Luotuoquan Legend
01 · Historical Records
It is said that in the Yuan dynasty there were two brothers, Galemang and Ahemang, of the Sarhes region of Turkmenistan in Central Asia, who had great prestige among their clan. At Jiezi today there are still the tombs of the two brothers Galemang and Ahemang, together with the remains of the Camel Spring and the Camel Stone and a rare handwritten manuscript of the Quran of the Abbasid period carried on the eastward migration, guarded by the Salar people to this day.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
This legend is handed down from generation to generation mainly among the Salar people in the Salar autonomous county of Xunhua, the Hui autonomous county of Hualong, Guide county and Xining city in Qinghai, and in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region and Gansu. The king of Samarkand bore them great hatred and several times sought to put them to death. So they bade farewell to their homeland, led a hundred and seventy households of their clan eastward, and migrated east leading a white camel and carrying the Quran and the soil and water of their home. They reached Xinjiang, then travelled east along the northern road of the Tianshan, passed Jiayu Pass and went through the Hexi corridor to Qinzhou, present-day Tianshui in Gansu, then rested and regrouped at Ganjiatan in Xiahe, Gansu, and after many twists and turns reached the Xichang gully of Xunhua. Hence the name Camel Spring. The Camel Spring legend has a long history, complete content, vivid figures and lively, captivating episodes full of ethnic character and rustic flavour. In the spiritual world of the Salar people this legend is the story of the Salar “root”; it is passed on from generation to generation among the Salar by sung narration or oral telling, and almost everyone in the clan knows this legend. The Camel Spring legend is a vivid portrayal of the Salar eastward migration, carrying the Salar's eight-hundred-year course of hardship and reflecting the Salar people's view of history, moral outlook and aesthetic ideals. This heritage item has a long history and a relatively wide influence, and the Duoyi Ouyina (Camel Play) adapted from it has also become one of the important traditional cultural forms of expression of the Salar people.
The Legend of the Salar Eastward Migration
The main body of the legend, in which the brothers Galemang and Ahemang led a hundred and seventy households of their clan eastward from Central Asia.
The Remains of the Camel Spring and the Camel Stone
The spring of the Camel Spring and the stone image of the white camel that carried the scriptures, preserved at Jiezi in Xunhua.
The Rare Handwritten Quran Manuscript of the Abbasid Period
The rare handwritten Quran manuscript carried on the eastward migration, guarded by the Salar people to this day.
The Camel Play (Duoyi Ouyina)
The traditional Salar performance form adapted from the Camel Spring legend.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Camel Spring legend tells how more than eight hundred years ago the Salar forebears migrated east as a whole tribe from Central Asia, leading a camel through great hardship, and at last chose the Xunhua region as the place to multiply and live, and to dwell in friendship with the neighbouring brotherly peoples. They took out the soil and water they carried with them and compared it with the local soil and water, found them the same, and so decided to settle there.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Crossing Mengda mountain, as they went up Aotusi mountain it grew late and the scripture-laden camel was lost; they lit torches and searched everywhere, and at last found that beside the riverbank of the Jiezi area a spring had welled up, and beside it lay the white camel that had carried the scriptures, already turned to stone. As the vehicle of the Salar's collective memory, the Camel Spring legend plays a positive role in transmitting the ethnic spirit and promoting social harmony.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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