Jurchen people
The Jurchen is a term used to collectively describe a number of East Asian Tungusic-speaking peoples who lived in the northeast of China, later known as Manchuria, before the 18th century. They are largely continuous with the Manchus of later history. Of obscure origins, different Jurchen groups lived as hunter-gatherers, pastoralist nomads, or sedentary agriculturists. Generally lacking a central authority, and having little communication with each other, many Jurchen groups fell under the influence of neighbouring dynasties, their chiefs paying tribute and holding nominal posts as effectively hereditary commanders of border guards.
Chinese officials of the Ming dynasty classified them into three groups, reflecting relative proximity to China:
- Jianzhou Jurchens, some of whom were mixed with Korean and Chinese populations, lived in the proximity of the Mudan river, the Changbai mountains, and Liaodong. They were noted as able to sew clothes similar to the Chinese, and lived by hunting and fishing, sedentary agriculture, and trading in pearls and ginseng.
- Haixi Jurchens, named after the Haixi or Songhua river, included several populous and independent tribes, largely divided between nomadic pastoralists in the west and sedentary agriculturalists in the east. They were the Jurchens most strongly influenced by the Mongols.
- Yeren, a term sometimes used by Chinese and Korean commentators to refer to all Jurchens. It more specifically referred to the inhabitants of the sparsely populated north of Manchuria beyond the Liao and Songhua river valleys, supporting themselves by hunting, fishing, pig farming, and some migratory agriculture. Many "Yeren Jurchens", like the Nivkh, Negidai, Nanai, Oroqen and many Evenks, are today considered distinct ethnic groups.
Name
The name Jurchen is derived from a long line of other variations of the same name.The initial Khitan form of the name was said to be Lüzhen. The variant Nrjo-tsyin appeared in the 10th century under the Liao dynasty. The Jurchens were also interchangeably known as the Nrjo-drik. This is traditionally explained as an effect of the Chinese naming taboo, with the character being removed after the 1031 enthronement of Zhigu, Emperor Xingzong of Liao, because it appeared in the sinified form of his personal name. Aisin-Gioro Ulhicun, however, argues that this was a later folk etymology and the original reason was uncertainty among dialects regarding the name's final -n.
Jurchen is an anglicization of Jurčen, an attempted reconstruction of this unattested original form of the native name, which has been transcribed into Middle Chinese as Trjuwk-li-tsyin and into Khitan small script as Julisen. The ethnonyms Sushen and Jizhen
Janhunen argues that these records already reflect the Classical Mongolian plural form of the name, recorded in the Secret History as J̌ürčät, and further reconstructed as *Jörcid, The modern Mongolian form is Jürčid whose medial does not appear in the later Jurchen Jucen or Jušen or Manchu Jushen. In Manchu, this word was more often used to describe the serfs—though not slaves—of the free Manchu people, who were themselves mostly the former Jurchens. To describe the historical people who founded the Jin dynasty, they reborrowed the Mongolian name as Jurcit.
Appearance
According to William of Rubruck, the Jurchens were "swarthy like Spaniards."Sin Chung-il notes that during his visit to Fe Ala in the late 16th century that all those who served Nurhaci were uniform in their dress and hairstyle. They all shaved a portion of their scalp and kept the remaining hair in a long plaited braid. All men wore leather boots, breeches, and tunics.
History
Prehistory and antiquity
When the Jurchens first entered Chinese records in 748, they inhabited the forests and river valleys of the land which is now divided between China's Heilongjiang Province and Russia's Primorsky Krai province. In earlier records, this area was known as the home of the Sushen, the Yilou, the Wuji, and the Mohe. Scholarship since the Qing period traces the origin of the Jurchens to the "Wanyen tribe of the Mohos" around Mt Xiaobai, or to the Heishui or Blackwater Mohe., and some sources stress the continuity between these earlier peoples with the Jurchen but this remains conjectural.The tentative ancestors of the Jurchens, the Tungusic Mohe tribes, were subjects of the multi-ethnic kingdom of Balhae. The Mohe enjoyed eating pork, practiced pig farming extensively, and were mainly sedentary. They used both pig and dog skins for coats. They were predominantly farmers and grew soybean, wheat, millet, and rice in addition to hunting. Like all Tungus people, the Mohe practiced slavery. Horses were rare in the region they inhabited until the 10th century under the domination of the Khitans. The Mohe rode reindeer.
