On the Goodness Brought by the Ugly Barbarians: A Case Study of the Iranization of Chinese Nomenclature.

• Author: Chen, Sanping

To the memory of my mother nee Hu

INTRODUCTION

The ethnonym Hu [??] in China has an enigmatic but generally derogatory history. In the two Han dynasties (206 BCE-220 CE), it referred primarily to the Xiongnu [phrase omitted], China's archenemy in the north. (1) As suggested by Han shu, (2) Hu may well have been an endonym of the first nomadic empire on the steppe. Then in a few centuries, after the chaotic period generally known from within Chinese tradition as wu-Hu luan-Hua [phrase omitted] "the Five Barbarians' Disruption of the Civilized," (3) when the Confucian gentry lost their control of northern China to various "Barbarian" groups after the collapse of the Western Jin dynasty (266-316), the primary designation of Hu switched somewhat mysteriously to the "Western Barbarians" from Central Asia and beyond, at that time mainly Iranian-speaking. (4) The bad press of the term nevertheless continued. In particular, in the eyes of most Chinese, these aliens looked different, with "deep eyes and threatening noses" [phrase omitted], (5) quickly earning themselves the derogatory classification chouhn/huchou [phrase omitted], "ugly Barbarians." For instance, in telling a bizarre story of the resurrection of a deceased gentleman after the exchange of body parts with a dead Sogdian named Kang Yi [phrase omitted], Liu Yiqing [phrase omitted] (403-444), author also of the famous collection of historical anecdotes Shishuo xinyu [phrase omitted], stressed that "the

Barbarian had a very ugly body" [phrase omitted]. (6) The distinctly Caucasian appearance played an important role in the bloody pogrom against the Jiehu [phrase omitted] in 349. (7) Centuries later, this had taken such a clear shape that Xin Tang shu (New History of the Tang dynasty, completed in 1060) would even reword the above cliche about the collapse of the western Jin dynasty to Huchou luan-Hua [phrase omitted] "Ugly Barbarians Disrupting the Civilized" (XTS 95.3843).

HOW UGLY BARBARIANS ALWAYS GOT BLAMED FOR BAD AND EVEN GOOD OUTCOMES

In addition to the term's opprobrium carried over from the Xiongnu, the "ugly Barbarians" par excellence came to be the Sogdians who traded along the ancient Silk Road. As the most successful and usually very rich, yet largely stateless merchants, these ugly Barbarians became easy scapegoats for all bad things befalling the medieval East Asian world. There was first the Massacre on the South Bank of the Yellow River [phrase omitted] (528) executed by the Caucasoid Barbarian ([phrase omitted] ), Erzhu Rong [phrase omitted] (493-530), which by killing off most of the imperial house pretty much spelled the end of the Northern Wei dynasty (386-535). This was probably the pretext for Wei Shou[phrase omitted] (507-572) to surmise in Wei shu, the official history of the dynasty, as follows:

Alas! The ugly Barbarians being the cause of disasters was certainly not limited to the decline of the Zhou dynasty (ca. 1046-257 BCE) or the end of the Jin dynasty! [phrase omitted] ! (ws 10.268) Such enmity against the ugly Barbarians pervaded the Confucian gentry. The fall of the succeeding Northern Qi dynasty (550-577) that Wei Shou served under was blamed on its last monarch's alleged promotion to important positions of "ugly Barbarians from the Western Regions" [phrase omitted] (BQS 50.685). The Northern Zhou (557-581), which had conquered the Northern Qi, did not escape similar criticism after the usurpation of the polity by the founding emperor Yang Jian [phrase omitted] (r. 581-604) of the Sui dynasty, as Sui shu accused the Northern Zhou emperor, in order to appease people from Central Asia, of appearing in person to worship the foreign heavenly god hutian [phrase omitted] following Barbarian ceremonies "too obscene and obscure to describe" [phrase omitted] (SS 7.149).

Later, when the rising Tang dynasty put an end to the Eastern Turkic Empire in 630, an apparent good result from the Middle Kingdom's viewpoint, the ugly Barbarians still were blamed for this sorry fate of the Turks: This was all because the Turk kaghan alienated his own folk by depending on these "Hu-barbarians with a corrupting and greedy nature" [phrase omitted]. (8)

The Hu-barbarians were held in ill repute by Chinese Buddhists as well, who normally were much less xenophobic than the Confucian literati. In his famous travelogue, after traveling through Sogdiana, the early Tang Buddhist monk Xuanzang [phrase omitted] (602-664) provided such observations of the local population: "Their wills are weak and pusillanimous. They are as a rule crafty and deceitful in their conduct and extremely covetous" [phrase omitted] [phrase omitted]. (9)

