I have never seen anyone compare the Yao with the Việt, but someone should.
The Yao (or Dao in Vietnamese) are a people who lived in the mountains in an area from Hunan to northwestern Vietnam. Like the Việt, the Yao invented an early history for themselves based on material that was first recorded by Chinese writers. They recorded this information in texts that were alternately known as the “Charter of Emperor Ping” (Pinghuang quandie 評皇券牒) or the “Passport for Crossing the Mountains” (Guoshan bang 過山榜).
The information in these texts claimed that the Yao were descended from a dog-human ancestor by the name of Panhu 槃瓠. The Yao did not create this story. Instead, Chinese writers did, and we can find a version of this story in Fan Ye’s History of the Later Han (Hou Hanshu 後漢書). In that work, Fan Ye told a story in which he said that all of the “Southern Savages” (Nanman 南蠻) were descended from Panhu.
In this story, Panhu, a dog, assists Emperor Ku of the Gaoxin clan by killing his rival. Emperor Ku then grants Panhu his daughter. The emperor later regrets this and tries to get her back, but he is obstructed from doing so by bad weather that magically appears.
Panhu’s wife gives birth to six girls and six boys. They intermarry and have children and their numbers grow. These people then live in the mountains and rule over themselves.
The History of the Later Han then says this about the organization of their society: “There were community chiefs, all of whom received imperial seals and ribbons of investiture. They wore caps made of otter skin. They called their chief generals jingfu 精夫, and each other angtu 姎徒.”
This story was written by Fan Ye in the fifth century about the “Southern Savages,” but by 1,000 years later, the Yao were using this story to talk about themselves. The only difference was that they changed the name of the emperor from Emperor Ku to Emperor Ping, an emperor that they invented.
For anyone who has read the Lĩnh Nam chích quái, some similarities here should be obvious. In the Yao story a Chinese emperor gives away his daughter to a dog-man, whereas in the Tale of the Hồng Bàng Clan (Hồng Bàng thị truyện) in the Lĩnh Nam chích quái, a Chinese emperor’s wife is abducted by a dragon lord.
In both of these cases the respective emperors encounter supernatural obstructions when they seek to get back these women. In their new marriages, both of these women then give birth to a large number of children who are equally divided into two groups.
Finally, in both of these stories, “indigenous” terms are used for the titles of officials. The Lĩnh Nam chích quái states that, “[The Hùng king] divided the group of brothers [50 of whom had followed their mother and 50 of whom had followed their father] to rule over [this area]. He established his subordinates as ministers and generals. Ministers were called lạc marquises. Generals were called lạc generals. Princes were called quan lang, and [the king’s] daughters, mỵ nương. Officials were called bồ chính.”
It’s interesting how the Lĩnh Nam chích quái mirrors this earlier story about Panhu and his descendants.
[For a translation of the Panhu story as it appears in the History of the Later Han, see pages 5-6 in this work.]
I have questions for general understanding about relations among stories. How can we know for sure that “Charter of Emperor Ping” or the “Passport for Crossing the Mountains” were written by Yao people not Chinese people? How to know the the story told by Yao people is the one in Fan Ye’s History of the Later Han? Is it possible to understand that Chinese histories might have got stories from ones told by Yao?
Good questions. Ok, so this story started to be written about the “Southern Barbarians” in the beginning centuries AD. The story that is now in the “Yao charters” that we can read today (the ones that are still around today were probably copied in the 19th century), have the same story. The only difference is that they are more detailed and more “vernacular.” So what people did was to take the basic Panhu story, and then expand it and add details, just like you would if you were telling a story.
Ethnic groups form at different times for specific reasons. Chinese scholars want to say that the ethnic groups in China today, like the Yao, have always existed. They therefore try to connect the living ethnic groups today, with names of peoples in antiquity. Western scholars say that you can’t do this.
Here is an example. In the 1600s, there were various European peoples in North America, but there were no “Americans” yet because there was no America yet.
Now America exists, and there are people who live in that country whom we call “Americans.” Even though some of those people share the same dna/blood etc, with the Europeans who were in North America in the 1600s (and some people in America are descended from those peoples), we cannot call those Europeans back then “Americans.”
