Descriptions of Non-Mongolian Physiques

Descriptions of Non-Mongolian Physiques

Non-Mongolian physiques did exist among Chinese as a result of Chinese interaction with Hunnish, Turkic and Mongol peoples during the course of history. As history had recorded, various steppe people, at certain points, had been recorded to be people carrying different features as to hair, nose, eye and skin. Hunnish, Turkic and Mongol peoples, however, should be considered more Mongoloid peoples than else, and they had acted as a kind of buffer in between Mongoloid and Caucasoid peoples since prehistory. To clarify Chinese ethnic continuity, I also expounded Huangdi's ethnicity in related discussions, like in prehistory.htm section. I had cited Prof Wei Chu-Hsien's interpretation of ancient classics Shi-zi (approx 338 BC works) in authenticating the ethnicity about barbarians in four directions: Guan-xiong-guo in the south, Chang-gu-guo (Chang-gong? long arm) in the west, Shen-mu-guo (deep eye socket) in the north, and Yuhu and Yujing as east-sea and north-sea seagods. Here, I will, once and for all, settle the issues in regards to Huangdi or the Yellow Overlord, i.e., i) semantic error in translating the overlord for 'di4' into emperor; ii) Nordic racist appropriation in attaching Caucasian tag to Huangdi. I will use Shi-zi's record of deep eye socket people to the north of Huangdi as a corrobaration that Huangdi people were not of deep-socket eyes at all. In the paragraph on the origin of Huns, I had also expounded the ethnic nature of various Rong people as mainly Sino-Tibetan speaking Qiangic people.
 
I would make a claim here that the Huns were semi-sinicized people who had lived along the Chinese border for thousands of years, and the Huns were much more civilized than the later Jurchens and Mongols. My speculation is that the ancient Chinese could have much in common with the Huns. I would also cast doubts on the nature of the Huns under Attila who invaded Europe. Because the European historians stated that those Huns who first invaded Europe were so barbaric that they did not eat cooked foods at all. The Atilla Huns do not sound like their Asian kinsmen. The early Chinese historical accounts did not have much hint as to the physique of the Huns. That is probably to do with my speculation that the ancient Chinese of 2000 years ago might not be different from the Huns at all.
 
Early Chinese historical accounts did record the difference in the physique of peoples in Chinese Turkistan and beyond. Earlier records said the people to the west of the ancient Gaochang Statelet (Turpan) possessed the features of high nose bridge and deep socket eyes. Records also stated that the people beyond the Pamir Mountains possessed high nose bridge and hairy skins. Later accounts mentioned the existence of 'blue-appled' people in southern Chinese Turkistan. (Chinese character for 'blue', namely, 'bi', could also mean 'dark green'.)
 
In Mongolia, Kirghiz people, descendants of Jiankun Statelet located to the northwest of Siberia, were recorded to be a group of people who had 'green eyes'. Kirghiz, with the help of a traitor Huihu (Uygur) general, defeated and expelled Huihe from Mongolia around AD 840s. Chinese history recorded that the northern Mongolians possessed 'chestnut-colored eyes'. The Mongolians of 13-14th centuries classify the rest of nomadic peoples as 'Se Mu Ren', namely, 'color-eyed peoples'. It would be in Ming Dynasty's history book that we found descriptions of modern Europeans, namely, 'cat-eyed', 'eagle-mouthed', and 'red-haired'. Interestingly, Ming Chinese did not talk too much about the Portugese who were known as 'Falangji' (a word mutated from 'Frank' and also meant for cannons that Arabs mimicked on basis of European inventions), while the Dutch was nicknamed 'Hongmaogui', namely, red-haired ghosts. In this sense, the Portugese could appear much more different than the Dutch, and it made sense if the Portugese sailors were mostly Italians who enjoyed relatively darker hair and skin than northern Europeans.
 