Jin dynasty
By the 11th century, the Jurchens had become vassals of the Khitan rulers of the Liao dynasty. The Jurchens in the Yalu River region had been tributaries of Goryeo since the reign of Wang Geon, who called upon them during the wars of the Later Three Kingdoms period, but the Jurchens switched allegiance between Liao and Goryeo multiple times out of expedience. They offered tribute to both courts out of political necessity and the attraction of material benefits.Before the Jurchens overthrew the Khitan, married Jurchen women and Jurchen girls were raped by Liao Khitan envoys as a custom which caused resentment by the Jurchens against the Khitan.
Wanyan Aguda, chief of the Wanyan tribe, unified the various Jurchen tribes in 1115 and declared himself emperor. In 1120 he seized Shangjing, also known as Linhuang Prefecture, the northern capital of the Liao dynasty. During the Jin–Song Wars, the Jurchens invaded the Northern Song dynasty and overran most of northern China. The Jurchens initially created the puppet regimes of Da Qi and Da Chu but later adopted a dynastic name and became known as "Jin" 金, which means "gold", not to be confused with the earlier Jin 晋 dynasties named after the region around Shanxi and Henan provinces. The name of the Jurchen dynasty in Chinese — meaning "gold"—is derived from the "Gold River" in their ancestral homeland. The Jurchens who settled into urban communities eventually intermarried with other ethnicities in China. The Jin rulers themselves came to follow Confucian norms. The Jin dynasty captured the Northern Song dynasty's capital, Bianjing, in 1127. Their armies pushed the Song all the way south to the Yangtze River and eventually settled on a border with the Southern Song dynasty along the Huai River.
After 1189, the Jin dynasty became increasingly involved in conflicts with the Mongols. By 1215, after losing much territory to the Mongols, the Jurchens moved their capital south from Zhongdu to Kaifeng. After a siege lasting about a year, Kaifeng fell to the Mongols in 1233. Emperor Aizong fled to Caizhou for shelter, but Caizhou also fell to the Mongols in 1234, marking the end of the Jin dynasty.
Ming dynasty
Chinese chroniclers of the Ming dynasty distinguished three different groups of Jurchens: the Wild Jurchens of Outer Manchuria, the Haixi Jurchens of modern Heilongjiang Province and the Jianzhou Jurchens of modern Jilin Province. They led a pastoral-agrarian lifestyle, hunting, fishing, and engaging in limited agriculture. In 1388, the Hongwu Emperor dispatched a mission to establish contact with the Odoli, Huligai and T'owen tribes.The issue of controlling the Jurchens was a point of contention between Joseon Korea and the early Ming.
The Yongle Emperor found allies among the various Jurchen tribes against the Mongols. He bestowed titles and surnames to various Jurchen chiefs and expected them to send periodic tribute. One of the Yongle Emperor's consorts was a Jurchen princess, which resulted in some of the eunuchs serving him being of Jurchen origin. Chinese commanderies were established over tribal military units under their own hereditary tribal leaders. In the Yongle period, 178 commanderies were set up in Manchuria. Later on, horse markets were established in the northern border towns of Liaodong. Increased contact with the Chinese gave Jurchens the more complex and sophisticated organizational structures.
The Koreans dealt with the Jurchen military through appeals to material benefits and launching punitive expeditions. To appease them the Joseon court handed out titles and degrees, trading with them, and sought to acculturate them by having Korean women marry Jurchens and integrating them into Korean culture. These measures were unsuccessful and fighting continued between the Jurchen and the Koreans. This relationship between the Jurchens and Koreans was ended by the Ming which envisioned the Jurchens as a form of protective border to the north. In 1403, Ahacu, chieftain of Huligai, paid tribute to the Yongle Emperor. Soon after that, Mentemu, chieftain of Odoli clan of the Jianzhou Jurchens, defected from paying tribute to Korea, becoming a tributary to China instead. Yi Seong-gye, the first ruler of Joseon, asked the Ming dynasty to send Mentemu back but was refused. The Yongle Emperor was determined to wrest the Jurchens out of Korean influence and have China dominate them instead. The Koreans tried to persuade Mentemu to reject the Ming dynasty's overtures but were unsuccessful. The Jurchen tribes presented tribute to the Ming dynasty in succession. They were divided in 384 guards by the Ming dynasty and the Jurchen became vassals to the Ming emperors. The name given to the Jurchen land by the Ming dynasty was Nurgan. Later, a Korean army led by Yi-Il and Yi Sun-sin would expel them from Korea.