The concept of “Yao” started to be use around 1,000 AD as an “administrative” term. It was used to refer to people who lived in the mountains and who did not have to pay taxes. This term did not refer to language, dress, culture, hairstyle or anything like that. It was an administrative category.
Later, it did develop into an ethnic category as those people who were categorized as “Yao” started to form a more unified culture. One of the ways they did this, was by creating stories about themselves, like the Panhu story.” By the time this started to happen (15th cent?), the story had been in existence for a long time, so they did not create it, but they appropriated it.
So were the Yao non-Han or Han? This is a distinction that we make today which isn’t really helpful for looking at the past because there was so much interaction in the past that such distinctions don’t really apply.
The Yao were originally an “administrative” category – people who lived in the mountains who did not pay taxes. Well anyone could go into the mountains. So how was it that the Panhu story was appropriated? Did people who originally did not know any Chinese learn that language and then learn that story? Or was it first used by someone who knew Chinese and who went into the mountains to evade taxes?
Today we want to imagine that there are clearly defined groups of people who are different from each other. That, however, is our modern imagination that sees this. It’s not reality. Today, thanks to modern school systems and mass media, groups of people are becoming more homogenous, but that is something that has only happened over the past century. We have to put that aside when we look at the past.
I’ve head that the myth originated from Laibin, Guangxi. Pangu was appropriated into Chinese mythology at a much later time in their history. What we know as han culture today is made up of traditions from all its 54 minorities. In Guangdong, where the tradition of “second burial” was practiced, but it was not practiced with the Central Plains ppl. Its a native tradition, its practiced throughout SEA and even as far Madagascar.
The “fact” that the Yao took Panhu story of Chinese to form their identity in 15th century reminds me of the way in which ethnic minority groups in Vietnam Highlander have been taking stories/cultural laws codified by French administrators, priests or ethnographers to form their identities (this is explanation of Salemink). It appears that formations of identities of people group largely depend on outside – resources. If this is a general truth,it will be more indicative for the core or the central role of Chinese and Western intellectual. So what is left for the minor’s creation/imagination?
And here are my concerns based on general assumptions: is it possible to imagine that Panhu (i do not know Panhu story, but you can think about Homer stories, Ramayana, Huang Tuah) story was a floating entity among communities; although main events remain in each time of being told, the story was no longer itself but other versions? And then in some period of time, the Chinese ethnic in its conflict with other ethnic groups (i am not sure as i am not studying Chinese but i am thinking about Malay and Hindu in their claim Huang Tuah and Rama their own stories) claimed its superiority by officializing/fixating one version of Panhu. Here, the work of officialization might have been realized by Chinese with two ways: they might have stared to write down some version of Panchu or they might have used some existing versions written by Chinese or non-Chinese. I think probably alongside with the officialized version there might have been versions/fragments of Panchu story floating around and the so-called official one (in text version), which is full of details and systematic (in our modern view) is probably not the one widely known among folks. They have panhu story which is not necessary the panhu officialized or used by Chinese or some Yao intellectuals. In this case, we can not say that Yao people owe Chinese for their stories of Yao (I am not claiming, I am just assuming).
If this way of understanding the existence of Panhu story includes multiple version/s fragments (and one text about Panhu is just a fragment /one manifestation of Panhu story) is possible, it offers a way to deconstruct the Chinese-ethnic centralism.
Great comments. There is a lot I can say, but I’m not sure if I’ll succeed in saying things clearly.
First of all, “China” and “the West.” Yes, these “cultural traditions” have transformed huge sections of the globe. Right now it is “11:30” in the morning in Vietnam because Vietnam has been “Westernized.” The way that Vietnamese perceive something as basic as time today is one of countless ways that they have been transformed by their contact with “Western” ideas/practices, etc.
Prior to that transformation, it was “Chinese” ideas/practices that influenced much of what we today call East Asia.
While this is “true,” the terms that we use to talk about it – “Chinese” and “Western” – are problematic.
The “problem” that affects people now when they think about these things is nationalism. Because of nationalism, people perceive “China” as some kind of homogenous entity that has endured through the centuries. That just isn’t accurate.
There is a recent book called “Demystifying China: New Understandings of Chinese History,” (edited by Naomi Standen). In the opening chapter, Peter Perdue “demystifies” the Chinese. Here is his first sentence: “One of modern China’s most powerful ideas has asserted that the Chinese people have formed a single collective unit from ancient times through the present.” This is the myth that he “demystifies.”
