bserve that their predecessors or at least that of the ruling Ngvemi clan of the

Tanguts might have originally had links to the Tabgach (Chinese: Tuoba) people with
Altaic affinities: they were either early Turks or Mongols or a distinct extinct
branch of the Altaic family. Consistent with this, the Mohammedan Qarakhanid Turk,
Mahmud Kashghari, who wrote a Turkic-Arabic lexicon mentions the contemporary
Tanguts as being one of the more sedentary of the 20 tribes of Turks that he lists.
A Chinese Song record also claims that they were a clan of Turks. A memory of the
pastoralist origin of the ruling clan, consistent with Altaic roots, appears to
have been preserved in the poem of one of their ancestors that reflects the simple
concerns of such herders:

They fixed the livestock enclosure, a wolf cannot get it,

They dug a well in the thicket, the livestock will not suffer from thirst.

If the courageous and wise do not sit [there], the meeting will not be successful,
If there is no bull with high horns in the herd, the herd is empty.

If you cannot ride the rounds on a horse, it is no good for riding.

If the livestock are beyond count, the owner deals only with livestock.

If you know the saying poorly, you will not be able to have a conversation,
If you have a few horses and yaks, you will not eat your fill.

There are no better close ones than [one’s] father and mother,
there is no meat tastier than the meat on the bones.

He who has livestock is not rich,

He who has a [good] mind is rich.

-translated from the original Tangut by the famous Tangutologist Kychanov.

In their own mysterious verse on their ancestry, they claim that their ruling
Ngvemi clan stemmed from their ancestral mother ‘A-mbah (the etymology of this name
is unknown to me but of interest!):

Our mother ‘A-mbah, source of families and clans,

silver-wombed and golden breasted,
the valiant tribe did not die out and
carries the name of Ngvemi.

-translated by Kychanov

In this regard it is notable that the Mongol sources in China mention a Tangut
ethnonym as Yü-mi, which is believed to be derived from the name of trans-Himalayan
goddess Umai who is mentioned as consort of Möngke Tengri in Turko-Mongol sources.
In the Indo-Aryan world this goddess was incorporated as an ectype of Rudrāṇī i.e.
Umā. It is hence conceivable that her other name Ambā has a relationship to the
ancestral mother of the Tanguts mentioned in the above verse.

However, in their own writings the Tangut also mention that they as a people, the
Tibetans and the Han Chinese have a common origin: was this some kind of early
recognition of the monophyly of their Tibeto-Burman languages? In their earliest
days going back to the 300-400 CE they appear to have had marriage relationships
with the para-Mongolic Tuyuhun (Tuguhun) Khaganate and played a role in the
formation of this state in between the Tibetans and the Chinese. It was in this
period they appear to have associated with the speakers of the Tibeto-Burman
language that became the dominant language of the Tanguts. Other Tabgach people
appear to have sinicized early and adopted Chinese in the more eastern regions. As
the Tibetans started expanding their empire in the 600s and eating into the Tuyuhun
Khaganate and marching towards Tang China the proto-Tangut fled North-East and
submitted to the Tang empire in return for protection of their identity against the
Tibetan advance. Thus, having survived the Tibetan assault and the proto-Tangut
developed a close client relationship with the Tang Chinese empire. However, this
did not help them when they came under attack again, this time from a more
determined foe — the Blue Turks (Gök Türks) of Mongolia. Blue Turk ruler Qapaghan
Khagan had charted out a comprehensive plan to attack the Tang empire and punish
the Chinese severely. He first aimed to capture the Chinese towns of Paoting and
Chengting and for this decided to perform a flank-clearing operation by
neutralizing those who might come to the aid to the Tang. Thus, in 700 CE he sent
his 17 year old nephew the rising star of the Turks and their future Khagan,
Tengrida Bilge, against the Tangut. This is the first time we hear of them under
that name. The results of the devastating Turkic attack on them is summarized in
the Orkhon inscriptions thus: “When I was 17 years old I went on a campaign against
the Tangut. I put the Tangut to rout; there I took their wives and children, horses
and possession” [Translation: Talat Tekin from the Bilge Khagan inscription in
Mongolia].

Having barely survived this assault they got a chance to enhance their profile when
the Blue Turks and the Uighurs were gone or had declined and Tang empire was
wracked by natural calamities in the late 800s. The Tang excesses in their wake
triggered the rebellion of farmers under Wang Xianzhi. At the same time a Chinese
smuggler Huang Chao was taking advantage of salt shortages to run a salt
trafficking operation. Having amassed a force of fighters he made an initial
alliance with Wang Xianzhi and then broke up with him to lead his own rebellion,
which in many ways paralleled that of the Chinese brother of Jesus Christ closer to
our times. At the height of his rebellion Huang Chao took Guangzhou and then the
Tang capital of Chang’an. The Tang emperor fleeing from these attacks called upon
the proto-Tangut lord Tuoba Ssu-Kung (880-884 CE) to come to his aid. The Tangut
crushed the Huang Chao rebellion in the west between and were rewarded the regions
of Inner Mongolia by the Tang and title of “Prince Pacifier of the West”. The
Tangut lords then welded together a multi-ethnic state which other than themselves
contained Chinese, Tibetans and the remnants of the Tuyuhun Khanganate (Some of
whom later joined Chingiz Khan; e.g. the lord Alaqush-digit-quri).

Subsequently, with the decline of the competing Central Asian powers operating in
the region the Tangut were able to solidify their power. In the 900s when the Tang
collapsed the Tangut established themselves as an independent state. While the Song
tried to reconquer the old Chinese territory in 960 CE they could not subjugate the
Tangut who continued to grow in power. In northern China the Khitan of para-
Mongolic origin had established the Liao dynasty, which was also poised for
potential conflict with the Tangut. However, negotiating their hold through these
times they consolidated their kingdom as the Xi Xia, which was what Chingiz Khan
eventually destroyed. It came to include what is today the Western and Central p