The relationship between Chinese and nomads was very much interwined. The first recorded defection to the Huns would be the son of King Zang Tu of Yan Principality in late 3rd century BC. (King Zang Tu was conferred the king title by General Xiang Yu, not Emeperor Liu Bang the first emperor of Han Dynasty.) The son of Zang Tu later instigated the rebellion and defection of King Lu Wan of Yan Principality. (Lu Wan was a childhood pal of Emperor Liu Bang, and Liu Bang conferred him the title of king as an appreciation of their childhood friendship after defeating the rebellion of King Zang Tu.) Before Lu Wan' defection, King of Haan(2) Principality, Xin, failed to resist the Huns and surrendered to the Huns for fear of punishment by Liu Bang. The prime minister of Dai Principality, Chen Xi, also fled to the Huns. So to say that quite some Chinese kings and officials had joined hands with the Huns during the early years of Han Dynasty ( 206 BC-23 AD). Han Emperor Wudi, who reigned from 141 to 87 B.C., would campaign against the Huns several times. Some generals under Wudi, like General Li Ling (the grandson of General Li Guang), had surrendered to the Huns. Certainly, many Huns and their nobles were taken prisoners or surrendered to the Han Chinese, too. The son of one Hunnic king, Jin-Ridi, would later be appointed a post in the Chinese court, and he would be responsible for maintaining Liu family heritage of the Han Dynasty during several palace struggles.
 
Tribal empires rose and fell, the conquered and the conquerors mixed up, and ethnic and linguistic dividing lines blurred. Notable would be the fact that the so-called Indo-European nomads, Scythians ('Sai Ren' or 'Sai Zhong' People) and Yuezhi (Yüeh-chih), had migrated to Oxus (ancient Kuei or Gui River) and the Iranian world a long time ago. It would be during the Western Jinn (AD 265-316) that historical accounts record extensively the difference of the physique of the nomads from the Chinese. Those descriptions are mostly to do with the Xianbei nomads whose ancestors were driven to Manchuria by the Huns. When an Eastern Jinn minister (Wang Dun) rebelled against Emperor Mingdi in AD 322-325, he called the emperor by a derogatory name of "Huangxu-nu of Xianbei", meaning "yellow-haired slave of the Xianbei nomads". (Mingdi's mother was from the Dai prefecture, i.e., Yanmen'guan Pass area, and my interpretation would be to take ancient Chinese color of yellow as brown. Dark brown hair is very common among today's northern Chinese.) Emperor Fu Jian of Anterior Qin Dynasty (AD 351-394) called the Xianbei rebels 'Bai Lu', namely, light-skinned enemies. (In the eyes of the Qiang1/Di1 people, northerners like Xianbei might possess lighter skin. Today's Tibetans and Qiangs in Sichuan do possess darker-complexions. Using modern science, we could attribute the shade difference among southern and northern Mongolians to different levels of unltra-violet exposure.) As to the Jiehu, they were said to have possessed higher nose bridge than the others. Shi Min, an adopted son of Jiehu's Posterior Zhao, had at one time killed about 200,000 Jiehu nomads. History said that Shi Min's armies killed those people who looked like Jiehu because of high nose bridge. Jiehu was an alternative race of the Huns, but they must have looked the same to other Huns and Chinese except for the high nose bridge. History recorded that the criteria used for sorting out Jiehu was the nose bridge, only. (Jiehu founder, Shi Le, was said to have travelled out of his domain to seek for employment or career in his early years. Shi Le was at one time captured in today's Shandong Province when the local Jinn warlord was given advice to round up Hu nomads for filling up the army ranks. This points to the kind of melting-pot as existed in late Jinn time periods.)
 
16 Nations (AD 304-420) were comprised of various nomadic groups of people, Huns, Jiehu, Xianbei (including Wuhuan & Toba), Qiang, & Di. Ultimately, the Tobas, who were of Xianbei heritage, took over northern China. Leftover Huns were absorbed by Ruruans, and Ruruans were defeated and exterminated by Turks. Tobas would deal with the onslaughts by the Ruruans first and then the Turks. Tobas got sinicized in northern China. Ultimately, Toba Wei Dynasty would be usurped by two generals of Xianbei heritage. By Sui Dynasty (AD 581-618), Turks would replace their Ruruan masters as the strongest power in the northern steppe.
 
