The Khitan sky, ancestor and mountain rites survive among the pastoral Khitan beside Buddhism.
Muye mountain at the meeting of the Xar Moron and Laoha was the Liao ritual centre; nothing in what we read says whether it was still visited in 1200.
Who holds it
- Title
- Khitan elders and shamans (no named leader)
- Since
- not pinned
- Born
- not known
- Confidence
- low
Muye mountain is where the Khitan kings sacrificed in the Liao age; its modern identification near the Xar Moron and Laoha meeting is a scholar's choice and is not pinned.
Overlord
None; under Jin watch
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Place and nature of the house are certain; its holdings in 1200 are not described in anything we could read.
Primary sources for Khitan and Xi
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- History of the Jin, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office, with Ouyang Xuan among the chief compilers (1343 to 1344, from the Jin veritable records and the Jin national history). The official history of the Jurchen empire that ruled north China and Manchuria in 1200. Read online
- Record of the Great Jin State, Attributed to Yuwen Maozhao (宇文懋昭); the attribution is doubtful (preface dated 1234; probably assembled in the Southern Song from Song and Jin material, with later accretions). A Song-side history of the Jin, with annals for each emperor and chapters on institutions, customs, the capitals and the Jurchen way of life. Read online
- Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
- History of the Liao, chapter 30, on the Western Liao, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1344). The only Chinese official notice of the Qara Khitai, a few pages at the end of juan 30. Read online
- History of the Yuan, Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office (1369 to 1370). Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. Read online
- Brief Account of the Black Tatars, Peng Daya (彭大雅) with notes by Xu Ting (徐霆) (1237 (Peng Daya's text from a 1232 to 1233 embassy, Xu Ting's notes from a 1235 to 1236 embassy)). Two Song envoys' notes on the Mongols under Ogodei: the steppe, climate, herds, hunting, the ruler's tent and court, the army, taxes, trade, the postal relay, the Uyghur and Khitan clerks, and the subject peoples. Read online
- Full Record of the Mongol Tatars, Zhao Gong (趙珙), formerly attributed to Meng Gong (孟珙) (1221). The earliest outside description of the Mongols, by a Song envoy sent to the Mongol commander Muqali at Yanjing (Beijing) in 1221. Read online
Sources and studies
- Article on the Khitan under the Jin dynasty, gjrwls.com (read this session)
- Wikipedia: Jin dynasty (1115-1234) (read this session)
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.