"There were many wolves in my hometown before the 1980s," says Mongolian Wuliyasi, who comes from East Ujimqi Banner where Jiang was sent during the "cultural revolution".

"The word 'wolf' is prohibited in our daily speech. People use 'flying dog' or 'yellow dog' when referring to the wolf."

Namujil, a professor at Mongolian Language and Literature Department of Minzu University of China, the country's top ethnic studies university, says the key to the controversy lies in the distinction between wolf-totem worship and general wolf worship.

"Totem worship means people think there is a kinship with a certain animal, which usually happens in primitive clan societies. So there cannot be any totem worship among Mongolian people nowadays," says Namujil.

"But as the geographical distribution of Mongolian people is so wide, and there were clans and tribes, it is safe to say that some ancestors of the Mongolian people might have once worshipped the wolf as a totem.

"This has left myths and some folk customs about wolves among certain Mongolian clans."

Despite the controversy, the box office takings of the movie have exceeded 500 million yuan ($79 million) in less than a month. Sales of the novel have also increased on major online bookstores.