Keriya and Niya headmen

Who he is

Title

Local headmen (begs or elders) of each oasis; no name or title is recorded

Since

not pinned

Born

not known

Family

Not known.

Confidence

low

Wikipedia 'Keriya Town' (Polo's Pein, Muslim, cotton, jade in the rivers), 'Niya ruins' (the ancient Niya site abandoned in the 4th or 5th century), 'Endere'. Nothing for 1200.

Overlord

The khan of Khotan (by claim; not pinned)

What it holds

• The oasis fields, canals and wells of Keriya and Niya
• A toll on the caravans passing east or west

How it was acquired

By custom; not recorded.

Allies and rivals

Khotan to the west; the Lop people to the east.

How things stand that morning

Not recorded.

Wealth

Cotton, grain, fruit, jade from the Keriya river (Polo, later evidence), caravan tolls.

Military

None recorded.

Threats

• A gurkhan's tax-gatherer reaching this far is unlikely; drought and changing rivers are the real threat

Places of note

• Keriya: Oasis on the Keriya river.
• Niya: Oasis on the Niya river.

Where the sources disagree

• The campaign board entry keriya places it with the Kashgar and Balasagun khanate; the reach of any Qarakhanid prince to Keriya is not documented.

Evidence: Only the geography and later travellers.

"The campaign board" is OMNIA's working map. These notes record where its earlier claims were checked against the sources.

On the map: Small oases drawn from modern positions.

Primary sources for Tarim oases

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 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 Song, the chapters on Xia and on foreign states, Toqto'a (脫脫) and the Yuan history office (1343 to 1345). The Song court's accounts of its neighbours, each arranged as an annal of embassies and wars. Read online
• History of the World Conqueror: the Qara Khitai (Gur Khans) and the Uyghurs of Beshbaliq, Ala al-Din Ata-Malik Juvayni (begun about 1252 to 1253, ends with 1260). Juvayni's chapters on the Uyghur kingdom (its origin legend, Beshbaliq and Qocho, and the idiqut Barchuq's murder of the Qara Khitai resident before his submission to Chinggis Khan in 1209) and on the Gur Khans of the Qara Khitai are the fullest Muslim account of the Tarim and Zhetysu around 1200: the gurkhan Zhilugu's court at Balasagun, his tax collectors in the oasis towns and in Samarkand, his relations with the Khwarazmshah Tekish and then Muhammad, and the arrival of the Naiman prince Kuchlug in 1208. Read online
• Old Uyghur contracts, land sales, loans and administrative documents from the Turfan oases (mostly thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with some earlier; dated by animal years and rarely to a reign). Sale deeds, loans, leases, slave sales, wills and tax lists from Turfan, Qocho and Beshbaliq, the only internal evidence for everyday life, land tenure, prices and officials in the Uyghur kingdom whose idiqut was a vassal of the Qara Khitai in 1200.
• Journey to the West of the Perfected Changchun (Qiu Chuji), Li Zhichang (李志常) (about 1228, from the journey of 1220 to 1224). A dated eyewitness itinerary across the steppe and the Tarim twenty years after 1200: the Kereyit country and the Ongud frontier, the Naiman mountains, the Uyghur towns of Beshbaliq and the Tarim with their Buddhist and Christian communities, Almaliq of the Qarluq, and Samarkand. Read online