锡伯族族源考证


　　中国的锡伯族是中国东北地区的古代鲜卑人的遗民。鲜卑属于上古东胡的一支。西周时期，东胡被匈奴击败，散居鲜卑山（大兴安岭）者便以鲜卑为名。西周以后，“鲜卑”一词在《国语》、《楚词》、《战国策》、《史记》、《汉书》等重要古籍中多有记载，频频入史。西汉时，鲜卑在大兴安岭至辽河以北，臣属匈奴。东汉时，匈奴势力渐弱，鲜卑转强。到两晋南北朝时，鲜卑形成几个大的部落，并建有国家政权。慕容氏建有前燕、后燕、南燕、西燕。秃发氏建有南凉。拓跋氏建有代，后改称魏，史称北魏。自北魏以后，入主中原的鲜卑在汉族文化的强大影响下，从原始社会发展到封建社会。并融入汉族。 当拓跋鲜卑（北部鲜卑）的主体不断南迁并入主中原时，其中一部分仍居留在大兴安岭嘎仙洞一带看守祖庙。这部分人便是今天锡伯族的来源。关于其族名的形成有以下几种解释。
　　考一。锡伯系地名，后成为居住此地的部落的名称。日本人岛田好在其《锡伯卦尔察部族考》有专论。
　　考二。锡伯是由地名或部落名发展成为民族的。《辽史》有专述。
　　考三。锡伯是鲜卑的遗民（东胡的一支），由鲜卑音转为锡伯。论见何秋涛的《朔方备乘》“臣秋涛谨案：鲜卑音转为锡伯，亦作席北，今黑龙江南，吉林西北境，有锡伯部落，即鲜卑遗民。”锡伯族文学家肖夫赞成最后一种说法。详见其文章《锡伯族族属浅析》（辽宁民族出版社）。持此观点的与意见相悖的学者均大有人在。
　　究竟锡伯族的来源在哪到现在人们还在争论，而且短时间上不会有结论。本栏目给大家一个争论的空间，希望锡伯族史专家给后人一个相对正确的解释。有争论就说明有人还在关心此事，此乃锡伯人的福音。

aren't the Mongols closer descendants of the Xianbei? in any case, the Xibe are of the same stock as the Manchus, but refused to join with Nurhaci. Out of all the Tungusic ethnicities in Russia and China.. the Xibe's language, culture and customs are the closest to that of the Manchus. Linguistically it's almost the same language.. just some minor changes such as east meaning west (or was it north meaning south?), shorter words, and larger use of Han loan words. Warhead would be a better person to ask.

Raider, please don't post only in Chinese unless it's in the Chinese-language section of this forum. It's inconsiderate to members who don't speak Chinese.

The Chinese article posted by Raider basically argues that the Xibe ethnicity are descendants of some of the Tuoba Xianbei who stayed in the Greater Khingan Mountains to guard the Tuoba ancestral shrine in the Gaxian Cave while the rest of the Tuoba moved south into Inner Mongolia and then northern Shanxi and finally conquered north China. However, I find this unlikely because the Northern Wei records (Wei Shu) do not indicate that any Tuoba stayed behind at the Gaxian Cave - instead, knowledge of the cave was lost until 443, when envoys from the Wuluohou people arrived at the Wei court and reported that northwest of their country, there were 'ancient ruins of the [Wei] early rulers', including a cave temple with spirits inside that were worshipped by the local people. Tuoba Tao, the Wei emperor, sent the minister Li Chang to travel to the cave and make sacrifices there to Heaven and Earth and the imperial ancestors. Li Chang also carved an inscription into the cave wall, the words of which are recorded. This inscription was rediscovered by archaeologists in 1980.

If the people then living at the Gaxian Cave had been Tuoba Xianbei descendants, there would have been some mention of this in the Wei Shu. That said, it is indeed widely believed in China that the Xibe are descended from a branch of the Xianbei, if only because the Xibe themselves claim so and because of the similarity of the names.

As for the Mongols, they are usually seen as descendants of the Shiwei, who were one branch of the Donghu confederation that also produced the Xianbei, Wuhuan, and Khitan.

Hi there, Yun and Karakhan.
You guys seem to be knowledgeable about Chinese ethnicities. What do you think about theory regarding Oroqens(inhabiting Heilongjiang, inner Mongolia, etc) being the descendants of Shiwei?

