The Caucasoid descent of Chinese people

[prober]

I detected there was an essay concerning the ethnic consist of "Wu Hu" which invaded China during the Jin Dynasty. The author's view was that the Turk which raided China later was a Caucasian tribe (there Khan described as with grenn eyes and red cheek, more evidance available) , "Wu Hu" (Xiongnu, Jie, Qiang, Di, Xianbei) were not.
But according to the Chinese ancient historical annual, the Xiongnu are such Nordic tribe with red hair and blue eyes like "Wushun". And, Jie, which was a branch of Xiongnu, also described as with high Nose Bridge, and "deep" eyes. After the collapse of their ruling to Han, the Jie people was distinguished easily because of their Caucasian feature and slaughtered (more than 200,000 victims). The historical work of the later dynasties also described the remained Xiongnu people as "Long nose" and "yellow hair". Until Tang dynasty, the "Qi Hu" which is the offspring of the royal Xiongnu people, still called "Hu tou Han se" which mean's they adopt the Chinese tongue, but still "foreign" feature.
Much other evidence can support the standpoint that Xiongnu are Caucasion,I don't want to illustrate any more.
Some people believe the Xiongnu are Mongolian race, because the Roman historian said the Hun people who invaded were"brown skin, stocky body, slanting eyes" which are typical Mongolian trait. But, actually, the Hun who invaded Europe 5th century was not the descendant of Xiongnu. The contemporary scholars affirm they are the identical tribe just because the pronunciation of "Hun" and "Xiongnu" are approximately the same. And there is some relationship between their languege. I also want to point out that around the 5th and 6th century, there's another branch of "Hun" ruined the Persia and Northwest India, that Branch was called "White Hun" The Persian historian said that thier feature were different from "Hun", with white body. Hence, it seemed that, they were also Caucasian.
Now, let's come to Xianbei, many people noticed that, in the historical book, the Xianbei people were called "Bai Lu" means white invader (thief). And in the Great Work <<Zhi zhi tong jian>>, I found the following story--The Emperor Of Eastern Jin, Jin Ming Di (Shima Shao), was with yellow beard and hair, because his mother was a Xianbei female. Once he went to inspect his troop without notice, And the warriors all considered him as Xianbei people, then chased him as enemy. The folk songs at that time said, "Huang tou Xianbei jin Luoyang"--Xianbei is with "yellow head", it is quite possible that "yellow head" referred to their yellow hair and beard. Xianbei is an alliance of tribes; there might also be some Mongolian tribes in it, but the Caucasian consist was more obvious, which all Hans paid attention to it.
I'm inclined to be in approval of what Mr. Peng elaborated yesterday. The contemporary Chinese people don't dwell on the ethnic origin of the nation, most of them believe they are simply Mongolian race. That's not a correct concept.
The racial intermix in china began before any dynasty, but the Neolithic time. The skulls unearthed in the relics of Banpo Xi'an reveal the trait of Caucasian, exactly, the Nordish Caucasian. The Banpo civilian used to be the hybrid of Nordish and Mongolian (like the Finn today). We all know, the Banpo is the representative civilization of the Northern China Neolithic civilizations, we can infer, many other Chinese civilizations in that time were created by Caucasian or mingled people.
