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Some Details from Eurasian Ethnic History – Altaic Peoples, Chinese Sources and Turania
Emil Heršak
; Institut za migracije i narodnosti, Zagreb, Hrvatska
Sažetak
In the first part of the paper, the author discusses some details pertaining to the Altaic languages and the location of the Altaic homeland. As to the key question of Altaic theory – i.e. whether Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean and Japanese form a genuine language family or separate families linked only through intercontacts and borrowings – he tentatively assumes that there is a distant genetic relationship. On the basis of a reduced list of reconstructed roots, the Proto-Altaic community seems to have been a hunting-fishing and gathering society, with perhaps some scratch farming. Social organisations were clearly patriarchal, with emphasis on age distinctions, and there are also signs of regular warfare and shamanistic activities. Much less explicate are the geographical indications regarding a possible “homeland“ – however, Proto-Altaic appears to have been spoken by a people living in a forested region, with some open fields, access to water sources, primarily in a lowland topography and near certain “badlands“ (sandy zones, salt flats and/or marshes). So far two such areas have been singled out: 1) in the East between the Central Chinese Valley, the Gobi and Manchuria; 2) in the West in the Turanian lowlands. Some researchers have much favoured a Western origin. However – as implied by genetic analysis of living populations – Proto-Altaic groups may well have lived near the Yellow River prior to the extension of the Chinese Neolithic, after which they would have been linguistically assimilated by Sino-Tibetan speakers. Yet the various Gobi cultures of this period also show links with the Turanian area. The author notes that events during the 3rd millennium B.P., including technological and ecological change, probably effected the expansion of the Altaic languages, influencing also the final articulation into various subgroups. In the second part of the paper, he deals with various ethnic groups mentioned in early Chinese sources. The list of foreign ethnonyms is large even in the Shang oracles inscriptions. As has been suggested, the Shang distinguished subdued people from hostile outer tribes, indicated by the term fang. Among the peoples noted in the Shang period, most important were the Qiang, Zhou, Quan, Guifang and Yifang. The Qiang and Zhou may have been allied against the Shang, who on their part had special ties with the Quan. The Zhou ultimately led a coalition of peoples against the last Shang ruler precisely at the moment when he was battling in the East against the Yifang. In the following Zhou period, the term fang gradually disappeared and most foreign peoples were to be denoted as Yi (formerly Yifang), Man, Rong and Di. The Zhou also faced a particular threat from the Quanrong (Quan) and in the 10th century B.P. deported many of them into outlaying regions – later the Zhou were attacked by a people of unknown origin, the Xianyun, and although the attack was repelled, by the 8th century the Quanrong revived and captured the Zhou capital. This led to the foundation of a new capital in the East, followed by several centuries in which the rulers of various Chinese states assumed a hegemonistic position. It was in this period that the Chinese finally formulated a worldview of themselves as the “Middle Kingdom“, surrounded by “barbarians of the four corners“ – i.e. Yi in the East, Man in the south, Rong in the West and Di in the North. This can be seen as the “first circle“ of foreign peoples around Ancient Chine. Yet when the Chinese state Zhao and later Qin (whose rulers may have originated from the Quanrong) expanded to the Ordos and Mongolian border, they reached also a “second circle“ of peoples – in dicated by the ethnonyms Hu, Xiongnu and Yuezhi. Sources at the time also provide often-fantastic references to even further peoples, such as the Dingling in Siberia, who would have constituted a “third circle“ around China. In the final section of the paper, the author discusses possible ethnic identities of peoples mentioned in the Chinese sources. He agrees with the idea that the Qiang were a Tibeto-Burman (Sino-Tibetan) population distantly related to the Chinese themselves, while the original Yi(fang) were probably an Austronesian grouping – although later the ethnonym was transferred to the Northeast to Tungusic, Manchurian and Korean groups. The Man are more difficult to decipher, but at least in later usage this name would also refer to Austronesian (or Thai) populations. As to the Rong and Di, they also were quite likely distantly related to the Chinese, just as the earlier Qiang, although only the name Di seems to denote a particular ethnic group, whereas Rong is used more generally. Regarding the peoples from the “second circle“ around China – the author accepts the view expressed by Edwin Pulleyblank and others that the Xiongnu (the predecessors of the later Huns) derived from non-Altaic groups around China, i.e. from a basis similar to the Rong and Di, whereas the Hu (or Donghu, “Eastern Hu“) were most likely an Altaic, primarily Mongolic population. An Altaic, but in this case Turkic identity may be postulated for the Dingling, Gekun, Xinli and other peoples that the Xiongnu encountered in the “third circle“ – i.e. in South-Central Siberia. On the other hand, the author is inclined to see the Yuezhi as a predominately Iranian group, perhaps with some Tocharian elements in it. Mounted nomadism was undoubted a trait of the Hu, Xiongnu and Yuezhi – presumably this form of livelihood arouse first among Iranian peoples to the West of the Altai range, and later shifted East, influencing population movements. In this sense, the early Xianyun invasion of China (as suggested by Jaroslav Průšek) may have reflected farther processes that ultimately brought the Yuezhi to the borders of China. Later the Xiongnu adopted the same lifestyle, and after influencing neighbouring peoples in North-East Eurasia initiated a return transfer of impulses and movements, from the East to the West. Finally the author also notes some more distant language links in Eurasia, which would imply an ancient conversion of various contacts in the Turanian area.
Ključne riječi
ethnicity; language; Altaic languages; Turkic; Mongolic; Tungusic; Turks; Mongols; China; Ancient History; Shang; Zhou; Iranians; Tocharians; Turania
Hrčak ID:
108263
URI
Datum izdavanja:
29.12.2000.
Posjeta: 2.216 *