The Shiwei people was originially one of the many Xianbei tribes.

just got some materials about Mongol-Tungusic people. There are exceprts about connection between Shiwei people and Evenk, Oroqen, Daghur people. I'll translate it some of these days.

I don't know about that far back.. but the Oroqens are basically the same thing as Evenki (鄂温克族).. infact some wonder why the CCP or whoever in charge of nationalities, decided to make the Oroqens a seperate nationality. the Evenki designation in China is also broad itself.. they combined the Mongol Influenced Solons with other Northern Tungusic peoples similar to those found in Russia.. who are both called Evenki.. even though the Solon language and other Evenki groups are not intelligible. The Oroqens are basically the same as the Russian Evenkis. And all of them (solons, Evenki, Oroqen, etc) are linguistically classified as Northern Tungusic.

Southern Tungusic is divided down into
S.W Tungusic = Xibe, Manchus
S.E Tungusic = Nanai (Hezhe), Udeghe, Orochi

According to the matetial I've read, the Ewenkis, Oroqens, Daghur people came from the 北室韋, 鉢室韋, 深末怛室韋 tribes of Shiwei. This is based on the geographical proximity between these people and similarity in culture such as aerial burial, sleighing/skiing while hunting and conic tent made of birch. In fact, according to the '鄂温克族簡史' published by PRC, Ewenkis were Shiwei tribes such as 北山室韋, 大如者室韋, 小如者室韋 which stayed in their homeland while their cousin Mengwu Shiwei(蒙兀室韋) migrated westward.
During the Liao/Jin dynasty, records of these Shiwei people were scant but they most likely were the '林木中白姓'(forest people who dwelled as far as Lena river) who appears in the 'Secret History of Mongols'. '林木中白姓' included such people as Uriankhais who were also known as 使鹿 Khamnigan or 索倫 別部 because they were reindeer herders.

The one on the left is a russian chinese,weird. on the right is a Sibe








Xibo man

THAT GUY LOOKS NOTHING LIKE A RUSSIAN!

According to research conducted by Chinese archaeologists, the Touba Xianbei presents close genetic affinity to Oroqen, Outer Mongolian and Ewenki populations, especially Oroqen.

xibo girl, 姓名：瑤淼 性別：女 身高：163cm 　體重：45Kg 民族：錫伯

does anyone know if the Xibe adopted elements of Taoism and Confucianism into their culture due to their long contact with China?

the sibes seem to have a saying that what they are speaking now is manchu and they used to speak another language..

the sibes were part of the 'grand alliance' that included the khorcins, ula, yehe etc against jianzhou.. one can see the alliance was not purely a jurchen affair (though to be fair, mongols like the khorcins will have the "mongoi gurun " affixed to them in qing documents)

i would reserve my opinions about their claims of relation to xianbei

The Xianbei didn't 'disappear'. Do you know ethnic "Xibe" living in nowadays Northern China? They are descendants of Xianbei. In fact, the word"Xibe" is derived from the word "Xianbei".

That is a theory that has not been conclusively proven. It could actually be proven through DNA testing, provided one has genetic material from a Xianbi. That has been done to establish the genetic link between the ancient Khitan and the Daur/Dawoer people. However, a report published last year on the analysis of Tuoba Xianbi genetic material only mentions genetic affinity with the Oroqen (Elunchun), Mongols, and Ewenki, and not with the Xibe: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=A...545b75d40453f1d

Another report published this year, about analysis of Murong Xianbi DNA, only reached the tenative conclusions that Murong DNA is "very intricate" and has "more affinity" to Eastern Asian populations than to Siberian populations: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin...292228/ABSTRACT

This is clearly a field with lots more potential for research.

It is not possible to prove the Xibe to be descended from the Xianbi through linguistics - they now speak a form of Manchu, which is clearly not related to the Xianbi language.

An update on the above: Having read the full paper (not just the abstract), it appears the conclusion is that Murong DNA is closest to that of the Mongols, Daur, and Han. However, no attempt at comparing it to Xibe genes was made.

Why didn't either the Tuoba DNA study or the Murong DNA study include a comparison with Xibe DNA? I can only speculate that if the results undermined current Xibe claims about their ancestry, this might offend the Xibe community of the PRC.