The Hemudu in Zhejiang is the representative Neolithic civilization in Southern China. But after measuring the skulls detected there, it was extremely amazed that, they're of Negro characteristics!
One renowned Chinese anthropologist stated in his work that "According to the numerous skeletons of Indo-Europe people unearthed in China and the feature of the Southern Chinese people today, the Chinese nation can't be classified into the Mongolian race simply. At an earlier time, many Chinese anthropologists also clarify that it's completely wrong to say the ancient skeletons discovered in China belong to the same race. The Mongolian couldn't be regarded as the only "Local Chinese". The Caucasian also had been inhabited in Eastern Asia since very early time. In Japan, the aboriginal Ainu people was finally confessed as the ancestor of current Japanese nation. The Ainu was the Caucasian tribe moved to the Japanese islands more than 20,000 years ago, while the Mongolian just reached Japan around 10,000 years ago. They intermixed and yielded the Japanese people now. The same procedure of intermixing also took place in Korea.
Another famous event happened last year also support the idea--some researchers of biochemistry analyzed the DNA refined from the mummies in some ancient tombs in Shangdong province, and made a conclusion that these DNA correspond that of the European people. Another research discovered that the gene of Northern Chinese is more close to the Caucasian, rather than the Southern Chinese.
The origin of Zhou, The third Dynasty of ancient China, is also doubtful. The time of the establishment of that dynasty is not far from the time of Aryan Expansion. The chariot used by the soldiers of Zhou just resembles the chariot used by Aryan invaders to India! More critical, the ancient Chinese work written by Mengzi said that, Zhou Wen Wang (the emperor of Zhou) is the people of "western barbarians" It's quite possible that a branch of Aryan intruded china at the moving of Aryan.
Someone even suspect the origin of the Qin Dynasty, which was the subsequent dynasty of Zhou. At least, there was some independent Aryan tribes which didn't integrated with local Chinese or absorbed by local Chinese still existed in Western and central China at the time of late Zhou dynasty. It was recorded that the king of Qin attack the ruler of Zhou with some barbarous tribes but failed. That event happened a few hundred years BC, at that very time, the Bactoria in Central Asia was conquered by 4 Nomadic Aryan tribes, the origins of 3 of these tribes were definite. Now, some historians reckon the 4th tribe might be the failed Aryan tribe that moved back to Central Asia.
Until Han dynasty, the "Yue zhi" (pronounced as 'rou zhi, an Aryan Tribe) still live in Ganshu province, and sometimes also find the track of their activity in Northern China. And the region east to Tianshan Mountain (in the center of Eastern Turkeystan) was distributed by Saka (A branch of Aryan, whose language belongs to the Iranian Group, known as Scythian by Westerners and 'Sai Zhong' by Chinese).
Now, many scholars believe that many "Yi" and "Di" (the diverse barbarian tribes) recorded in early Chinese dynasties are Caucasian.
I'm afraid the origin Xiongnu can be traced back to Scythian. Because the record revealed that their custom were exactly the same.
Thus, the Chinese people nowadays contain abundant of Caucasian blood. But currently, they all belong to the same nation, that's because the ancient Chinese culture was so great that it could absorb any other races, it was a furnace to integrate all races. And the Caucasian, Mongolian created the grand Chinese civilization together.

