymen of the great river, crossing and carrying on the water that ran through their land, at times on rafts buoyed by inflated skins in the old manner of the northwest. The river gave the Salar a livelihood and a craft as well as water for their fields and orchards.

The building of the earthen house and the mosque, with its prayer-hall and minaret blending Chinese and Islamic forms, drew on the skills of the Muslim northwest, and the women wove and sewed the cloth and the dress of the household. The working of leather, wood, and the goods of daily life rounded out the crafts of a self-reliant valley people.

The tending of orchards and the working of the river, together with the farming of grain, were the mainstays of the Salar, and the fruit of Xunhua became famed across the region and beyond. Yet it is above all for their orchards and their skill on the Yellow River that the crafts of the Salar are known, an art bound to the valley and the great river that shaped their eastern home.

Salar children fetching Yellow River water, 1932

Wheat, Fruit, and the Table of the River

The food of the Salar is the food of the Muslim northwest, built on the wheat and other grains of their valley fields, ground into flour and made into the noodles, the flatbreads, and the steamed breads of the region. Wheat is the chief staple, and the hand-pulled noodles and the breads of the northwest are the daily food, prepared according to the ways of the region.

To the bread and noodles are added the mutton and beef that, as a Muslim people, the Salar prepare according to the halal law of their faith, for the pig is forbidden and the meat must be lawfully slaughtered. Mutton is the meat of the festivals and of welcome, and the offering of meat and bread to a guest is a mark of the warm hospitality of the people.

The great gift of the Salar table is the fruit of their famed orchards, the pears, the apricots, the walnuts, and the other fruits of the sheltered Yellow River valley, eaten fresh and dried and traded across the region. This wealth of fruit, rare in the dry northwest, gives the Salar table a sweetness and variety that mark it among the peoples of the plateau’s edge.

Tea is drunk and offered to guests, above all the eight-treasure tea of the northwest, brewed with dried fruits, nuts, and sugar in a covered bowl, and the rules of the faith order the Salar table, the forbidding of pork and wine and the keeping of the fast of Ramadan. From the wheat and mutton of the northwest to the famed fruit of the Xunhua orchards, the food of the Salar is that of a Muslim people of the Yellow River bend.

The Eid, the Wedding, and the Feasts of Islam

The festivals of the Salar are the festivals of Islam, for their year is ordered by the calendar of the faith. The greatest are the two Eids, the feast that ends the fast of Ramadan and the feast of the sacrifice, kept with prayer at the mosque, the wearing of the best clothes, the visiting of kin, and the sharing of mutton and the good things of the table, the high points of the Salar year.

The fast of Ramadan is the great observance of the year, when for a month the faithful take no food or drink from dawn to dusk, breaking the fast each evening and gathering for prayer, and the ending of the fast is met with the joyful feast of the lesser Eid. This month of discipline and devotion binds the community in the shared observance of the faith.

The Salar wedding is among the liveliest of the people’s celebrations, joining two families of the faithful with its own Salar songs, rites, and customs, and marked by feasting, the wearing of fine dress, and the gathering of kin. The customs of the wedding, drawn from the Salar’s own traditions and the law of Islam, make it a great occasion of the community.

The rites of life, the naming of the child, the marriage, and the burial of the dead in the manner of Islam, gather the kin for ceremony, and the holy days of the faith are kept with prayer at the mosque. At all these occasions the prayer, the sharing of mutton and the fruit of the orchards, and the fellowship of the faithful bind the community, so that the Salar mark the great moments of life and the year in the way of Islam.

From Samarkand to the Bend of the Yellow River

The Salar trace their origin, in legend and in history alike, to the Turkmen of Central Asia, and above all to the Salur tribe of the Oghuz Turks. Their forefathers, the story holds, left Samarkand and journeyed east, leading a white camel laden with a Quran and with soil and water from their home, until the camel knelt and turned to stone at a spring by the Yellow River, and there, in the days of the Mongol empire, they settled.

Settled on the bend of the Yellow River about Xunhua, the Salar grew into a distinct people over the centuries, keeping their Turkic tongue and their Muslim faith while mingling with the peoples around them, the Tibetans, the Hui, and the Han. Through the age of the later empire they lived as Muslim farmers and boatmen of the river, often counted with the wider Muslim world of the northwest.

The Muslim northwest knew great upheavals in the nineteenth century, when a succession of risings and their bloody suppression convulsed the region, and the Salar, as part of the Muslim world of the Yellow River marches, were caught up in these troubles, in which the divisions among the brotherhoods of Islam played their part. These were hard and bloody years for the small people of the river.

After the founding of the People’s Republic the Salar were recognised as one of the official nationalities of China, their distinct Turkic language marking them off from the Hui, and the Xunhua Salar autonomous county was established in their homeland. The modern age has brought roads, schools, and the reach of the state to the Yellow River valley, drawing the Salar into the wider life of the country.

The Salar Quran brought from Samarkand in 1371

The Salar in Modern China

Today the Salar number some hundred and thirty thousand, living still chiefly on the bend of the Yellow River about Xunhua in eastern Qinghai, with communities in the neighbouring parts of Gansu and a scattering elsewhere. A small Turkic Muslim people, they remain rooted in the river valley where their forefathers settled after the long journey from Samarkand, bound by their faith and their tongue.

Modern life has come to the Salar valley in the shape of roads, schools, and the reach of the market, and the famed fruit of the Xunhua orchards is traded across China, while many Salar, as of old and as of the wider northwest, go out as traders and in the food trade across the country, some becoming known for their restaurants and their enterprise.

Islam remains the heart of Salar life, the mosque the centre of every village and the faith the frame of the people’s days, and the ancient Quran of Samarkand is cherished as the sacred token of their origin. Yet standard Chinese and modern schooling spread among the young, and the Turkic mother tongue, unwritten and set among larger languages far from its kin, is among the more fragile parts of the Salar heritage.

Through change the Salar carry their identity with firmness. Their Muslim faith and their mosques, their Turkic tongue, the legend of the white camel and the ancient Quran, the famed fruit of their orchards, and their skill on the Yellow River endure as marks of who they are. A small Turkic Muslim people of the river bend, far from their western roots, the Salar keep their faith and their memory alive in modern China.