In 1409, the Ming government created the Nurgan Command Post at Telin in the vicinity of Heilongjiang. The Jurchens came under the nominal administration of the Nurgan Command Post which lasted only 25 years and was abolished in 1434. Leaders of the Haixi and Jianzhou tribes did however accept the Ming titles.
From 1411 to 1433, the Ming eunuch Yishiha led ten large missions to win over the allegiance of the Jurchen tribes along the Songhua River and Amur River. His fleet sailed down the Songhua into the Amur, and set up the Nurgan Command at Telin near the mouth of the Amur River. These missions are not well recorded in the Ming histories, but there exist two stone steles erected by Yishiha at the site of the Yongning Temple, a Guanyin temple commissioned by him at Telin. The inscriptions on the steles are in four languages: Chinese, Jurchen, Mongol, and Tibetan. There is probably quite a lot of propaganda in the inscriptions, but they give a detailed record of the Ming court's efforts to assert suzerainty over the Jurchen. When Yishiha visited Nurgan for the 3rd time in 1413, he built a temple called Yongning Temple at Telin and erected the Yongning Temple Stele in front of it. Yishiha paid his 10th visit to Nurgan in 1432, during which he rebuilt the Yongning Temple and re-erected a stele in front of it. The stele bore the heading "Record of Re-building Yongning Temple". The setting up of the Nurgan Command Post and the repeated declarations to offer blessings to this region by Yishiha and others were all recorded in this and the first steles.
In the ninth year of the Ming Xuande emperor the Jurchens in Manchuria under Ming rule suffered from famine forcing them to sell their daughters into slavery and moving to Liaodong to beg for help and relief from the Ming dynasty government.
Establishment of the Manchu
Over a period of 30 years from 1586, Nurhaci, a chieftain of the Jianzhou Jurchens, united the Jurchen tribes. In 1635, his son and successor, Hong Taiji, renamed his people the Manchus as a clear break from their past as Chinese vassals. During the Ming dynasty, the Koreans of Joseon referred to the Jurchen inhabited lands north of the Korean peninsula, above the rivers Yalu and Tumen as part of the "superior country" which they called Ming China. The Qing deliberately excluded references and information that showed the Jurchens as subservient to the Ming dynasty, when composing the History of Ming to hide their former subservient relationship. The Veritable Records of Ming were not used to source content on Jurchens during Ming rule in the History of Ming because of this. The Yongzheng Emperor attempted to rewrite the historical record and claim that the Aisin Gioro were never subjects of past dynasties and empires trying to cast Nurhaci's acceptance of Ming titles like Dragon Tiger General by claiming he accepted to "please Heaven".During the Qing dynasty, the two original editions of the books of the "Qing Taizu Wu Huangdi Shilu" and the "Manzhou Shilu Tu" were kept in the palace, forbidden from public view because they showed that the Manchu Aisin Gioro family had been ruled by the Ming dynasty.
Culture
Jurchen culture shared many similarities with the hunter-gatherer lifestyle of Siberian-Manchurian tundra and coastal peoples. Like the Khitans and Mongols, they took pride in feats of strength, horsemanship, archery, and hunting. Both Mongols and Jurchens used the title Khan for the leaders of a political entity, whether "emperor" or "chief". A particularly powerful chief was called beile, corresponding with the Mongolian beki and Turkish beg or bey. Also like the Mongols and the Turks, the Jurchens did not observe primogeniture. According to tradition, any capable son or nephew could be chosen to become leader.Unlike the Mongols, the Jurchens were a sedentary and agrarian society. They farmed grain and millet as their primary cereal crops, grew flax and raised oxen, pigs, sheep, and horses. "At the most", the Jurchen could only be described as "semi-nomadic" while the majority of them were sedentary.
Jurchen similarities and differences with the Mongols were emphasized to various degrees by Nurhaci out of political expediency. Nurhaci once said to the Mongols that "the languages of the Chinese and Koreans are different, but their clothing and way of life is the same. It is the same with us Manchus and Mongols. Our languages are different, but our clothing and way of life is the same." Later, Nurhaci indicated that the bond with the Mongols was not based on any real shared culture, but rather on pragmatic reasons of "mutual opportunism". He said to the Mongols, "You Mongols raise livestock, eat meat and wear pelts. My people till the fields and live on grain. We two are not one country and we have different languages".