Ashina Turks might have possessed features different from other Huns. In the 17th year of Western Wei's Datong era, i.e., AD 551, Turkic Khan Tumen (Bumin) obtained Toba Princess Changle as a bride. In the first year of Western Wei Emperor Feidi, Tumen defeated the Ruruans and Tumen declared himself Khan Yili. Tumen's son, named Keluo, was Khan Yixiji, and he would defeat Ruruan Khan's brother (Dengshuzi). Yixiji's brother, Sijin (Sinjibu?), aka Yandu, would succeed Khan Yixiji as Khan Muchu. Sijin was recorded to be red-faced and possess liuli [brown] eyes. In the 7th century, there was record in regards to the difference of Ashina Turks from the ordinary Hu or Huns, maybe in areas like deep socket eyes and high nose bridge. A Turkic khan called Simo was not recommended for the post of Turkic Arch-Khan because he looked more like an ordinary 'Hu' nomad than an Ashina Turk. This kind of records, however, did corrobate the fact that these features were rare in relationship with the general physique of the people in the area. Speculation would be that majority Huns were of Mongol stock, but few Altaic people, like Jiehu, had inherited or picked up Caucasian features of Chinese Turkistan or Central Asia.
 
Orkhon Turks (Eastern Turks) were defeated by Uygurs. Uygurs would control Kirghiz in the west and Khitans in the east. Around the 8th century, the Kirghiz people would come into play. According to Xin Wu Dai Shi (New History Of Five Dynasties), Kirghiz belonged to the ancient 'Jiankun' Statelet which was located to the western-most of the Huns, 7000 li away from the Hunnic court in Mongolia, in fact. They should be to the west of Yiwu Statelet and to the north of Yanqi Statelet. Hunnic Chanyu Zhizhi destroyed Jiankun and ex-Han General Li Ling, who surrendered to the Huns, was assigned to the land of Jiankun as King of Youxianwang (rightside virtuous king) with an army of 80,000. "New History Of Five Dynasties" said that Kirghiz possessed lighter skin, red hair, green eyes and taller height, and that those Kirghiz with black hair must be the descendants of Li Ling. At one time, during Tang Emperor Suzong's reign of AD 758-760, the Huihu (Uygur) conquered the Jiankun Statelet of the Kirghiz. The Kirghis allied themselves with Tibetans, Arabs and Karlaks. Kirghiz, with the help of a traitor Huihu (Uygur) general and combining a cavalry force of 100000, defeated Huihu (Uygur) and killed the Huihu khan around AD 840s. Kirghiz claimed that they shared the same last name as Tang emperors, i.e., Li. They claimed to be descendants of General Li Ling of 800 years earlier. They sent another emissary to Tang court, and it took the emissary three years to circumvent to Tang court for seeing Emperor Wuzong. Later, Kirghiz sent another emissary and made a proposal to attack Huihu (Uygur) together with Tang. It would be in AD 859 that Tang Emperor Xuandi decided to confer the Kirghiz the title of Khan Bravery-Intelligence. Tang was hesitant in conferring the king title and making Kirghiz an alternative rival to the defunct Huihu power. Xin Wu Dai Shi said Kirghiz paid three more pilgrimages during AD 860-875, but they failed to exterminate Huihu (Uygur).
 
With the downfall of the Uygurs, the Khitans had their Uygur seal replaced by Tang China and then ruled eastern Mongolia, most of Manchuria, and much of northern China by AD 925. When the Kirghiz defeated the Huihe (Uygurs) in AD 840 and took over northern Mongolia, there was a group of people called the Naimans who remained in their homalands in the Altai Mountains and attached themselves to the Kirghiz. The Naimans is said to be a Mongol name for a group of the Turkic tribe called 'Sakiz Oghuz' or the Eight Oghuz, a name which existed in 8th century. Gradually, the Naimans grew in strength and drove the Kirghiz to the River Yenesei and rooted the Keraits from their homeland on the Irtysch in the Altai and drove them towards Manchuria, hence indirectly causing the Khitans to move to northern China where they established the Liao Dynasty in AD 907-1125, a name associated with the Liao River in Manchuria. The Khitans changed their dynastic names back and forth between Liao and Khitan, several times. Khitans would conquer the Xi and Shiwei Tribes, the Dadan Tribes, the Bohai Tungus people and the Sino-Tibetan Tanguts.
 
