Manchu

Manchu (Manju, Man) 满族
Total population
approx. 10.68 million (2000)[1]
Regions with significant populations
China (Heilongjiang · Jilin · Liaoning) There may also be members in North Korea, Siberia of Russia, Canada, Japan and United States
Languages
Manchu (very small population, almost extinct), Mandarin Chinese
Religion
Historicaly Shamanism, Heaven worship and Ancestor worship; nowadays Buddhism and Ancestor worship[2][3]
Related ethnic groups
Xibe, other Tungusic peoples

The Manchu people (Manchu: Manju; simplified Chinese: 满族; traditional Chinese: 滿族; pinyin: Mǎnzú, Mongolian: Манж, Russian: Маньчжуры) are a Tungusic people who originated in Manchuria (today's Northeastern China). During their rise in the seventeenth century, with the help of Ming rebels (such as general Wu Sangui), they conquered the Ming Dynasty and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until its abolition in 1911 after the Xinhai Revolution, which established a republican government in its place.

The Manchu ethnicity have largely been assimilated with the Han Chinese. The Manchu language is almost extinct, now spoken only among a small number of elderly people in remote rural areas of northeastern China and a few scholars; there are around ten thousand speakers of Sibe (Xibo), a Manchu dialect spoken in the Ili region of Xinjiang. In recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in Manchu culture among both ethnic Manchus and Han. The number of Chinese today with some Manchu ancestry is quite large,^[4] and the adoption of favorable policies towards ethnic minorities (such as preferential university admission and government employment opportunities) has encouraged some people with mixed-Han and Manchu ancestry to re-identify themselves as Manchu.

Culture

Aspects of Manchu customs and traditions can be seen in local cuisines, language and customs in today's Manchuria as well as cities in that region. After the fall of the Ming Dynasty, Manchus also adopted many Han customs and traditions.

They traditionally coiled their hair in high tufts on top of their heads and wore earrings, long gowns and embroidered shoes. The women with higher social standing wore silk and satin clothing while cotton clothing was worn by women of lower social standing. Variants of such vestments (including qi pao and ma gua, Mandarin dress) are still popular all over China. The man's clothing once consisted of a short and adjusted jacket over a long gown with a belt at the waist to facilitate horse-riding and hunting. Unlike the Han, the Manchu did not practice foot binding.^[5]

The traditional Manchu dwellings were made up of three quarters. In the center of the house was the kitchen while the wings contained the dormitory and the living room. The unique Manchu tradition did not allow people to die on nahan () to the west or north. Believing that doors were made for living souls, the Manchus allowed dead bodies to be taken out only through windows. Ground burial was the general practice.

The Manchu language is a member of the Tungusic language group, itself a member of the proposed Altaic language family.

Origins

One of the Qianlong Emperor's Manchu First Grade Bodyguards, Baturu Zhanyinbao (1760).

Ancestors of the Manchu were the peoples of the Mongolian steppes. The first ancestors of the Manchu were the Sushen, a people who lived during the second and first millennia BC. They were followed by the Yilou people, who were active from AD 202 to 220. The Wuji followed in the fifth century and the tribes of the Mohe in the sixth century. One of the tribes of the Mohe, the Heishui (Black Water) tribe, eventually became the ancestors of the Jurchens, from whom the Manchu originated.^[6]

The Jurchens under the Wanyan clan established the Jin Dynasty (literally Golden Dynasty) that ruled the northern half of China (1115–1234) and rivaled the Song Dynasty in southern China. The Jin were conquered by the Mongols under Genghis Khan.

Before the seventeenth century, the ancestors of the Manchus were generally a pastoral people, hunting, fishing and engaging in limited agriculture and pig-farming.

Traditional society

One of the old tradition of Manchu is the system of bondservants or Boo-i. "Nucai" (zh:奴才) , another Manchu word with similar meaning, was adopted into Han Chinese culture and is used in everyday life.

