from Ghazi Ämät's mural in an Ürümçi hotel
Introduction to Uyghur Culture and History
(latest update in progress, Mar. 30, 2005)
These are links to
cultural and historical background, current news, and Uyghur
nationalist information, as well as my own research
materials and photographs.
Maps
-Map of Northwest China-Local Xinjiang Maps
-Other Maps
-Qing maps of Xinjiang
Satellite Images
-Lop Nor Satellite Photo-Satellite images of Taklimakan
-Tarim Region
-Bogda Mtns (Tangri Tagh)
Online Databases and Research Centers
-The Dunhuang Project-Toyo Bunko Rare books
-Silk Road History
-Inner Asia History
-Xinjiang Studies Website
Uyghur Language
-Language Basics-Good links
-Unicode site
-Uyghur-English dictionary (good first attempt)
Unicode Google searches
-'ouighour' (French)-'uigur' (Russian)
-'weiwuer'(Chinese for 'Uyghur')
-'Uyghur traditional medicine'
-'Uyghur music'
-Muqam or 12 Muqams
-Turfan or Xinjiang
-Silk Road or Silu (two character)
Earthquake
-Chongkurchak Earthquake (Feb. 2003) | -Photos-Seismic Overview
-Past Quakes
-Satellite photo of area
-Kunlun Fault
-Earthquake in Bam, Iran
Publications
-Special issue of journal CEMOTI-Ethnicity in Xinjiang
-Aramco World on Uyghurs
-Quran explained in Uyghur
Xinjiang Organizations
-New Silk Road-Xinjiang on China Info
-Xinjiang University
-XU Lib.
-XU Library cat
Issue reports
-Amnesty International on Xinjiang-Internet Filtering in China
-ABC News Reports
-Soros/Eurasianet
-BBC News
-CNN News on Xinjiang
-Radio Free Asia Uyghur Service
-Separatist Events
-Internal Colonialism
-Cyber Separatism
-Ethnic Conflict in Xinjiang
-Xinjiang Project Paper
-Uyghur resistance groups
-ETIC Media news videos
-Uyghur Information Agency
-ETNFC Site
-Russian and Uyghur site
-Uyghur Health Issues
-Xinjiang Labor Camps
Other nationalisms
-Huns, Magyars and Turanian politics-Uyghur music article
-Uyghur pop music article
-Uyghur Traditional Music
-Uyghur Pop Music Site
-More Pop Music
-Crafts and music for sale
-Film about culture hero Amannisa Khan
-Sean Roberts' 1996 film Waiting for Uighurstan available here.
-Uyghur literature site
-Uyghur Islam site
-China's Ethnic Groups and the English edition.
-More on Uyghur rugs
Other Turkic cultures
-Western Yugurs Great site.-Turkish Narrative Huge collection (includes Nasreddin Khoja who is also popular among Uyghurs).
-Dede Korkut
A racial supremacist claims the mummies show "the White race is ... much traveled, and steeped in the wisdom of the ages".
See the books Tarim Mummies by J. P. Mallory and Victor H. Mair, Mummies of Urumchi by Elizabeth Barber and The mummy congress by Heather Pringle for more information.
The Silk Road has become a popular name for Central Asia, but it imposes a Sino- and Euro-centric perspective on a region that should not be seen as simply a trading corridor between West and East.
Daniel Waugh's valuable collection of Silk Road history texts
Douglas S. Mackiernan gathered intelligence in the Xinjiang capital, then known as Tihwa.
Some books published in Xinjiang
Bibliography of works in English
China Virtual Library has virtually nothing except Sara Davis's bibliography.
In my dissertation, Slippery Paths: The Performance and Canonization of Turkic Literature and Uyghur Muqam Song in Islam and Modernity I discuss the relationship of Uyghur music and literature to Uyghur and Inner Asian political history. I have posted:
The following photographs serve primarily as illustrations for Chapter 6. Click on the thumbnails for a larger image.
Amannisa Khan
is the sixteenth century heroine of Uyghur Muqam history.
Ghazi Ämät
is a great Uyghur painter who has made many images of musicians.
A younger Qawul Akhun
demonstrates the khushtar.
Shir Mamet
demonstrates his skill and energy on the tambur.
The wide range of tapes on display
in a stall in the Erdaoqiao area of Ürümçi reflects the variety and popularity of Uyghur music.
Ghazi Ämät's images
appear all over the city of Ürümçi (a.k.a Urumqi). Here is a dancer on a carving in a park near the Art College where I studied. Note the flying background figures in the upper right.
Here are musicians in the same carving
. These flying background images reflect Buddhist images of apsara musicians and dancers.
In this tile mural in the city exhibition hall
, Ghazi Ämät uses the same background and foreground placement to tell the history of Uyghur music.
In this mural
, Ghazi Ämät tells the same history by having the Buddhist images lead into the images of traditional Uyghur music and dance.
This is a close-up of the transition from Buddhist-style images
to those of more recent Uyghur musicians. This mural is in the entryway to the Tangri Tagh Hotel in Ürümçi.
Light falling through the skylight of the Imin Wang mosque in Turfan.
A couple in Turfan taking a sheep home for Qorban Festival.
A restaurant in Ürümçi.
The decorated entryway to a mosque in Ürümçi.
A Uyghur medicine shop in Ürümçi.
This was at Nanmen, near the Bank of China, but was torn down in 1993.