After the fall of Tang Dynasty (AD 619-907), three dynasties among the Five Dynasties (AD 907-960), Posterior Tang 923-936, Posterior Jinn 936-946, Posterior Han 947-950, were ruled by the Sha'to Turks. The remaining Orkhon Turks were not heard from after China's Five Dynasties time period. Huihe (Uygurs or Uighurs) took refuge in Ganzhou and Xinjiang after being replaced by the Kirghiz and expelled from Mongolia.
 
During the 10th century, among over twenty Shiwei tribes, there would be another interesting name called 'Huangdou Shiwei', i.e., yellow head Shiwei. Xin Wu Dai Shi, citing the account of a Chinese (Hu Qiao) taken prisoner of war by Khitans, mentioned that there were a statelet called Yujuelu with 'Maodou' (hairy head) people to the northwest of Shiwei and to the north of the Kirghiz people. Also to the northeast of Shiwei would be another group of 'Maoshou' or hairy head people.
 
Genghis Khan was rumored to have carried red hair and green eyes. Paul Ratchnevsky quoted the contemporary Chinese Zhao Hong as saying that Genghis Khan differed from other Tartars in that he was tall and had long beard, and quoted Marco Polo as saying that Khubilai did have black hair but fair complexion 'ringed with red'. Rashid ad-Din, in 'Collected Chronicles', said that Genghis Khan was amazed to see that Khubilai had black hair while the rest of their family had red hair and said his grandson must have taken 'his old uncles' features. Genghis Khan belonged to the Borjigid clan which was a branch of the Kiyats to which the Jurchens (Jurchids), Changsi'ut and the Kiyat-Sayar also belonged. The importance of the Borjigids lies in the legend that after the death of Dobun-mergen, the alleged ancestress Alan-ko bore Bodunchar after being visited by a strange 'golden glittering man'. Rashid ad-Din alluded to a foreign origin of the visitor and described him as having red hair and blue-green eyes. Paul Ratchnevsky speculated that the mysterious visitor could be a Kirghiz since the Kirghiz people were said to be tall and possessed red hair and green eyes. Note that Rashid ad-Din's writings came from secondary sources and rumors and that Yuan Shi (History of Yuan Dynasty) only recorded that Bodunchar had grey eyes against the chestnut-colored eyes of his brothers and half-brothers. Nothing is mentioned of hair or skin of Bodunchar or Genghis Khan.
 
My pointing out the above features had led some people to speculation that ancient Chinese were not necessarily Chinese in modern sense. Note important linguistic differentiation here. The Yuezhi spoke Indo-European tongue should they be firmly classified as Indo-European. The Chinese spoke Sino-Tibetan tongue. The Rong & Di2 nomads, known as the later Huns and Turks, spoke the Altaic tongue.  I would ask people to go to Xi'an and observe the terra cotta soldiers for a clear idea as to how ancient Chinese looked like over 2300 years ago. To dispel racially polarized extrapolation, I had discussed the issue of Qin Chinese ethnicity in Qin section. I explained why I consider Qin and Zhou people as mainly Sino-Tibetan speaking Chinese versus the Indo-European Yuezhi or Altaic-speaking steppe people; I had listed two good examples to show that Qin/Zhou Chinese were not color-blind people; and I searched early Chinese classics to extract the meaning of blackness as coined in 'Qian Shou' and 'Li Min' for relation to the skin, not the hair. To dispell any speculation, I had listed the following sentence as a proof that ancient Chinese took pride in hair's density and blackness as beauty and health: In classics Zuo Zhuan, during the 28th year reign of Lu Lord Zhaogong, a statement was made to infer that in the old times, a You-reng-shi woman bored a beautiful daughter, with 'zhen[3] hei[1]' (i.e., dense and black) hair.