Then in the spring of 721, the Sogdians who had earlier settled in the Six Hu Prefectures in the Ordos region launched a short-lived rebellion. (10) In the imperial edict ordering military campaigns to pacify the rebellion, drafted in elegant classic Chinese, apparently by a highly educated Confucian courtier, the emperor Xuanzong [phrase omitted] (r. 712-756) called the Hu rebels "creeping atrocious ugly creatures ungrateful for the civilizing grace [bestowed on them]" [phrase omitted]. (11) Just a few decades later, the mighty and glorious Tang dynasty was almost brought down by the An-Shi Rebellion [phrase omitted] (755-763) led by two Tang generals who were each half-Sogdian, an episode defined by the Tang emperor Suzong [phrase omitted] (r. 756-762 ) as "atrocious ugly creatures disrupting the Civilized" [phrase omitted]. (12) Ever since, the accusation of the ugly Barbarians being responsible for China's ills became a near-permanent theme. A wave of "de-barbarization" in fact swept over areas under the direct control of the Tang to eliminate apparent signs of "Barbarian" culture. (13) As before, the moral judgment did not stop at the border of the Middle Kingdom: a century and a half later, Chinese historians would still highlight the decay and eventual collapse of the Uighur Empire, which had replaced the Turks on the Mongolian Plateau, by a bloody coup d'etat in 780 that massacred thousands of the "greedy and scheming" Hu Barbarians who had incited the Uighur kaghan to pillage Tang territories. (14)

HU IN OLD CHINESE NOMENCLATURE

The word hu has a very old positive meaning of "longevity." As such, it appeared in ancient Chinese nomenclature, the most famous being the posthumous title Hugong [phrase omitted] of the founding lord of the Dukedom of Chen [??] after the Zhou [??] conquest of the Shang [??] (ca. 1046 BCE; SJ 13.501). But such positive onomastic use became very rare during the Han dynasties and the word quickly turned into an ignominious term in Chinese nomenclature referring to the Xiongnu. The tradition is reminiscent of the sloganeering of the Mao era in modern China vis-a-vis the "American imperialists." Underlying it is the assumption of "Down with the Hu Barbarians." The first-century-BCE children's primer Jijiu pian [phrase omitted] (also known as Jijiu zhang [phrase omitted] ) lists what it regards as a model given name, Pohu [phrase omitted], "break the Hu," (15) which is to say, the Xiongnu Empire. This and similar names are attested in both received texts and documents recovered in archeological finds: Pohu (SJ 21.1104, HS 7.219, JY 38), Pihu [phrase omitted] (HS 98.3843), "expel the Hu," and Shenghu [phrase omitted] (HS 16b.795, JY 22) "victory over the Hu."

The ignominy of the term was also found in official titles of the Han: bahujiangjun [phrase omitted] "Hu-uprooting general" (HS 6.196), dinghu jiangjun [phrase omitted] "Hu-quelling general" (HS 99b.4121), pohu hou [phrase omitted] "Hu-breaking marquis" (HS 18.719), jihu hou [phrase omitted] "Hu-attacking marquis" (HS 96a.3898), jiaohu zi [phrase omitted] "Hu-terminating viscount" (HS 96b.3927), jihu duwei [phrase omitted] "Hu-attacking commandant" (HS 96b.3918), and many others. Even the famous Han court lady Wang Zhaojun [phrase omitted] who volunteered to marry the Xiongnu monarch (Chanyu [phrase omitted] ) in 33 BCE was given the unflattering title ninghu yanzhi [phrase omitted] "Barbarian Queen who pacifies the Hu" (HS 94b.3806). This sloganeering extended

to toponyms too. For instance, during the Han era, in addition to having a military post Tuhu sui [phrase omitted], "Hu-annexing Beacon Tower," (16) the Commandery of Dunhuang included a residential neighborhood named Pohu li [phrase omitted], "Hu-breaking quarter." (17)

When waves of Xianbei [phrase omitted] groups drove off and displaced the Xiongnu on the steppe, the new Barbarians were given the even more disparaging epithet lu [??], usually translated as "caitiff." Because the leading group of Xianbei origin, the Tuoba [phrase omitted], ended up dominating northern China for several centuries, this derogatory term later gained a certain grudging respectability. (18) On the other hand, likely because of the original enmity of the Xianbei against the Xiongnu, (19) the new masters of the steppe kept the same "down with the Hu" given names, exemplified by Heba Sheng [phrase omitted] (d. 544), style name Pohu (ZS 14.215). Two other contemporary namesakes in the received texts were Xue Pohu [phrase omitted] (WS 42.944) and Wei Pohu [phrase omitted] (BQS 8.107). Earlier and elsewhere in the Eastern Jin [??] (317-420) realm, the word continued to be used derogatorily in onomastics, exemplified by the nickname Hunu [phrase omitted], "Hu-slave/servant," of the Eastern Jin dynasty general Tao Kan [phrase omitted] (259-334), the great-grandfather of the famous poet Tao Yuanming [phrase omitted]. (20) In a document dated as late as 771 found in Turfan (TFL 10.297), a local irrigation channel was derogatorily named Hulu [phrase omitted], "Hu caitiff," as well. This persistent negative connotation of hu may even be linked to such colloquial words as husun [phrase omitted]. "monkey," hushuo [phrase omitted] "nonsense", etc., that never had otherwise satisfactory etymologies. (21)

A NEW...