[Ta_Moua]

Hello! You have quite and interesting posting (The Caucasoid Descent of Chinese People)! My ethnicity is Hmong and a large group of my people reside in Southern China. We are called the "Miao" in China and that is where we originated--as far as evidence has shown. I've been conducting a research on where or how some Hmong people have differenct physical characteristics (blond hair and hazel eyes) from the rest of the Hmong population. There aren't that many with these features, only a few here and there that I have seen. (I don't have any exact numbers.) There are many folklores and legends of where the Hmong have originated...some have said that we came from Mongolia, others have said we've come farther West through the Caspian Sea carrying these "fairer" genes. I do not want to discredit those "claims," but I don't want to overlook any other ideas. The only thing that I could think of is the inter-breeding of the Hmong (or Miao) with a/some outside Caucasian groups. Do you have any ideas or information that I might find helpful? Thanks!

[jutka]

Here in Toronto I see lots of Chinese with blond hair. I think their origin is L'Oreal. hehehe

But seriously, this is a very interesting topic. I have heard many such interesting things about the origins of some peoples.

Take care

[prober]

As you mentioned the group of "Miao", actually, my dad is from that group, that's recorded in his resident ID. "Miao" is currently a minority with a population of 9 million in Southern China, but they also dwell in Vietnam. And alleged that 200,000 of the Chinese descent American are "Miao".
But I'm not inclined to support that they originally from anywhere in Northern Asia or Central Asia. Although I heard some notion deeming that they are from North, someone even suspect they've some relationship with Aryan, that's ridiculous. (Another significant minority in Southern China--Yi truly has the Aryan genealogy)
Since the Miao ethnically belong to Malay (Austroid), they must be Southern Asian. 6000 years ago, in the current region of China, inhibited by both Ainu, Mongoloid and Malay, even Negroid people. At that time, Malay group was distributed in much Northern place, Miao occupied the drainage basin of Huanghe river with another aboriginal tribe from South (Li), And various other Southern "barbarian" lived in the region of Huaihe, even Shangdong. But, later, the Mongoloid people prevailed the Malay, and drove them out of Northern China. The rest Malay were converted into helot, then mingled with the Mongoloid or Caucasoid in the north. And under the influence of the Northern Sino-Tibetan speakers, most of the Southern Malay adopt the Sino-Tibetan language, became a part of the Han nation. So, the Hans now living in the region of Yangzi river, are mostly the descendant of former Miao. And those lived in the southeast coastal region are mostly former "Yue", All of Malay origin.
However, most Chinese anthropologists nowadays, gainsay the Mongoloid and Malay (Austroid) are 2 different races, they classify the Malay as a sub-group of Mongol, maybe they afraid that will do bad to the unity of Northern and Southern Chinese, but I think it's droll, the Northern and Southern Chinese already one entity, nothing will cumber it.
As to the Malay race, more anthropologists apt to believe it's the offspring of "primitive Caucasoid people", which is different from the modern Caucasian, then amalgamated with Pygmy, an African "dwarf" race. The Ainu which widely lived in Asia, now, exclusively in Japan, resemble Australian aboriginal greatly, classified as primitive Caucasian too. You may see some Australian aboriginal and Pacific islands, with fair hair, some even have shocking Caucasian trait.
Jutka said some Chinese with blond hair. As my observation, seldom any one in Southern China with that trait, but some of my classmates from Northern China, especially, Shanxi and Gansu, which usually looted then resided by Caucasoid barbarians really with strong Caucasoid facial feature, and light hair. (I'm a college student of engineering) So, I reckon, the Chinese you met with fair hair might dyed their hair, that's a fad in China.

[jutka]

It was a joke. I said their descent is from L'Oreal!! It's a company that makes hair colour dye.

[countryboy]

Dear Sir,

Your comments in regards to Chinese are certainly within my scope. However, we don't want to be misleading people by making conclusions. My opinion will be to point out the buried historical facts, and let people do further research to make a more sound speculation. I use speculation because things beyond 2500 years are hard to trace.

I had read the so-calle China's Twenty Four History Books, and I had written on the early people, their prehistory, and the early dynasties such as Zhou and Qin at

http://www.uglychinese.org/prehistory.htm
http://www.uglychinese.org/xiashang.htm
http://www.uglychinese.org/zhou.htm
http://www.uglychinese.org/qin.htm

This is my first time writing something about my site on a public site, a bbs. I did notice someone mentioned my site at the turk bbs. I also noticed referrals from khazaria.com and alllooksame.com

In the prehistry section, I mentioned that China's Huangdi, Yellow Emperor, was born closer to Shandong Peninsular than the Yellow River area. The father of the founder of first dynasty, Xia, was born in the west and he was referred to as 'Rong-yu' or a western Yi people, carrying the barbaric Rong title. The people of second dynasty, Shang, belonged to the Yi people in the east, and there are 8-9 different eastern if Yi people in the east. Yi means barbarians in Chinese. Zhou people was given the title of Count of the West by Shang overlord. Qin people was recorded to have migrated to the west from the east. On record would be two groups of peoples living to the west of Qin, i.e., Western Rong people and Yuezhi. The Yuezhi are 100% Caucasian people, but do note that the Western Rong people somehow dwelled in between Yuezhi and Qin people. China's history book Shi Ji, recorded that all China's early overlords and rulers were of the same family and shared one lineage, eevn with Rong-yu or Yu the Great.