The Jurchen tribes employed Chinese agricultural boo-i as early as the 1400s, and it was common practice for Manchu military commanders to have their field and house bondservants serving in boo-i units during military campaigns. The Manchu masters treated their slaves in much harsher terms than their Chinese counterparts, and punished their slaves with much more stiffer terms, such as to have their face tattooed, then send to remote regions doing hard labour for life. ^[7]

Founding of the Qing Dynasty

In 1616 a Manchu leader, Nurhaci (1559-1626) broke away from the power of the decaying Ming Dynasty and established the Later Jin Dynasty (後金 Hòu Jīn) / Amaga Aisin Gurun (), domestically called the State of Manchu (manju gurun) (), and unified Manchu tribes, establishing (or at least expanding) the Manchu Banner system, a military structure which made their forces quite resilient in the face of superior Ming Dynasty numbers in the field. Nurhaci later conquered Mukden (modern-day Shenyang) and built it into the new capital in 1621. In 1636 Nurhaci's son Huang Taiji, reorganized the Manchus, including those Mongolians, Koreans and Hans who had joined them, changed the nation's name to Qing Dynasty, and formally changed the name of the nationality to Manchu.

The early significance of Manchu has not been established satisfactorily. It may have been an old term for the Jianzhou Jurchens. One theory claims that the name came from the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī (the Bodhisattva of Wisdom), of which Nurhaci claimed to be an incarnation. Another theory is that the Manchus, like a number of other Tungusic peoples, take their name from the common Tungusic word *mangu(n), 'a great river'.

Plaque at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, in both Chinese (left) and Manchu (right).

When Beijing was captured by Li Zicheng's peasant rebels in 1644, the last Ming Emperor Chongzhen committed suicide. The Manchu then allied with Ming Dynasty general Wu Sangui and seized control of Beijing, which became the new capital of the Qing dynasty. Over the next two decades, the Manchu took command of all of China.

For political purposes, the early Manchu emperors took wives descended from the Mongol Great Khans, so that their descendants (such as the Kangxi Emperor) would also be seen as legitimate heirs of the Mongolian Yuan dynasty. During the Qing Dynasty, the Manchu government made efforts to preserve Manchu culture and language. These efforts were largely unsuccessful in that Manchus gradually adopted the customs and language of the surrounding Han Chinese and, by the nineteenth century, spoken Manchu was rarely used even in the Imperial court. Written Manchu, however, was still used for the keeping of records and communication between the emperor and the Banner officials until the collapse of the dynasty. The Qing dynasty also maintained a system of dual appointments in which all major imperial offices would have a Manchu and a Han Chinese member. Because of the small number of Manchus, this insured that a large fraction of them would be government officials.

Near the end of the Qing Dynasty, Manchus were portrayed as outside colonizers by Chinese nationalists such as Sun Yat-Sen, even though the Republican revolution he brought about was supported by many reform-minded Manchu officials and military officers. This portrayal quickly dissipated after the 1911 revolution as the new Republic of China now sought to include Manchus within its national identity.

Manchukuo

In 1931, the Empire of Japan created a puppet state in Manchuria called Manchukuo. The new state was nominally ruled by Emperor Puyi. By this time the population of Manchuria was overwhelmingly Han Chinese, and though Manchukuo was intended to be a state for Manchus, the way its borders were drawn produced a state that had a majority Han population. Manchukuo was abolished at the end of World War II, with its territory incorporated back into China.

Autonomous Areas designated for Manchus

See also

• Anti-Manchuism
• Ethnic groups in Chinese history
• Kawashima Yoshiko
• List of Manchu clans
• Manchu language
• Qing Dynasty
• 9th Infantry Regiment
• War crimes in Manchukuo
• Fu Manchu, a fictional character of Manchu ancestry
• Pamela Kyle Crossley, author of many scholarly and some popular works on Manchus and Manchu history

Famous Manchu

• Cao Xueqin - Famous writer, author of Dream of the Red Chamber.^[8]
• Nalan Xingde - Famous poet.
• Na Ying - Pop Star.
• Zhao Junzhe - Football player.
• Lang Lang - Pianist.
• Jenny Pat - Canadian television personality, Grand-daughter of Fu Baoshi, half Manchu by descent.
• Pu Yi - Last Emperor of Qing Dynasty and Emperor of Manchukuo.
• Pu Ru - Famous painter, fled to Taiwan after the establishment of the People's Republic of China.
• Lang Ping - Ex-Volleyball player, now coaching USA Women's Volleyball National Team.
• Lao She - Famous writer
• Qigong - Calligrapher and Art Historian for the Imperial Palace Museum in Beijing

External links

• [1]
• Qiren.cn (Simplified Chinese)

Notes