The Uighurs displaced the Turks, their “cousins” in 744 AD, and set up their own empire centred in present-day Mongolia. The Uighurs were allies of the Tang Chinese and absorbed many traits from their culture. They were the oldest and one of the most civilized Turkish-speaking peoples living in Central Asia.

They belonged to the Ruruan from 460-545 AD, and then to the Hephthalites from 541-565 AD before the Gok-Turk Khaganate conquered them. In 840 AD, the Uighur Empire was destroyed by the still nomadic Kirghiz. Remnants of the Uighur fled their base in Mongolia and entered present-day Xinjiang, where most of their six million descendants live today.

Uighurs (or Uigurs or Uygurs or Weiwur)

The Chinese sources indicate that the Uighurs were the direct descendants of the Huns. Uighur means "unity" or "alliance." The Uighur language belongs to the Qarluq group of the Turkic languages. The Uighurs created a number of states. The First Uighur Kaganate was established in Khanghaj in 323 AD. It existed 200 years. The Second Uighur Kaganate was founded in 523 and existed 80 years. It was destroyed by the Turkic Kaganate in 603. In 743 the Third Uighur Kaganate was built on the ashes of the Eastern-Turkic Kaganate located on territory of the present day Mongolia. It was ruined in struggle with the ancient Khaqases in 840.

Huihe would be a more correct name for the ancestors of the Uighurs. Huihe and Uighurs are in fact represent the same ethnic group by their close pronounciation and numerous anthropological evidence. The modern Uighurs claimed that they descended from 'Chunwei', the son of Jie, last Xia Dynasty lord, which may be partially correct. The Hunnic successors included the Jujuans, Gaoche, the Tiele tribes and the Turks. The “New History Of Tang Dynasty”, written during the Song Chinese Dynasty, mentioned that the ancestors of Huihe were Hunnic, and they were called Gaoche because of their custom of riding in high-wheeled carts (in Chinese sources Chinese exoethnonym "Gaogyuy" is replaced with Türkic endoethnonym "tele" (coach)). The Gaoche people could be descendants of the Chi Di or Red Di people. The “New History Of Tang Dynasty” further stated that Gaoche people were alternatively called 'Chile' which was to mutate into 'Tiele'. The histories of the Toba Wei Dynasty contain many references to the 'Tiele' or 'Chilie' tribes and their rebellions against the Tobas.

The Uighurs were an alliance made of nine (some sources say ten or eleven) Turkic Tiele peoples (they later mixed with the Tokhuz Oghuz). Their name is Hui-he or Hui Ho in Chinese but it means "Allies" in Old Turkish (Uighurs meant "People wandering and attacking with the speed of a falcon"). The core of the Uighurs alliance was made up of peoples that were previously called as Gaoche (Gaogyuy or Gao Che or Kao-Ch’e) by the Chinese; although not all Gaoche became Uighurs and the majority formed the Tiele group. These tribes formed several important empires in the Central and Eastern Steppes. Uighur groups are often named with a prefix added to the root Gur (the Onogur).

Chinese history put Gaoche in a different category from the dozens of tribal states in Chinese Turkestan. Chidi first was called Dili, and then Gaoche and Dingling, consecutively. They were recorded to have similar language to the Huns.

Record showed that the Gaoche people had similar traits as the early Huns and they were the nephews of the Huns. Among the Gaoche would be clans like Hulü, Di, Yuanhe, Jiepi, Hugu, and Yiqijin. Twelve family names could be found: Qifuli, Tulu, Dalian, Dabo, A'lun, Muoyun, Sifen, Fufuluo, Qiyuan, and Youshupei etc. The words Gao-che mean "high wheeled carts" which was to point to the fact that the Gaoche people liked to ride in high-wheeled carts. Some Uygur adopted the Yuanhe clan of the Gaoche people as their ancestors.

According to History Of Toba Wei Dynasty, the Uygurs originated from the Tiele Tribes while the Tiele Tribes were derived from Gao-che, i.e., the nephews of the Huns. Tiele Tribes would be a generic name pointing to the dozens of tribal states across the northern belt of today's western China and/or northern Chinese Turkistan. These peoples were subject either to the Eastern Turks or to the Western Turks by the time of Sui Dynasty.

