Qanats Of The Xinjiang Uygur Culture

The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, Chinese biggest province, is located in the northwest of China. As a multiethnic inhabiting area, there are over ten minorities living in Xinjiang besides Uygur. Xinjiang has a Uygur population of 8,399,393 accounting for 45% in the autonomy population. Uygur inhabiting area is Hetian, Kashi, Kuche, Akesu, Tulufan and Hami around the Tarim Basin in the south of Xinjiang, Uygur of which accounts for about 90% in total Uygur population.Agriculture is the traditional economy in Xinjiang where it is arid and less precipitation thus developing irrigation is highly essential. From the ancient time on, there are two main agricultural irrigations: channel or flume and Kanerjing. Compared with other irrigation systems, Kanerjing is specially created to adapt to the natural and geographic environments in the arid area oasis. Kanerjing culture is material, but its creation, construction and function reflect spiritual value and also belong to spiritual culture. As a result, both material and spiritual culture should be taken into consideration in development and protection. In the introduction the purpose and value are succinctly explained. And ethnological theory on culture is mainly adopted in the paper. At the same time, field work, historical document and cultural comparison methods are used in the paper.Chapter one introduces geographical environment in Xinjiang, distinctive features of Uygur agricultural economy, farming cultural influences on Uygur clothing, food, living and transport, and relations between Kanerjing and Uygur farming culture.Chapter two is related to three kanerjing roots. Firstly, Kanerjing stemmed from the Middle Asia. Secondly, it originated from central China. Thirdly, it was invented by the local Uygur aboriginal after they had settled down in Xinjiang. The last root is supported in the paper.Chapter three is about structure and construction of Kanerjing. At beginning, kanerjing type and structure are introduced. There are three types: piedmont buried-water recharge, piedmont river and river valley buried-water recharge and plain area buried-water recharge. Kanerjing is made up of vertical shaft, open flume, closed flume and flood dam. According to the position of cultivated land and ready-for -reclaimed land, kanerjing can be located after finding water source along upper reaches of the river and calculating depth of buried water. The following part of the third chapter is about constructing Kanerjing. It should be started to build the first part of open flume and closure gap from the lower reaches of the river according to the soil strata's properties and closed flume's favorable longitudinal slope. Then the vertical shafts are digged one stage after another in tracing to the upper river. And closed flume is finally constructed. There are one hundred or several hundreds cubic meter soil when finishing a vertical shaft deep in ten meter; however, a kanerjing consists of tens or hundreds of vertical shafts and several-thousand-kilometer-extending underground channel, so it is a really great earthwork. Furthermore, in the ancient time, the soil was carried simply by hand, shovel, pickaxe...