During the Ming dynasty, the Jurchens lived in sub-clans of ancient clans. Not all clan members were blood related, and division and integration of different clans was common. Jurchen households lived as families consisting of five to seven blood-related family members and a number of slaves. Households formed squads to engage in tasks related to hunting and food gathering and formed companies for larger activities, such as war.
Haixi, Jianzhou, Yeren
The Haixi Jurchens were "semi-agricultural, the Jianzhou Jurchens and Maolian Jurchens were sedentary, while hunting and fishing was the way of life of the "Wild Jurchens". Hunting, horseback archery, horsemanship, livestock raising, and sedentary agriculture were all practiced by Jianzhou Jurchens. The Jurchen way of life was described as agricultural. They farmed crops and raised animals. Jurchens practiced slash-and-burn agriculture in the areas north of Shenyang.Pigtail
In 1126, the Jurchens initially ordered male Han Chinese within their conquered territories to adopt the Jurchen hairstyle by shaving the front of their heads and adopting Jurchen dress, but the order was later lifted. Jurchens were impersonated by Han rebels who wore their hair in the Jurchen "pigtail" to strike fear within their population. During the Qing dynasty, the Manchus, who descended from the Jurchens, similarly made Han Chinese men shave the front of their head and wear the rest of their hair in a queue, or soncoho, the traditional Manchu hairstyle.Dogs
Although their Mohe ancestors did not respect dogs, the Jurchens began to respect dogs around the time of the Ming dynasty and passed this tradition on to the Manchus. It was prohibited in Jurchen culture to use dog skin, and forbidden for Jurchens to harm, kill, or eat dogs. The Jurchens believed that the "utmost evil" was the usage of dog skin by Koreans.Burial
Until recently, it was uncertain what kind of burial rites existed among the Jurchens. In July 2012, Russian archaeologists discovered a Jurchen burial ground in Partizansky District of Primorye in Russia. Fifteen graves dating to the 12th or 13th centuries were found, consisting of the grave of a chieftain placed in the centre, with the graves of 14 servants nearby. All the graves contained pots with ashes, prompting the scientists to conclude that the Jurchens cremated the corpses of their dead. The grave of the chieftain also contained a quiver with arrows and a bent sword. The archaeologists propose that the sword was purposely bent, to signify that the owner would no longer need it in earthly life. The researchers planned to return to Primorye to establish whether this was a singular burial or a part of the larger burial ground.Religion
Jurchens practiced shamanic rituals and believed in a supreme sky goddess. The Jurchens of the Jin dynasty practiced Buddhism, which became the prevalent religion of the Jurchens, and Daoism. Under Confucian influence during the Qing dynasty the gender of the female sky deity was switched to a male sky father, Abka Enduri.Language
The early Jurchen script was invented in 1120 by Wanyan Xiyin, acting on the orders of Wanyan Aguda. It was based on the Khitan script that was inspired in turn by Chinese characters. The written Jurchen language died out soon after the fall of the Jin dynasty. The Translators' Bureau of the Ming tributary bureaucracy received a communication from the Jurchens in 1444 stating that nobody among them understood the Jurchen script, so all letters sent to them should be written in Mongolian.Until the end of the 16th century, when Manchu became the new literary language, the Jurchens used a combination of Mongolian and Chinese. The pioneering work on studies of the Jurchen script was done by Wilhelm Grube at the end of the 19th century.
Possible Jurchen descendants
A caste of "degraded" outcasts said to be descended from the Jurchen existed in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, during the Qing dynasty, around 3,000 people in a class called to-min. Samuel Wells Williams gave an account of them in his book "The Middle kingdom: a survey of the... Chinese empire and its inhabitants":There are local prejudices against associating with some portions of the community, though the people thus shut out are not remnants of old castes. The tankia, or boat-people, at Canton form a class in some respects beneath the other portions of the community, and have many customs peculiar to themselves. At Ningpo there is a degraded set called to min, amounting to nearly three thousand persons, with whom the people will not associate. The men are not allowed to enter the examinations or follow an honorable calling, but are play-actors, musicians, or sedan-bearers; the women are match-makers or female barbers and are obliged to wear a peculiar dress, and usually go abroad carrying a bundle wrapped in a checkered handkerchief. The tankia at Canton also wear a similar handkerchief on their head, and do not cramp their feet. The to min are supposed to be descendants of the Kin, who held northern China in A.D. 1100, or of native traitors who aided the Japanese, in 1555–1563, in their descent upon Chehkiang. The tankia came from some of the Miautsz' tribes so early that their origin is unknown.