As to physical traits of those early overlords and rulers, I have NO conclusive evidence to show hat they had Caucasoid traits. Lord Shun was said to have double apples in the eyes, and Qin's first emperor, Shihuangdi, was recorded to have possessed high nose bridge, wide eyes, and leopard voice. There is no reference to the color of skin or hair. Also note Shihuangdi's mother was a singer from Zhao Principality, not from the west.

What distinguished the early Chinese from the Rong & Di (2, i.e., second intonation) ????

The early Chinese founded the culture and civilization, and Zhou Dynasty was said to have reverance for Heaven. All Zhou vassals, including Qin in the west, could only revere ancestors, not Heaven. This ancestor worship is a unique phenomenon that was recorded on Shang's oracle bones.

When both Zhou and later Qin emerged from the barbaric west, they were said, per Shi Ji, to have discarded the Rong & Di customs. That's to say should Zhou and Qin ve retained any barbaric west traits, they must discard them in order to merge with the mainstream life and culture of China.

Now, I will come to Rong & Di. For 5000 years, nomads had been living in Mongolia. Yellow Emperor, or Lord Huangdi was said to have a descedant who went to live in northern plains. The later Toba claimed descent from this person. Shi Ji said that the Huns and their ancestors had been living in Mongolia at times of Huandi, Yao, Xia, Shang and Zhou. By the times of Qin, they were called Hsiongnu or the Huns. Also recorded by Shi Ji would be a story about the son of last Xia lord: This son fled to northern plains and became the ancestors of the Huns. The Uygurs claimed descent from this person, Chunwei. At the times of Zhou and Qin, three groups of Rong people, at least, could be differentiated, Western Rong, Doggy Rong and Rongdi Rong. The Doggy Rong killed the last king of Western Zhou. Qin absorded eight Western Rong tribe, but Qin also encouraged western migration of Yan-Zhao-Wei people. Rongdi Rong would live in Hetao, the land south of the Yellow River and surrounded by the three bends of the Yellow River. Rongdi Rong had intermarriage with Zhou as well as Jin Principality which split into Yan-Zhao-Wei. Rongdi split into Baidi and Chidi, and out of them would evolve Dingling who would be ancestors of later Gaoche people, the nephews of the Huns. When Qin reunited China, they drove the Hsiongnu or the Huns out of the Hetao areas, and moreover crossed the Yellow River to take over Ordos. Gaoche evolved into Tiele which possessed over a dozen tribes, one of which would be Huihe, the ancestors of later Uygurs.

History about Huns, Turks and Mongols would be at
http://www.uglychinese.org/hun.htm
http://www.uglychinese.org/uygur.htm
http://www.uglychinese.org/mongolian.htm

I had temporarily uploaded a picture of today's Uygurs at http://www.uglychinese.org/pic2.jpg You could tell how the Uygurs look like. Among them, you could tell that the Uyguys are lighter in skin than the Turks in Afghanistan and Iran. But their hair are mostly black, not yellow as people might speculate. Only the girl to the leftmost showed a bit brownish. What I could tell you is that among my classmates, there was one from middle school and he had quite yellowish hair. But the Chinese would usually say bad nutrition would lead to yellow hair. It could be partially true. My daughter, since birth and for about 2-3 years, had yellowish hair, and neighbors often commented on this. She turned quite dark now, close to age 6. My son, now 1.5 years old, still retained yellowish hair. It is possibel that my son, who carrys my Y gene, may keep his hair for some time. Both my children did not have my chestnut eyes, though, and they were overtaken by the black eyes of their mother. The reason that my family possess very soft and thin hair (not coarse at all) and somewhat brownish hair could have something to do with my ancestor's origin in today's Shanxi Province. However, I won't be able to provide any more examples to show any other deviation of physiques from ordinary Chinese.

