120 years ago today, the shadow-cloaked hills of the Ili
Valley silently witnessed the murder of a woman and her daughter.
The story begins with Zulpiqar, a man from Kashgar who
had come north across the mountains to Ghulja in the Ili Valley. Zulpiqar, a
Turkic Muslim (“Turki,” or chanmin in Qing official parlance), owned his
own horse, and he worked as a guide for some of those traders and travelers
along the north-south route between the two cities.
Zulpiqar’s work brought him into regular contact with a
trader whom Qing records call A-pa and his wife, Aysha Khan. It seems that A-pa
was often away on one kind of business or another, and during those long months
when he was out carting goods from settlement to settlement, though she lived
with her little daughter Cholpan, Aysha got lonely. Sometime in February of
1891, Zulpiqar came by the house, and his relationship with Aysha went from
flirtation to adultery. From then on, Zulpiqar would come over and give her
gifts, and their affair continued for some time.