What existed through time was a script and texts that were written in that script. The same thing existed in “the West.” For centuries in the area of what is today Europe, Latin was used to record information. Nobody today thinks of writings in Latin as “Italian,” but most people think of writings in “classical Chinese” as “Chinese.”
This is a problem with “us” in the present not with the past. We are letting the world we live in affect the way we look at the past.
Was there some kind of Panhu story circulating in the early centuries AD that someone “officialized” by writing it down? There is no way of knowing.
What we DO know, is that there were no Yao at that time.
Also, I have never seen any evidence of information getting passed down orally for centuries. The idea that people pass down stories through the centuries is a modern myth, and again it is related to nationalism and the need to show that certain groups “have formed a single collective unit from ancient times through the present.”
The people whom we today refer to as the “Yao” were transformed through their contact with “the Chinese.” But “the Chinese” were a very diverse group of peoples who were also totally transformed through contact with other peoples.
One of the most basic ideas in “Chinese” culture is that if you do something good, something good will happen to you, and if you do something bad, something bad will happen to you. Everyone in East Asia knows this, and this concept comes from “India.”
We don’t feel the need to come up with an understanding of the past that enables people in East Asia to have some “autonomy” and to not have to “rely on India” for some of their basic beliefs, but when it comes to something like “filial piety” (hieu) in “Vietnam”. . . then we get all uncomfortable because this is a “Chinese” idea and the “Vietnamese” are “not Chinese”. . . it’s all crazy. This is just nationalism ruining our brains.
Ok, I’m going to stop here, because I don’t think I’m making sense.
Oh, but I like the connection to Salemink’s writings on the minorities in the Central Highlands. Yea, that’s a good connection. I hadn’t thought of that.
Thanks for your reply which largely focuses on the need of being aware of the problem of natonalism-modernism based views of the past. However, my view is that the way we think a work that belongs to a group (here Panhu belongs to “Chinese”) already shows the modern view of autonomy Chinese. If we asume that events relating to Panhu were already there and diverse, among some groups in some specific area of nowadays-border lands of Vietnam and China, we can avoid the modern view of the past: Panhu does not belong to any.ethnic community; the “fact” it became to be of Chinerse or Yao is the product of nationalism – the later time project.
I mean the key thing is not only we need to be aware of the problem of the modern view of the issue of nation/community (thanks to your reminding) but also of texts/works, which are never fixed and autonomous.
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“If we asume that events relating to Panhu were already there and diverse. . .”
What do we base this assumption on? The only evidence that we have of this is information that was recorded in classical Chinese starting around 200 AD. That information doesn’t indicate to us that “events relating to Panhu were already there and diverse.” Instead, they indicate to us that someone literate in classical Chinese wrote down a story.
Where did that story come from? Did the people who wrote that information travel around and talk to people who spoke different languages from them and learn this? Or is it something that people who never had such interactions with other peoples simply invented?
Rather than saying that the story is “Chinese,” I think it is better to say that it is a “literate person’s” story. Did that person get it from an illiterate person? We have no way of knowing. What we can see, however, is that once the story was created/written down by a literate person, it became very powerful and it affected people who were not literate.
The Yao Panhu story today is based on the written story that was created/written down by a literate person 1800 years ago.
While I agree with you that it is dangerous to connect “ownership” of a story to an ethnic group, it is also dangerous to assume that people had their own stories about Panhu prior to the point that this story was written down.
In Europe, people long believed that “fairy tales” had been passed down by the people before they were written down. Now people realize that this is not true. Those stories were invented by literate people first, written down, and then later were told to illiterate people.
The stories that the literate elite create and tell are very powerful.
no, it all make sense to me Doc, good reasoning and comparison of the ‘Western’ and the ‘Chinese’, or more like: the ‘Roman’ and the ‘Han’ ?
Hi, I know this is a super old entry but I found this while doing some research on the Yao people and wanted to add a little to the comments. Coming from an Iu-Mien family, I have heard my father’s tale of the Yao people’s creation story. I never knew the name of the dog was Panhu. I do not know how the story came to him and his father and ancestors before him but I do believe that the story was passed down from generation to generation.