79 replies to this topic

[warlordgeneral]

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Edited by warlordgeneral, 31 March 2013 - 02:49 AM.

[MengTzu]

Yes, but I would also add that some Tibetans may have a partial Xianbei ancestry too, as the Tuyuhun people of Qinghai were descended from the Murong Xianbei. Those Qiang tribes who remained on the Tibetan plateau are believed to be ancestors of the Tibetans. The Tibetans absorbed the Tuyuhun in the 7th century; therefore there is both Qiang and Xianbei ancestry in the Tibetan population.

Also, I think it's rather narrow to use the "Han"population as a standard. There is no reason why the Hui population should not have some Xiongnu, Jie or Di ancestry too, since the Hui were produced through intermarriage between Arabs and Persians and the Han.

Well, I didn’t intend to say that Xianbei, etc, ALL assimilated to Han only.

Can I say that Xiongnu, Jie, Di, and Xianbei have been subsumed into populations we call “Han,” “Tibetan”, “Hui” today, as well as possibly other populations?

[naruwan]

Well, I didn’t intend to say that Xianbei, etc, ALL assimilated to Han only.

Can I say that Xiongnu, Jie, Di, and Xianbei have been subsumed into populations we call “Han,” “Tibetan”, “Hui” today, as well as possibly other populations?

Some of those are probably subsumed under Mongolian catag.

[Yun]

In the Sui Shu and Xin Tangshu, there is no mention of the Sogdians collectively as 'Sute', only in terms of the Nine Zhaowu city-states (e.g. Samarkand/Kang, Bukhara/An, Tashkent/Shi). The Sui Shu says on one hand that Samarkand/Kang was the descendant (hou) of Kangju, and on the other hand that the King of Samarkand was a Yuezhi whose ancestors were driven "west over the Pamirs" by the Xiongnu from Zhaowu city. The eight othe city-states were founded by princes of this King, and the rulers all adopted Zhaowu as their surname.

Just to add on - the Bei Shi mentions that the Zhaowu State of Kesh (Shi3) was on the land of the former Kangju, even though the State of Samarkand (Kang) is also mentioned as being descended from Kangju which "shifted unpredictably and did not stay in one place for long, but continued from generation to generation ever since the Han". So there is textual evidence here of a direct continuity from Kangju too Kang, even though it shifted and its original location was left to the subsidiary state of Shi.

Another thing to note is that the word 'Jie' 羯 is usually used in Chinese records of the time to transliterate words that sound like 'keh' or 'ka'. For example, Kesh is transliterated in Xuanzang's travel account as Jieshuangna, while Kalinga (in south India) is transliterated in the same account as Jielingjia. This is perhaps one reason for the rather unlikely theory mentioned on Wikipedia that the Jie are related to the Kets: http://en.wikipedia...._(ethnic_group)

BTW, the part in the Wiki article about the Sogdians and Tashkent was added by me, and so was the part about Erzhu Rong and Hou Jing. You're welcome to edit the article further if you wish.

Edited by Yun, 08 December 2005 - 10:35 PM.

[Yun]

Some recent discussion of the Di in this post: http://www.chinahist...dpost&p=4785993

[redflowers]

Was the Tuoba actually the Xianbei(H'sien-pei)?


I myself know that Tuoba was only a clan(or tribe) of the Xianbei.But some recently told me that, the pronounciation of Xianbei in Vietnamese is "Tiển Ti" or "Tiên Ti",the perfectly identity with Vietnamese one of the Tuoba ,another saying,Tuoba and Xianbei were the only one notion .Without knowing the Chinese(so I can't translate one Chinese word into Vietnamese),I can either argue them or confirm this information,this translation;althought my eventually beliving that Tuoba was only a tribe within the Xianbei confederation.Can anyone here confirm for me?

[Yun]

The Tuoba were recorded as being one tribe of Xianbei descended from a Xianbei father and a Xiongnu mother. The later Tuoba origin myth (at least as recorded in the Wei Shu) was that the Xianbei were descended from a son of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), and that this tribe called itself Tuoba because Tuo meant 'earth' (tu) and Ba meant 'descendant' (hou) in the north, and the Yellow Emperor's symbol was earth (i.e. soil).

Another story that was popular among the south Chinese was that the Tuoba were descendants of Li Ling, the Han general who surrendered to the Xiongnu. Li Ling, in this story, married a Xiongnu woman from the Tuoba family, and because the nomads follow the surname of their mother (which is not really true), Li's children were called Tuoba.

[redflowers]

The Tuoba were recorded as being one tribe of Xianbei descended from a Xianbei father and a Xiongnu mother. The later Tuoba origin myth (at least as recorded in the Wei Shu) was that the Xianbei were descended from a son of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), and that this tribe called itself Tuoba because Tuo meant 'earth' (tu) and Ba meant 'descendant' (hou) in the north, and the Yellow Emperor's symbol was earth (i.e. soil).

Another story that was popular among the south Chinese was that the Tuoba were descendants of Li Ling, the Han general who surrendered to the Xiongnu. Li Ling, in this story, married a Xiongnu woman from the Tuoba family, and because the nomads follow the surname of their mother (which is not really true), Li's children were called Tuoba.

I almost already knew such these informations before,but as I told U,one of my friend had so strongly aver the identity between Tuoba and Xianbei that I must pose this question to reconfrim.However,thanks very much for rapidly and kindly answering to me !!!!


Onemore saying,most legends concern the origin of the Tuoba stated much about the ralations between the Tuoba and its maternal- Xiongnu- origin. But it's pity that the Tuoba doesn't exist to the modern-time to perform itself this relation!!!!

Edited by redflowers, 06 June 2006 - 04:22 AM.