I think you are too quick to jump in to conclusion, Yun

http://www.cqvip.com/QK/95191A/2007005/25427249.html

48 sequences of hypervariable segment Ⅰ (HVS-Ⅰ) in mitochondrial DNA control region from Xinjiang Xibe population were analyzed, in which, 35 haplotypes were found by 43 polymorphic sites. The haplotype diversity and nucleotide diversity are 0.982 and 0.018, respectively, and the mean of nucleotide number differences is 5.922. When the data from relevant populations published were considered, it was found that the Xibe ethnic population presented the closest genetic affinity to ancient Tuoba Xianbei population and, also showed a closer genetic affinity to the nomadic populations from northern China, suggesting that the Xibe people may be the descendants of the ancient Tuoba Xianbei.

d****, I have know idea of what these researches mean. Wish I had knowledge about genetics.

Thanks for bringing that recent study to my attention, raider. Unfortunately, I am only able to read the abstract, since access to the full paper requires a subscription through a bank account in China.

Try this link my friend, http://www.airiti.com/CEPS/ec_en/ecjnlarti...p;atliid=995660

I don't know if the link requires a bank account in China though...

russian land "Siberia" pronounce the same as chinese land "鮮卑".
it was the same region.

鍚伯 and 鮮卑 pronounce so samiliar... i guess it is the same name,
just the pronounce changed from time to time.
so i think 鍚伯 is really 鮮卑's descendants.

Actually the name "Siberia" most likely came from the Siber Khanate, a splinter of the Turko-Mongol Golden Horde.

Khanate is a much later things, the term 鮮卑 could be found in 春秋戰國 period,
鮮卑 pronounce almost the same as "Siber".

pronunciation may seem the same but it doesn't mean it is the reason why the Russians named the region Siberia.

1. The Xianbei, Xibe, and Manchus were primarily around the Dongbei regions, and parts of what is now Primorye and Khabarovsk Krai.
2. The Sibir Khanate is located around Tyumen, north of Kazakhstan. We are looking at over 3,000km in distance between the two. The Sibir Khanate
never extended beyond the Yenisey.
3. The Sibir Khanate was conquered by the Russians and the area where they resided and surrounding areas were labeled as Siberia.
4. The area where the Xianbei existed in Russia, is NOT labeled as Siberia, the region is collectively known as the Russian Far East.
5. There are a few scholars who argued that the name Siberia came from the Xianbei or the Xibe, but the only arguement they've been able to make
was simply that the name sounds alike. They offer no other correlation for this. It is far more likely that the name Siberia was coined after the Russians
conquered a khanate of the same name who resided in the same area that is named after them.


Map of the Khanate of Sibir


Regions of Russia. Blue = Russian Far East, Yellow = Western Siberia (where the Sibir Khanate was located), Green = Eastern Siberia. Note the large distance between the two.

yes, mainly at 山東 region, but not only, small tirbe forced to move by wars,
tirbes origianlly east finaly get to west is a normal case in chinese history.



as above, peoples who got legs could move,
and so 3000km is not a problems.



so you think why "Sibir Khanate" name "Sibir" ?



peoples who got legs could moves.



sound, or pronunciation is nearly the most important part of chinese history, literature and archaeology.
chinese said, 訓詁以聲韻為要 (when you try to explain calssics, the study of pronunciation is the most important part)


at last, i am not a scholar, all i know is read from books,
that question is still a hot topic between scholars, so lets rest and wait

So do you have any proof that they moved to Western Siberia? Do you have any proof that the people of the Sibir Khanate are descended from the Xianbei?



Most likely because the Sibir Khanate was Turkic speaking and Sibir means the "sleeping land." in their language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siberia

and no, Sibir doesn't sound exactly like Xianbei, just similar sounding, however there are numerous similar sounding words in many languages.. and in most cases it means nothing unless you have more evidence to strengthen the arguement

That is applicable to tracing the meanings of words in the Classics. It may not be so applicable to tracing the origins of names. I have seen Chinese scholars (Zhu Xueyuan 朱學淵 is the worst example) forming outlandish theories out of mere similarities between two or more non-Chinese names, or between non-Chinese and Chinese names, to the extent of claiming that the Magyars were Malgals and that Confucius was a Jurchen. To illustrate how naive such an approach is, imagine if a European scholar were to say that 'Han' and 'Hun' come from the same root word because they sound the same, or that 'Tang' and 'Tangut' must be related because they share one syllable in common.

Let's put it this way. It's quite clear the Russians named Siberia after the Khanate of Sibir. As for whether the Khanate of Sibir was named after a people called the Sibir, and if so, where that people got its name from, that remains unknown to history.

Can you share the full paper about the Murong Xianbei study?