E.H. Parker - A Thousand Years of the Tartars

THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION

A THOUSAND YEARS
OF THE TARTARS

THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION

General Editor C. K. Ogden

The History of Civilization is a landmark in early twentieth Century publishing. The aim of the general editor, C. K. Ogden, was to "summarise in one comprehensive synthesis the most recent findings and theories of historians, anthropologists, archaeologists, sociologists and all conscientious students of civilization." The History, which includes titles in the French series L'Evolution de l'Humanit, was published at a formative time in the development of the social sciences, and during a period of significant historical discoveries.

A list of the titles in the series can be found at the end of this book.

E. H. Parker

First published in 1895 by Routledge, Trench, Trubner
Reprinted in 1996, 1998 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park,
Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
&
270 Madison Ave,
New York NY 10016

Transferred to Digital Printing 2008

1996 Routledge

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or utilized in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Cataloguing in Publication Data

ISBN: 0-415-15589-4

ISBN Eastern Civilization (10 volume set): 0-415-15614-9

ISBN History of Civilization (50 volume set): 0-415-14380-2

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent

THE following pages are intended to give, in (it is hoped) readable form, the substance of all the Chinese have to say about the nomad Tartars previous to the conquests of Genghis Khan. Specialists and critics will doubtless find much which at first sight may seem to require further explanation; but when I say that I have translated, word for word, all the original Chinese authorities I can find, and that the explanatory references and manuscript notes attached to the translations reach to over seven thousand, it will be admitted that there is some ground for adopting the new course of omitting all justificatory matter whatever. There is one exception. As, in order to make the narrative more readable, I have endeavoured throughout to substitute Tartar sounds for Chinese transliterations of those sounds; and have almost uniformly used modern place-names instead of the names they bore at the time each event is described; I have thought it well to place the original Chinese sounds of all proper names in the margin, so that those who are competent to consult the originals may be able to search out the desired reference for themselves. I have done this in the Pekingese dialect. This, being a mere Tartar-corrupted jargon of standard Chinese, is about the worst that could have been chosen, so far as the chance of any resemblance to the Tartar sounds intended is concerned; but it is the dialect best known to those students in China who are likely to require the references. Cantonese would have been the best of all, but few Europeans know Cantonese. To explain the grounds upon which I arrive at my conclusions in this excepted department would require a separate treatise. I therefore enter into no further justifications. Armed with the original authorities, I am prepared to give satisfaction to all who can show that they merit it.

E. H. PARKER.

THIS unpretending work was originally written at K'iungchou (Island of Hainan, South China), in 1893-4, the Prefect of that city having lent me the necessary original Chinese histories. I left China for good in 1894, and Mr. George Jamieson, then Acting-Chief Judge at Shanghai, kindly corrected the printers' proofs and saw to the publication there. Meanwhile the Russians had discovered near Urga a trilingual stone record, the Chinese and Syriac versions ultimately leading to the further discovery that the third language was Turkish. Professor V. Thomsen, of Copenhagen, was the first to establish this fact (by methods reminiscent of the Rosetta Stone); and Dr. W. Radloff, of St. Petersburg, followed by practically reconstructing the whole Turkish language in the form it existed 1,200 years ago. I had already in the China Review, vol. xx, attempted at length to show that the Hiung-nu, Scythians, Huns, and Turks were different phases of the same tribes; and, since then, Chavannes, Hirth, and others have gone into the matter still more thoroughly.

E. H. PARKER.

14 GAMBIER TERRACE,
LIVERPOOL.

A THOUSAND YEARS OF
THE TARTARS

BOOK I
THE EMPIRE OF THE HIUNG-NU

THE real history of the nomads of Eastern Asia begins about the same time and very much in the same way as the history of the northern tribes of Europe. The Chinese Empire, like the Roman Empire, began a career of discovery and conquest, which resulted in closer and more frequent contact with and blending of races, incessant frontier wars, subversion of the Empire, and a general shifting of political centres. More ancient than the experiences of China and Rome were those of Greece and Persia; but the account of the Scythians given by Herodotus differs from the later Chinese and Roman records in being rather a vivid picture of life and manners than an exact political history. Yet there is very little in the descriptions of Herodotus which does not perfectly accord with the Chinese portrayal of the Hiung-nu on the one hand and the Roman narrative of the Huns on the other. Whether the Hiung-nu of China are to be etymologically connected with the Ovvot, Hunnen, and Huns of the west, is a question which is scarcely susceptible of positive proof either one way or the other. We confine ourselves to giving a plain record of facts as gathered from