People talking about Uyghurs must always be aware that almost each modern nation designation represents only one particular people of many different peoples who became on culture over the course of the History. Thus we call the Chinese by the name of only one of many "ethnos" who played a role in "Chinese" history. In other cases we even call a particular people by different names. In case of my people, Americans call us "Germans," a word originating from a Celtic designation for one tribe whose name was "Tongrer". Some Slavic peoples call us "Swabes," which is the name of only one of our peoples. Latin speaking Europeans call us "Aleman," which was just another tribe. Our own designation is "Deutsch," definitely a Celtic name.
Uyghur is our designation for the peoples of East Turkistan, and we are aware that only a part of the contemporary Uyghur population can be regarded as "pure" descendants of the people who once ruled Mongolia. Tocharians, Ärya, Saka, Basmil, Karakhanids and many other peoples, who all became part of the modern Uyghur Nation, are -theoretically- legal designations for the Uyghur people.
No matter what we call them, Uyghurs must be regarded as the indigenous people of East Turkistan.
Uyghurs are a people with a long and amazing history that stretches back more than 4,000 years, which started with the arrival of representatives of the proto-European race, a people very similar to the ancient peoples of Russia and Northern Europe. Somewhat later, typical representatives of at least two branches of the gracile and darker complexioned Mediterranean sub branch of the greater European race appeared in the South and West, and in the eastern regions very unique representatives of a "proto-Tibetan" race mixed with the proto-Europeans. Note that this dolichocephalous race with a narrow face, very high orbits and very pronounced cheekbones had racially and culturally nothing to do with the Chinese of past and present.
In the Iron Age - or possibly much earlier - the ancient Hu-Chieh, who also are known as Kao-ch'e, settled to the North of the peoples of East Turkistan. Ancient Chinese sources say the Hu-Chieh were from a Dinlin origin. To the North of Hu-Chieh settled the Dinlin (T'ieh-lę) Turks, whom Oshanin called the "legendary blond race of Central Asia". Further north settled another race of "red haired and green eyed Barbarians" known as the ancient Hja-g'ja-sz (Chien-Kun) Turks, designated by our scholars as "Yennisey Kirkiz". The Hja-g’ja-sz became the most important enemy of the Hu-Chieh/Kao-ch'e in the days Hu-Chieh ruled over all of Mongolia.
This Hu-Chieh/Kao-ch'e we designate as "historical Uyghurs" were originally a Southern Altaic people, who may have had originated in the vast region from Hovd to Semipalatinsk. This means that they originated from a region that included large parts of Djungaria, which was, is and (hopefully) forever will be part of East Turkistan.
Iron ties always connected the peoples of the northern Oasis cities and the Altaics. Therefore the Hsiung-Nu Batur Tangriqut also attacked Hu-Chieh when conquering the Yueh-chi. It is written that the Hu-chieh/Uyghur of the 175 B.C. had been "under the control of the Yueh-chi up to that time" (History of Early Civilizations of Central Asia. Vol. 2, p.175). Somewhat later the Hsiung-Nu Chih-chih attacked the ancient Turpanliks before he finally did what was the original reason of his mission: attacking the Hu-chieh/Uyghur to the North of the ancient Turpanliks
These ancient ties makes clear why the conquest of the Turpan region by the "historical Uyghurs" was so peaceful: "Literature kept alive its former intellectual activity," the "Buddhist and Nestorian" character of the "old Tocharian country" (Grousset) was left untouched, and agriculture, which still is the main profession of the Turpanliks, was improved.
The "historical Uyghurs" neither killed the "Tocharians" nor drove them out of East Turkistan. The result of the historical Uyghur "conquest" was that the people of the Northern Oasis cities and the "historical Uyghurs" melted together to become one part of the modern Uyghur Nation.