It is true that Anterior Qin called the Xianbei of 4-5th century 'Bai Lu', white skinned robbers. It probably show that the Xianbei had lighter skin as a result of their living in northern altitude. Note Uygurs lighter skins than their Turkic kinsmen in Afghanistan or Turkey. Also true would be Emperor Mindi so-called 'Huangxu-nu' hair. But ancient Chinese might call brownish as 'yellow. It might not be the same as today's 'blond'. The only direct reference to so-called Nordic features would be about the group of people called Jiankun. Jiankun was said to have possesed green eyes and red hair. Ancient Chinese use 'red hair' for designating yellow hair or chestnut hair. The Jiankun statlet, however, was situated to the northwest of the ancient Wusun Statelet (in today's Ili). This points to the Jiankun somewhere closer to the Caucasus Mountains than the Altais or Mongolia. It would be the Huns who went to conquer them in the first place. Jiankun would be ancestors of later Kirghiz who came to Mongolia and conquered the Uygur kingdom in 9th century. Kirghiz stayed in Mongolia till the time of Genghis Khan's Mongols, a group of people situated to the Amur River in northern Manchuria.

I still have not touched on the ethnicity of the Huns yet. How to tell who the Huns were? Simple. Reading through European history, you would know that the Europeans treated Huns as simply Asiatic barbarians who raped their women and killed their men. This did corroborate that the Huns were not Caucasians. If we read the letter the Hun's ruler, chanyu, wrote to Chinese emperor, we could tell that the Hun chanyu ordered one of his king to attack Chinese Turkistan as a punishment for disturbing peace on the border with Chinese. Huns drove the Yuezhi to today's Ili, and Yuezhi drove away the Scythians, Sai people, but Yuezhi was defeated by their own kinsmen, Wusun, and Yuezhi relocated southward to Afghanistan, Bactria, namely. This shows that the Huns invaded Turkistan as an outsider. Today's people in Chinese Turkistan would be the mingles between Yuezhi remnants and the Huns.

The Huns, after their defeat by the Chinese, relocated to their old land, Hetao, surrounded by Yellow River. Huns later rebelled against Chinese, and was the main rebel among the Five Nomadic Groups Ravaging China. Jiehu was said to be different from the Huns, for their high nose bridge. Note this is the only feature recorded by the Chinese. No hair or skin is noteworthy here. The Xianbei, whom we mentioned before, would be from the Donghu or Tunguic branch. Xianbei descendants would include the Fuyu or Koguryo people in Korea. The only two non-Mongolian feature citation in regards to Xianbei would be Bai Lu and Huangxu-nu, and I would not put too much weight into this group of people as belonging to Caucasoid. Today's Koreans and Manchurians are all descendants of the Xianbei.

I did notice two deviation from mainstream history about the Chinese people, with one school claiming he China's early lords were all of Negroid origin, and another school claiming that China's culture and civilization were founded by Caucasians. Both schools are fallacious at best. The Negroid feature was recorded to be prevalent among southern Vietnamese 2000 years ago. Should the Dravidians had some stay in outhern China, it would be something beyond the record of 5000 years. As to Caucasian origin, it is doubtful since the Yuezhi people's trace are represented by the Loulan mummies, only. Just take a look at the terracotta soldiers from Qin Emperor Shihuangdi's tomb. You could tell those faces are more Chinese than anything else. Hope I had explained the tricky issues somhow.

[countryboy]

I want to expand on Turkic, Mongol and Tungunzic a bit. Languages here, Altaic, could be used for sorting through ancestry. However, past experiences show that invader's lingua franca might not always prevail. The number count. That is, the ethnic group which possessed the majority head count would ultimately dominate the tongue spoken.

