Nara (Manchu: ᠨᠠᡵᠠ ᡥᠠᠯᠠ, Wade-Giles: Nara hala, Chinese: 納喇氏, 納蘭氏 or 那拉氏) is a major Manchu clan. The Hūlun Four States (扈倫四部) -- Hada (Chinese: 哈達, pinyin: Hādá), Ula (Chinese: 烏拉, pinyin: Wūlā), Hoifa (Chinese: 輝發, pinyin: Huīfā) and Yehe (Chinese: 葉赫, pinyin: Yèhè) -- were ruled by this clan. In English translation, nara is the Mongolian word for 'sun'.
The most prominent of the Naras were the Yehe and the Ula, with the Yehe, belonging to the Bordered Blue Banner, being one of the eight great Manchu aristocratic lines. A number of famous Chinese, including the Empress Dowager Cixi, were from this clan. Present-day descendants of the Nara clan generally adopt "Na" as a family name, so that it would be similar to the usually monosyllabic Han family names. Those descended from the Yehe Nara tribe might also choose "Ye" or "He".
The Naras lived in the Haixi area, which encompasses parts of modern day Jilin, Heilongjiang, Liaoning and Inner Mongolia. The Hada Naras and Ula Naras shared an ancestor, but the Yehe Naras were founded by a Tümed Mongol who conquered the Nara tribe and established his rule over the banks of the Yehe river. The Hoifa Naras, on the other hand, came from the Ikderi clan.
Of the four tribes, the Ula tribe were mostly traders, buying horses, livestock, and fur from the steppe Mongols and selling them at the Jianzhou (建州) plateau on the Liao river basin, the economic center and farmland of the Manchu region. They in turn buy grains such as millet and corn at Jianzhou and sell them to the Mongols. The Ula Naras, for a large part, controlled trade between Manchuria and Mongolia by controlling the mountain pass at modern day Baicheng, Jilin, where the only passage between the two areas was located.
During Nurhaci's efforts to unite the Jurchen people, the Naras resisted because they had always been rather well-treated by the Ming government. Instead they tried to appease Nurhachi by offering him a daughter from each of the tribal rulers, the most famous of which were Lady Abahai (阿巴亥) of the Ula tribe and Monggo (孟古) of the Yehe tribe. Nonetheless, Nurhaci eventually began his assault against the Naras, and the Hada, Ula and Hoifa tribes soon fell. The Yehe Naras were able to resist the longest as they were the largest and strongest of the tribes, but even they soon had to enlist the help of the Ming empire.
Using how well-treated the Yehe Naras were by the Ming government as an excuse, Nurhaci began to wage war against the Ming forces as well. Both the Ming soldiers and the Yehe Naras were defeated in subsequent battles, including the Battle of Sarhu, and the Yehe Nara prince Jintaiji (金台吉) was either forced to kill himself or hanged, but not before he allegedly cursed Nurhaci that as long as one of Jintaiji's descendants lived, even a female one, he or she would remember the clan's vendetta and bring down the Aisin Gioros. The last prince of the Ula tribe Bujantai (布占泰), who was fighting alongside the Yehe Naras, was captured as well and later killed by Nurhaci's son, Cuyen.
The Yehe Naras were then absorbed into the Jurchen union in 1619. Although Jintaiji's curse hardly stopped subsequent Qing emperors from marrying or taking Nara women as concubines, they did so mostly from the Ula tribe, and none of the Yehe Nara women were ever granted Empress Consort status while her emperor husband was alive. Nonetheless, the curse seemed to have come true when Empress Dowager Cixi's disastrous rule helped lead to the downfall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. Conspiracy theory has it that the memory of Yehe Clan being forcefully incorporated into the Manchu union contributed to Empress Cixi's seemingly indifference to the plight of the Qing Dynasty from Western imperialism and its decline. However, considering the re-discovered patriotism of Cixi and her huge stake in the empire, this could hardly be a factual representation of Cixi's state of mind.