Sumpa

The Sumpa (Wylie: sum pa) were a tribe living in northeastern Tibet from ancient times. Chinese historical sources refer to them as "Qiang", a term for people living in what is now Southwest China, and their actual ethnic identity is not known. Their territory was absorbed by the Tibetan Empire in the late 7th century, after which point they gradually lost their independent identity.

The Sumpa identified as the people known to the Chinese as the Supi 蘇毗 or Sunpo 孫波.

The Tangshu, chap. 221b, says that the people of the country of Supi (Sumpa) were originally of Western Qiang descent. The Qiang had been in the region for a very long time - they were the main foreign enemies of the Shang dynasty (c. 1600-1046 BCE). It has been suugested by Christopher I. Beckwith that their name may have derived from an Indo-European root meaning 'charioteer'.

After they were annexed by the Tibetans they took the name of Sunpo (= Sumpa). They were the largest of the tribes in the region and consisted of some 30,000 family units. Their territory extended from the border of the Domi people to the east as far as the Houmangxia (or Houmang Gorge) Pass in the west.

The location of the Supi/Sumpa kingdom in the 7th–8th centuries in northeastern Tibet stretched from the southern bank of the Yak River (Chinese: Tongtian River - known in Tibetan as the Chu-dmar, the largest upper course of the 'Bri-chu or Yangtze River) in the east about 1,400 li (roughly 452 km) southwest to the Houmangxia Pass (= the Ta-tsang-la) and ranged at times as far as Khotan.

The Sumpa were considered part of the Tibetan kingdom as early as the 6th century CE, in the time of Songtsän Gampo's father Namri Songtsen, and are thought to have spoken a Tibetan dialect.

The Sumpa/Supi are associated with the Supiya of Kharosthi documents of about 300 CE from the Tarim Basin. They are described as being among the invaders of the Kingdom of Khotan ('the red-faced (Tibetans), Huns, Chinese, Supiya'). To the Khotanese, who had been a settled people for about a thousand years, they appeared as savage and uncouth. They are also mentioned as having been in Niya and Cherchen.

...
Wikipedia