The nomadic Altaic language speaking people had been roaming the Euro-asian continent before prehistory. Huns were recorded to have been driven away from Hetao areas by Qin's first emperor. No recording of significant goernment as to the Huns existed till the times of Chanyu Modu or Modok. Modok was recorded to have first defeated five northern tribes in Siberia and Mongolia, and then attack Yuezhi in the east and Donghu in the east. Then, he attacked Loufan and Baiyang in the south and continue on to retake the land from which they were driven away by Qin. Chinese history said Yuezhi was more powerful than Huns, and Modok's father had to send in hostage to Yuezhi. We could speculate that the Rongdi people, who were driven away from Hetao, would somehow possess a better knowledge and intelligence than the Mongolian nomads roaming from the Altai to Manchuria. A person like Modok would be responsible for uniting the northern steppe people into a strong Hunnic empire, the same way the later Turks and Mongols had undertaken in forming their empires. When Rongdi (including Chidi and Baidi) fled to Mongolia, they brought with them their knowledge of civilization and government from the Yellow River, but whatever Rongdi people's tongue could be overtaken by the prevalent lingua franca of the steppe, i.e., Altaic language.

Still, I don't see any significant Caucasian element among the Huns. Sima Qian's Shi Ji had no record about Modok's physical features. I will speculate that the Huns in the west might have changed after they raided into Chinese Turkistan and mixed up with remnant Yuezhi.

I had noticed a kind of enthusiasm about the so-called 'Blue Turks' versus 'Black Turks'. There is no such terminology as Blue Turk in Chinese records. The Turks were said to have fled to the Altai when Toba destroyed a Hunnic statelet called Juqu, a dynasty called Liang in China's Sixteen Nations ime period. They worked for the Ruruans as iron miners. They carried the so-called Ashina family name. 200 years after that, Tang records still made difference between Ashina people and the Hu people. Chinese used 'Hu' s acategorical designation for the nomads but also used it specifically for the Huns. When a difference was made to claim that a Turkic chieftan called Simo looked more like a Hu than an Ashina, it pointed to the possibility that Ashina possessed features that the Hu people didn't have, i.e., high nose bridge and deep socket eyes.

Enthusiasm will stop here. It would be the later Kirghiz who were said to have things utterly different, i.e., red hair and green eyes. The Huns were said to have conquered this Jiankun statelet in the west and assigned a Chinese defector general there. This general was called Li Ling and Chinese records said that those Kirghiz who carried balck hair would be Li Ling's descendants. Li Ling was assigned to the land of Jiankun as Hunnic so-called rightside virtuous king. 800 years later, the Kirghiz came to Mongolia to fight the Uygurs, and they said they shared the same last name as Tang emperor, Li.

In last section, I touched on the Tungusic people, i.e., Fuyu, Koguryo and Koreans/Manchus. I should have been clearer here. There was an anceint statelet calle Sushen bordering Japan Sea 3000 years ago. They are the ancestors of all Tunguzic peoples in Manchuria and Korea. I could not tell what langauge Sushen would speak. They might not be related to later Donghu people. Donghu people were defeated by Modok and they fled to Liaoning Province, Southern Manchuria, as well as to northern Khing'an Ridge, somewhere near the Huron Lake. They were called Xianbei and Wuhuan. Xianbei, while joining forces in sacking China in 4-5 th centuries, would raid into Korea peninsular as well. Xianbei conquered Pyong'yang several times and dug up the tomb of Koguryo royal house. Those Xianbei must have mixed up with the Sushen and Koreans in southern Manchuria and hence the Tungusic language had taken hold in Korean peninsular and indirectly influenced Japanese a bit. I had reservation about Sushen's tongue because this area was part of the Sino-Tibetan Chinese influence. Shang Dynasty's prince Ji Zi was recorded to have been dispatched to southern Manchuria and Korea as a ruler.

The Xianbei people, around the Amur River and Heilongjiang River, would include later Shiwei Mengwu, i.e, ancestors of Genghis Khan. The photo, http://www.uglychinese.org/pic1.jpg, which I am temporarily uploading onto the site, had a classmate on the rightside. He is from the Sibo group, a group of northern Manchurians who were ordered to march to Chinese Turkistan as garrison troops. You could tell his face is closer to today's Mongols and maybe similar to Genghis Khan himself. (Genghis Khan's people might have mixed a bit with the Kirghiz people who had expelled Uygurs in the middle 9th century). I believe I had touched on all three branches of people in the steppe. If any of you have a different opinion, please do not hesiatte to share it with me.