Concept

Dungan people

Summary
Dungan is a term used in territories of the former Soviet Union to refer to a group of Muslim people of Hui origin. Turkic-speaking peoples in Xinjiang Province in Northwestern China also sometimes refer to Hui Muslims as Dungans. In both China and the former Soviet republics where they reside, however, members of this ethnic group call themselves Hui because Dungans are descendants of historical Hui groups that migrated to Central Asia. In the censuses of the countries of the former Soviet Union, the Dungans (enumerated separately from Chinese) are found in Kazakhstan (36,900 according to the 1999 census), Kyrgyzstan (58,409 according to the 2009 census) and Russia (801 according to the 2002 census). In the Ferghana Valley, the first Dungans to appear in Central Asia originated from Kuldja and Kashgar, as slaves captured by raiders; they mostly served in private wealthy households. After the Russians conquered Central Asia in the late 19th century and abolished slavery, most female Dungan slaves remained where they had originally been held captive. Russian ethnographer Vlaidimir Petrovich Nalivkin and his wife said that "women slaves almost all remained in place, because they either were married to workers and servants of their former owners or they were too young to begin an independent life". Dungan women slaves were of low status and not regarded highly in Bukhara. Turkic Muslim slave-raiders from Khoqand did not distinguish between Hui Muslim and Han Chinese, enslaving Hui Muslims in violation of Islamic law. During the Afaqi Khoja revolts Turkic Muslim Khoja Jahangir Khoja led an invasion of Kashgar from the Kokand Khanate and Jahangir's forces captured several hundred Dungan Chinese Muslims (Tungan or Hui) who were taken to Kokand. Tajiks bought two Chinese slaves from Shaanxi; they were enslaved for a year before being returned by the Tajik Beg Ku-bu-te to China. All Dungans captured, both merchants and the 300 soldiers Janhangir captured in Kashgar, had their queues cut off when brought to Kokand and Central Asia as prisoners.
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