Chinese history also put Gaoche in a different category from the dozens of tribal states in Chinese Turkestan and recorded that the Gaoche people had similar traits as the early Huns. Gaoche were said to be descendants of Chidi or Red Di peopel who once resides in central China during the Zhou Dynasty time period, and they were also known as Dingling. While Gaoche were at odds with Ruruans, they raided into Toba Wei as well. Daowudi personally led several campaigns against Gaoche and quelled their tribes. Gaoche people were frequently mentioned as an ally in the war against Ruruans. The early Gaoche people had different names from later Tiele Tribes.

There is an often-mentioned name called 'Hulü' among Gaoche and in Toba Wei Dynasty, quite a few generals bearing this name were in existence. One Gaoche lord, Hulü Beihouli, fled to Toba Wei after being defeated by Ruruans, and he was conferred the title of Duke Mengdu. Daowudi relocated Gaoche people to the south of the desert and the Gaoche people began to learn cultivation. Gaoche posessed 12 family names, and they were enslaved by Ruruans mostly. Gaoche rebelled against Ruruans frequently. Gaoche were also subject to attacks from Ye-tai.

By late Northern Wei Dynasty, a new alliance of people called Tiele or Tele would emerge. The Tiele Tribes, descendants of the Hsiung-nu, with many of later familiar Huihe family names, were recorded to have spread everywhere, i.e, north of the Luo River (e.g., Tongluo, Bayegu), west of Yiwu & north of Yanqi, southwest of the Altai Mountains (e.g., Xueyanto or Sheyanto), and north of ancient Kangju Statelet (e.g., Ye-tai), numbering tens of thousands in each direction. History said the Tiele people in the west were good at cultivation and they had more buffalos and less horses. The Tiele people would now include the Ye-tai, with a strong hint that the composition would be both Yüeh-chih and Hunnic.

Tiele tribes were derived from Gaogüys or 15 tribes:

1. Uange (Uygurs)
2. Seyanto (Sir + Yanto)
3. Kibi
4. Dubo (Tubalar)(Dabo)(Tele)
5. Guligan (Kurykan)(Yakut)
6. Dolange (Telengits)
7. Bugu (Pugu)(Uygurs)
8. Bayegu (Baiyrku)(Uygurs)
9. Tunlo (Tongra)(Uygurs)
10. Hun
11. Sygye (Uygurs)
12. Husye
13. Higye
14. Adye(Eduz)
15. Baysi (Barsil)

Huihe was comprised of four of the dozen Tiele tribes, including Pogu, Tongluo, Bayegu and Weiqi (note here that these names are alternates to the 15 names mentioned above because of the rendering of Chinese into Wade-Giles and Pinyin). According to Old History Of Five Dynasties, the Huihe people sent an emissary to Tang court in 809 AD and claimed that they changed their name to Huihu by which they meant for a kind of eagle called 'hu'. (The character for 'hu' could also be pronounced as 'gu' for a different bird called 'gu zhou', and could be pronounced as 'he' when combined with character 'hui'. The character 'hui' means percolating, a word used today for designating anything related to Islamic.)

It is a bit unscientific to use the names of Uighur and Huihe/Huihu interchangeably here. The above historic literature points to the Uighur's ancestor being the Huihe peoples. The name 'Uygur' was probably a mutation of Huihu.

The Huihe people had once ranked second to Xueyantuo tribe among the eleven Turkic tribes who had helped Tang Dynasty in defeating Eastern Turkic Khanate in 630-640 AD. For almost a hundred years, they would assert control over north Mongolia with the remaining Turks who re-established Eastern Khanate in 682/683 AD in Mongolia and Turkic Khanate in the Tarim Basin in 691 AD.

Huihe and Uighurs are in fact represented the same ethnic group by their close pronunciation and numerous anthropological evidences.

Eurasian Nomads: Part 2

Magyars
Székely
Pechenegs
The Uighur Empire (744-840)
Xueyantuo
Kirghiz or Kyrgyz
Kipchaks
Kimeks
Tatars or Tartar
Steppe Kingdoms (840-1278)
Khitan or Kidan
Tanguts
Jurchen or Jurchid
Turks or Turkmen
Mongol World Empire (1206-1368)
Steppe Peoples' Political Decline (14th C. onward)
Descriptions of Non-Mongolian Physiques

Eurasian Nomads: Part 1

Background
Indo-European Period (4,000 BC-300 AD)
Hsiung-nu Period (250 BC-450 AD)
Turkic Kaganate (552-744)