54 chapter one
to the north of the Great Wall of China were not favorable for grow-
ing tea. So drinking the foreign drink was just an exotic experience
for the Uighur merchants. Apparently such things were not able to
threaten the roots of the Uighur identity. Moreover, aft er 763 A.D. the
Uighur aristocrats were converted to Manichaeism, and this put one
more ‘barrier’ in front of the Chinese otherness; we know that due to
Uighur pressure the Chinese supported the Manichaean communities
in China rather reluctantly and immediately aft er the dissolution of
the khaganate in 840 A.D. Manichaeism was offi cially forbidden in the
Middle Kingdom.^148
Despite the neglectful attitude towards the nomads, in general, and
the Turks and Uighurs, in particular, who were considered totally for-
eign by the Chinese, there was a tradition of following the Turkic and
the East Iranian fashion of the costume in China and in the capital cit-
ies of Lo-yang and Chang’an.^149 During the time of the T’ang dynasty
men and women wore “barbarian” hats when riding a horse. Some
hairstyles and cosmetic product were non-Chinese and the ladies-in-
waiting in the eighth century wore “Uighur chinionne”.^150 It was made
of soft wood, leather or fabric and was worn under the hat.^151
However, between the sixth and the tenth centuries, a special hat
known under the Chinese name “putou” became extremely popular
in China, Tokharistan and Sogdiana, among both the Turks and the
Uighurs. Th e wide-spread fashion of wearing “putou” in a vast geo-
graphic region was probably a result of the intensive contacts along
the Great Silk Road at that period and mainly due to the fact that the
people speaking Turkic languages, East Iranians and Chinese had a
very intensive communication at various levels.^152 As far as the origin
of this hat is concerned, the literature provides varying opinions on
the matter. For example, S. Yatsenko thinks that “putou” was part of
the Chinese male costume,^153 while G. Maitdinova, using the informa-
tion provided by Hsen Kuo, a Chinese annalist who lived in the elev-
enth century (“the Chinese clothes and hats, starting from the time of
(^148) Bichurin 1950, 337. Th e books and the other religious attributes were burnt
down and the Manichaeans’ possessions went to the emperor’s treasury; also see,
Schafer 1963, 10.
(^149) Shefer 1981, 48; Maitdinova 1990, 131.
(^150) Shefer 1981, 49; Schafer 1963, 29.
(^151) Kriukov, Maliavin, and Sofronov 1979, 159.
(^152) Maitdinova 1990, 133. Also see, Yatsenko 2000b, 351, 367.
(^153) Yatsenko 2000b, 367, with the literature cited there.