Ngolok

The Golok or Ngolok peoples are groups from Amdo in eastern Tibet, where their territory is referred in Tibetan as Wylie: smar kog. They are located around the upper reaches of the Yellow River (Wylie: dmar chu) and the sacred mountain Amne Machin (Wylie: rma rgyal spom ra). They are not an homogeneous group but are composed of peoples of very different geographic origins across the Khams and Amdo region. The Golok was a haven for refugees and immigrants from all over the Amdo and Kham and they are an amalgamation of peoples of diverse origin.

The Golok were renowned in both Tibet and China as ferocious fighters. The name Golok (Wylie: mgo log, ’go log) is sometimes interpreted as meaning "rebellious", but more literally means "turned head". Neither Tibet or China was able to subdue them for long. Legends say they were ruled by a queen, a reincarnated goddess whose power was handed down from mother to daughter.

The exact boundaries of the historical territory of Golok do not correspond to the boundaries of the modern prefecture. Historically the region knows as Golog included parts of Sichuan, Machu County in Ganlho Prefecture in Gansu, and other places in the traditional Tibetan regions of Amdo and Khams.

In 1828 when the great mystic and poet of early 19th century Amdo, Shabkar Tsodruk Rangdröl, was returning to Amdo from Central Tibet, his caravan, carrying letters of passage from both the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, was brutally attacked and pillaged by Golok tribesmen.

Some months later Shabkar told the Qinghai amban, who was the senior Qing administrator in Xining, what had happened. The amban, admitting that the Golok tribes were beyond Imperial control asked Shabkar to try preaching to them in hopes that this might tame them to some extent.

The Chinese had never been able to control the Goloks before, some areas of which owed allegiance to Labrang, but many others which were completely independent. Occasional ambushes killed soldiers of the Ninghai Army, causing loss of dispatches and livestock like yaks. The Hui army, with its modern weaponry, retaliated in draconian fashion and exterminated a group of Goloks, and then convoked the Golok tribes for negotiations, only to slaughter them. A Christian missionary, in praising the Muslim army's extermination of the Goloks as an act of God, wrote of the events of 1921 in the following way:

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