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Chinese Name: 塔塔尔族
English Name: The Tatar people
Languages: Tatar language 塔塔尔语, Chinese 汉语
Total population: 3.5*103 (China mainland 2022)
Distribution: Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region
Brief introduction
The Tatar people 塔塔尔族 are one of the minority ethnic groups in China, mainly scattered in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The Tatars are a nation with a long history. In the Tang Dynasty 唐朝, it was a tribe under the rule of the nomadic Turkic Khanate in northern China.
The Tatar people have a long history of using characters. They have used Turkic, Uighur and Tatar based on the Arabic alphabet in different historical periods. Modern Tatar speech consists of 10 vowel units and 24 consonant phonemes. Because the Tatars have long intermixed with the Kazakhs and Uyghurs 维吾尔族, and have frequent exchanges and close contact, the languages of these two ethnic groups have become the common languages of the Tatars.
The history of The Tatar people
The Tatars of our country were successively moved from Kazan, Ufa, Simileqi, Zaisan and other places under the rule of Russia in the 1820s and 1830s and later. Some of the first Tatars who entered Xinjiang came to the Irtysh River Basin in Altay and settled down in the Karakas tribe of the Kazakh people.
After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, the Tatar people, like other ethnic groups, started a new life, enjoyed various democratic rights on an equal footing with other ethnic groups, and participated in the management of national affairs and local affairs.
The religion of The Tatar people
The Tatars, like other Turkic-speaking peoples, went through a period of animistic primitive religion before accepting Islam. The Tatar ancestors once regarded the wolf as the totem of the nation, believing that it has extraordinary supernatural power. So far, Tatar folk still keep the habit of wearing wolf tooth ornaments and cherishing wolf’s back ankle bones, believing that they have extraordinary supernatural power to ward off evil spirits.
The Cultures of The Tatar people
The costume of the Tatar people 塔塔尔族的服饰
The traditional costumes of the Tatar people are very particular and vary according to the place of residence. Urban male residents wear white shirts with lapel collars with wide sleeves, straight collars, open chest, lace embroidered on the collar and cuffs, and black waist-length vests, or black long shirts with belts tied at the waist. The pants are also generally black, with a wide crotch and tight legs.
Urban female residents like to wear wide leggings and long jumpsuits with ruffles at the bottom, mostly in white, yellow, and marmalade. Wear more leather shoes on your feet. Since the founding of New China, significant changes have taken place in men’s and women’s clothing. Suits and all kinds of fashionable clothing are more and more popular among the Tatar people, especially young men and women.
Tatar women are good at embroidery. Their dexterous hands not only embroider beautiful patterns on various costumes but also embroider colourful patterns and patterns for tablecloths, wall surrounds, bed surrounds, etc. The girls also embroider their own dowries. Embroidered with floral patterns. The boys also mostly use the embroidery level of the girls as one of the conditions for choosing a mate
The architecture of the Tatar people 塔塔尔族的建筑
The Tatar residents living in the city usually have their own courtyards, which are planted with fruit trees, flowers and plants, and built with paths and corridors. The houses are mostly built with materials such as adobe, bricks, wood, and stones.
The walls are mostly painted light blue with lime. The inner layer of the double-glazed windows is movable, which can be removed in summer and installed in winter. There are also small holes in the windows for ventilation. The Tatars in the pastoral areas adapt to the nomadic life and live in yurts, whose form and structure are basically the same as those of the Kazakhs.
The diet of the Tatar people 塔塔尔族的饮食
The main staple foods of the Tatar people are toast, noodles, pies, etc. They like to eat beef, mutton and eat less vegetables, mainly potatoes, pumpkins, tomatoes, cabbage, onions, carrots, etc. The most distinctive Tatar-style food is “Gubaidia” and “Yitbailixi”.
“Gubaidie” is a kind of cake made by washing the rice, drying it, covering it with cream, dried apricots and raisins, and then baking it on the stove. It tastes sweet and delicious. The practice of “Itebailisi” is the same as that of “Gubaidie”, except that the ingredients are mainly pumpkin, and then rice and meat are added.
Tatar women are good at making all kinds of cakes. The cakes they make are not only delicious and varied but also beautiful in shape. In addition to drinking all kinds of tea, the Tatar people also like to drink milk tea and mare’s milk.