[redflowers]

........and that this tribe called itself Tuoba because Tuo meant 'earth' (tu) and Ba meant 'descendant' (hou) in the north, and the Yellow Emperor's symbol was earth (i.e. soil).

Did the Tuoba really have one approximetly theory of the Five Elements?The theory of Five Elements of the Gokturks was exactly their self-made theory,or it was only a borrowed-theory which was rooted from the Chinese ancient philosophy?



Among the ancient tribes/ ethnicities,did any tribe/ethnicity have its own theory of Five Elements?

[Akskl]

Rene Grousset wrote a lot in his famous "Empire of the Steppes" (L'Empire des Steppes") about the Toba Turk nomads who ruled China.
Most of historians do not pay attention to the tribal structure of Turkic nomads which is extremely important. Most of the so-called "peoples" like Qangly, Qipshaq, Naiman, Kerei (Kereit), Ongut, Qongyrat, Uysun (Wu-sun), Jalair etc. - are parts of modern Kazakhs, as well as of very close to them Noghays, Steppe Crimean Tatars (both were practically exterminated by Russians), and Uzbek nomads (not urban Sarts!).
Turkic nomads traditionally had overwhelming military might over their settled neighbours which resulted after many centuries of that in creation of many Turkic speaking and even some non-Turkic speaking new peoples - mixtures of the Turkic nomads and local conquered peoples who became also settled and accepted all the culture of the settled peoples. Very often the conquered settled peoples had Turkic ruling class (e.g. Magyars, Bulgars, Sarts, etc.).
Turkic nomads traditionally occupied all the Great Steppe from Danube river to the Great Wall of China and even beyond. Later, after settled peoples acquired firearms and artillery, all the Great Steppe was eventually occupied by Russian Empire from west and Manchu Empire from east.

Edited by Akskl, 10 November 2006 - 10:34 PM.

[Yun]

Actually, the only reason why the Tuoba are sometimes called 'Turks' is because some scholars have identified their language as Turkic (there are a number of Tuoba words transliterated in the Nanqi Shu chapter on the Northern Wei). But there are just as many scholars who interpret these words as Mongolic, and in any case the Xianbei are usually seen as linguistically Proto-Mongolic since they were related to the Khitan and Shiwei.

Rene Grousset's "Empire of the Steppes" is a classic work on the history of Central Asia, and no one has yet produced another book equal to its scope. But some of his views are outdated. For example, his argument that the Northern Wei collapsed because the Tuoba martial culture was softened by decadent 'Chinese culture' is far too simplistic.

[MING-LOYALIST]

The Five Hu people the Xiongnu, Xianbei, Di , Qiang and Jie that dominated northern china in the 4th-6th centuries but what do they look like?

These are very interesting people but the there are no pictures of them and the history books do no justice.
However we do know something about their place of origin and their language.

Lets say I'm trying to make a reenactment of that era and wish to be more acurate then say trying to pass John wayne off as a Mongol.



I'll start with the Xiongnu.(former Zhao)
Some say they speak a proto-turkic language and some say they spoke some sort fo 'yenisay' language.
What ever the case they were nomadic confederation that was predominately mongoloid but had caucasoid admixtures.
So I will settle with Kazakh nomads from yili kazakh autonomous region for the xiongnu.





The Xianbei.(Former-later and southern Yan, northern wei)
From north innermongolia and western manchuria and spoke a turko-mongol or proto-mongolic language so naturally I will choose a inner mongolian for this role.





Now the Di people.(Former Qin)
They are supposed to be from southern sichuan and spoke a proto-tibetic language.
so I will find a nomadic tibetan from sichuan to fit that role.





The Qiang people.(later Qin)
They were also tibetic and very close to Di people.
Well I'll use Qiang actors, I'm not sure if they are direct descendents of the ancient-Qiang people but should be the closest one can find.





Finally the Jie people.(later zhao)
This is a hard one because it was said that the Jie people looked very different to others with deep eye sockets and came from somewhere in central asia, they were easily identifiable thus when the barbarian massacre order was sent out the Jie were more easily identified then the others
I'm not sure who they were, some say they are sogdians and I have seen sogdian murals so I'm going to settle for either a Tajik or a Uzbek.

Edited by MING-LOYALIST, 08 November 2006 - 10:53 PM.

[MING-LOYALIST]

A sogdian mural found in Xinjiang.



Help me out, what do you think the Hu peoples look like and also wuhuan and dingling.

Edited by MING-LOYALIST, 08 November 2006 - 10:57 PM.

[Yun]

Help me out, what do you think the Hu peoples look like and also wuhuan and dingling.

The Wuhuan would look essentially like the Xianbei - they originally came from the same Donghu confederation.

The Dingling/Tiele/Chile/Gaoche definitely spoke a Turkic language, so one could picture them as looking like a Turk or Uyghur.

If I had to find an actor to play a Jie, he/she would be a Tajik, Uzbek, or Iranian. For the Xiongnu and Xianbei, I'd use a mix of Mongols, Kazakhs, and Turks, reflecting the ethnic diversity of these confederations. For Di and Qiang, I'd choose a mix of Tibetans, Qiang, and Yunnan minorities like the Bai and Yi.

[Borjigin Ayurbarwada]

Rene Grousset's "Empire of the Steppes" is a classic work on the history of Central Asia, and no one has yet produced another book equal to its scope. But some of his views are outdated. For example, his argument that the Northern Wei collapsed because the Tuoba martial culture was softened by decadent 'Chinese culture' is far too simplistic.

Another thing to note is that Grousset doesn't even read classical Chinese, his sources are mostly secondary, thats probably why his work contains large amount of speculations.