Dingling

The Dingling/Gaoche/Chile/Tiele (丁零/高車/敕勒/铁勒) peoples were an ancient Siberian people. They originally dwelled in the area west of modern-day Lake Baikal at the bank of Lena River and were already around during the time of the Xiongnu empire.

The Dinglings were a numerous, warlike, vital ethnos of hunters, fishers, and gatherers of the southern Siberian mountain taiga from the Lake Baikal to Altai Range. They dominated this area for millennia, from the Neolithic down to the founding of the Xiongnu Confederacy. Along the edges of the retreating glaciers, among grazing herds of game animals like mammoth, bison, elk, reindeer, musk ox, etc., a large part of the Proto-Dinglings gradually wandered along the streams of the Amur, Lena and Aldan, all the way to the Pacific coast, and further to Alaska. Another group of this ethnos migrated toward the northwest in the watersheds of the Irtysh, Ob, and Yenisei.

In Chinese chronicles, the Dinglings were usually correspond with tribe's name like Gaoche, Chile and Tiele, in many chronicles they were considered to be the former Dinglings under commentaries made in later era. The Dinglings are not longer mentioned by the 7th-century along with Suishu and Beishi, the anthropology of Dinglings were unknown since there was never been a records for it from the chronicles or commentaries. According to the Weilue, one group of Dingling escaped to the western steppe in Kazakhstan while the remaining Dingling became absorbed into various Altaic peoples known as the Gaoche, and later, the Tiele. Groups such as Seyanto (Syr-Tardush), Basmil (Baximi), Oguz (Wuhu) and the Uyghur (Huihe) are the Tiele tribes, a section of Suishu (v. 84) from the 7th-century:

"The forebear of the Tiele belonged to those of Xiongnu descendants, and had the largest divisions of tribes. They occupied along the valleys, scattering in the vast region west to the Western Sea. At the area north of Tula River, are the Pugu, Tongluo, Weihu (Uyghur), Bayegu, Fuluo, which are composited into the Sijin legion, other tribes such as Mengchen, Turuhu, Sijie, Hun, Huxue and so forth, also dwelled in this area. They have a 20,000 invincible armies. In the regions west of Hami, the north of Karashahr, near the edge of Sayan Mountains, come to the abodes of Qipi, Boluozhi, Yizhi, Supo, Nahe, Wuhu (Oguz), Hugu, Yezhi, Yunihu and so forth. They have a 20,000 invincible armies. After passing the south-west of Altai Mountains, are the Xueyantuo (Syr-Tardush), Zhileer, Shipan (Yueban), Daqi and so forth. They have a 10,000 invincible armies. Leaving these, we come to the regions north of Samarkand and by the river of Volga, here, dwell the Hedie, Hejie, Bahu, Bigan (Pecheneg), Juhai, Hebixi, Hecuo, Suba, Yemo, Keda and so forth. They have a 30,000 invincible armies. At the western portion, from the east to the west of Caspian Sea, are the Sulu, Hesan (Khazar), Suoye, Miecu, Longhu and so forth. They have a 8,000 invincible armies. Until we reach to the east of Byzantine Empire, are the Enqu, Alan (Alani), Beiru, Jiuli, Fuwahun and so forth. They have a nearly 20,000 invincible armies. And lastly, in the regions south of Lake Baikal, dwell the Dubo (Tuva) and also some other tribes. The names of these tribes are different, but all of them can be classified as Tiele. The Tiele don't have a master, they are subjected to both Eastern and Western Gokturks separately. They don't have permanent residence, and moved with the changes of grass and water. The only characteristic of them, are fierce and brutal. They are the good riders and archers, and especially greed without restraint that make one's living by looting. These tribes toward the west are more cultivated, in respect that they breed on cattles and sheeps, but are shortage of horses. Since the Gokturks had established a state, they have been recruited as the auxiliary of empire and conquered both east and westard, thus annexed all of the northern regional lands.

The customs of the Tiele and Gokturks are not much different. However a man of the Tiele lives in his wife's home after marriage and will not return to his own home with his wife until the birth of a child. In addition, the Tiele also bury their dead under the ground."

Language

Probably, the Proto-Dinglings spoke a polysynthetic language with an active typology, and exhibited, linguistically and culturally, a unified ethnic community. Heinrich Werner: Zur jenissejisch-indianischen Urverwandtschaft. 2004. ca. 196 pp. developed a new genealogical concept, which he terms “Baikal-Siberic,” in which the Yeniseian peoples (Arin, Assan, Yug, Ket, Kott, and Pumpokol), the Na-Dene “Indians,” and the Ding-ling folk of the ancient Chinese chronicles can all be traced back to “Proto-Dingling.” The linguistic comparison of Na-Dene and Yeniseian shows that the quantity and character of the correspondences point unequivocally to common origin (Urverwandtschaft).”

Etymology

Ding-ling can be seen to resemble (1) the Yeniseian word *dzheng ‘people’ > Ket de?ng, Yug dyeng, Kott cheang; and (2) the Na-Dene word *ling or *hling ‘people’, as manifested in the name of the Tlingit (properly hling-git ‘son of man, child of the people’), etc.

Although the words dingling, gaoche, chile and tiele are used interchangeably, this is erroneous as appointed out by modern academic. Dingling refers an extinct ethnic group. The Gaoche (Gaoqü) was an ethnic-tribe that expelled by Juan Juan from Mongolia and founded a state (487-541) at Turpan, and was descended in part from the Dingling. The Tiele was a collection of tribes of different Altaic ethical-origins which largely descended from the Chile. All four groups somewhat happened to occupy quite a similar geographical area in succession of each other with an exception for the first one.

References

• The Peoples of the West, from the Weilue, by Yu Huan
• Gumilev, L.N. "The Huns. Central Asia in Ancient Times", (Russian: Khunnu),1960

See also

• Wei (Dingling)