Dongyi

Dongyi (東夷) was a collective term for people in the east of China. People referred to as Dongyi vary across the ages.

The character 夷

Chinese dictionaries give various meanings of yi.

Shuowen Jiezi by Xu Shen claims that (the grapheme of) yi follows "big" and "bow" (从大从弓), but his theory cannot explain why it means "peaceful" (平也). Today, Xu Shen's theory is no longer supported and the research focuses on oracle script and bronzeware script, which he did not investigate.

yi in oracle script

The graphemes of yi in oracle script and bronzeware script are different from that in seal script. They are identical with those of shi 尸 (corpse). They do not look like a big arrow but a side view of a man's sitting posture. It looks like yi was used almost interchangeably with shi. In fact, the yi in yiqin 夷衾 (quilt covering a corpse), yipan 夷槃 (plate on which a corpse is put) and other words means "corpse". Some other graphemes in oracle script used to be interpreted as yi but are generally identified as different characters today.

Historical usages

Pre-Qin usages

It is not easy to determine the times of people that a Classical Chinese document reflects.

Literature describing a mythological pre-Xia Dynasty period does not use the character yi. As for the Xia Dynasty, some groups of people are referred to as the Yi. For example, "Yu Gong" (禹貢) of the Classic of History calls people in Qingzhou and Xuzhou as Laiyi (萊夷), Yuyi (嵎夷) and Huaiyi (淮夷). Another yi-related term is Jiu-yi (九夷), literally Nine Yi, which could have also had the connotation The Numerous Yi or The Many Different Kinds of Yi, and which appears in the famous passage in The Analects that reads, "The Master (i.e., Confucius) desired to live among the Nine Yi." The term "Dongyi" is not used for this period.

The Shang Dynasty has contemporary sources, in other words, oracle bone inscriptions. These records state that King Wu Ding (reign c. 1250 BC-1192 BC) made military expeditions to the Yi. The enclave of the Yi people is considered to have been located to the southeast of the Shang Dynasty. King Di Xin, the last king, made a massive military campaign against the Yifang (夷方). The word "yifang" is often interpreted as "renfang" (人方) because the pictures of "yi" and "ren" look alike in oracle script. Some history books use "Dongyi" for Shang-related episodes, but judging from oracle bone inscriptions, the Shang people themselves did not use this term.

It appears that the Yifang were the same people as Huaiyi (Huai River Yi), Nanhuaiyi (Southern Huai Yi), Nanyi (Southern Yi) and Dongyi in bronzeware inscriptions of the Western Zhou Dynasty. The Zhou Dynasty attempted to keep the Yi under its control. The most notable is the successful campaign against the Huaiyi and the Dongyi by the Duke of Zhou.

During the Spring and Autumn Period, Jin, Zheng, Qi and Song tried to seize control of the Huai River basin, which was occupied by the Huaiyi. But the region finally fell under the influence of Chu in the south. At the same time, people in the east and south ceased to be called Dongyi as they founded their own states.

References to Dongyi became ideological during the Warring States period probably because selves and others had subtle cultural differences among Chinese. The Classic of Rites (early 4th BC) made the first reference to the combination of "Dongyi" (east), "Xirong" (west), "Nanman" (south) and "Beidi" (north) in fixed four directions. At the same time "Dongyi" acquired a clearly pejorative nuance.

Post-Qin usages

The more "China" expanded, the further east the term "Dongyi" was applied to. The Records of the Grand Historian by Sima Qian uses the term "Manyi" (蠻夷), but not "Dongyi". It puts the section of "Xinanyi (southwestern Yi) liezhuan (biographies)", but not "Dongyi liezhuan". The Book of Han does not put this section either but calls a Hui (濊) chief in the Korean Peninsula as Dongyi. The Book of Later Han puts the section of "Dongyi liezhuan" and covers Fuyu, Yilou, Gaogouli, Dongwozu, Hui, Sanhan and Wo, in other words, eastern Manchuria, Korea, Japan and some other islands. The Book of Jin positioned Dongyi inside the section of "Siyi" (barbarians in four directions) along with "Xirong", "Nanman" and "Beidi". The Book of Sui, the Book of Tang and the New Book of Tang adopt the section of "Dongyi" and covers eastern Manchuria, Korea, Japan and optionally Sakhalin and Taiwan. During the Song Dynasty, the official history books replaced Dongyi with Waiguo (外國) and Waiyi (外夷).

Modern usages

China

Some Chinese scholars extend the historical use of Dongyi to prehistoric times. They consider Dongyi as one of the origins of Chinese people, based on the hypothsis of the pluralistic origins of Chinese culture that became popular in 1980s.

People called Dongyi in this sense lived in Haidai (海岱) region, the lower reaches of the Yellow and Huai Rivers, from the Neolithic period.

The cultural evolution in Haidai region is considered as follows:

• Houli culture (6400 BC - 5700 BC)
• Beixin culture (5300 BC - 4100 BC)
• Dawenkou culture (4100 BC - 2600 BC)
• Longshan culture (3200 BC - 1900 BC)
• Yueshi culture (2000 BC - 1600 BC)

(The ages differ among scholars)

The Shandong Longshan culture was characterized by large-scale hierarchical groups of walled settlements. The Yueshi culture which replaced the Longshan culture around 2000 B.C. saw a decline of civilization. Groups of settlements were dissolved and the highly-developed pottery technology of the Shandong Longshan culture was lost.

(Note: The Longshan Culture was not just Dongyi and did not just exist in Shandong and other eastern coastal areas of China. Areas further west, including much of the middle and lower Yellow River Valley region, was also a part of the Longshan Culture area. Historians such as Jacques Gernet think that the Longshan Culture was also culturally ancestral to the Erlitou Culture and the later Shang dynasty in the middle Yellow River Valley region. There are some good evidence for this claim, for both the Longshan and Shang cultures shared the following basic elements:

1. A similar technical of divination based on heating animal bones and shells until they crack.
2. Similar construction techniques for city-walls, fortifications and building platforms using rammed earth.
3. Similar artistic styles.

Furthermore, the Shang dynasty technology of bronze metallurgy seems to be the descendant of high temperature ceramic-making techniques used by the late Neolithic Longshan Culture.

The Longshan Culture might have been replaced by the Yueshi Culture in Shandong but further to the west it continued and developed into the Erlitou Culture around 1900 - 1800 BC.)

During the Yueshi culture in Shandong, the Erlitou culture and the subsequent Erligang culture gradually stretched from the Yellow River valley in the west. Since sites of the Yueshi culture distributed complementarily with those of the Erligang culture, the traditional theory that the Shang Dynasty originated in the east was shattered. Shang civilization extended to central Shandong at the end of the Shang Dynasty and it was during the middle Western Zhou Dynasty that the central civilization covered the entire Haidai region.

It is notable that Dongyi seemingly had their own writing system. A pottery inscription of the Longshan culture discovered in Dinggong Village, Zouping County, Shandong Province contains eleven characters and they do not look like the direct ancestor of Chinese characters. Chinese scholar Feng Shi (馮時) argues that this inscription can be interpreted as the Yi script. Although his theory is highly controversial, some other scholars also claim a connection between ancient Dongyi and the modern Yi people in southwestern China.

As a name

"Dongyi" is also used as a Chinese name, meaning "happy winter."

South Korea

File:National history-dongyi.jpg

"Dong-i" (colored in gray) as was taught in South Korean high schools.

Some South Korean publications, including official ones, regard "Dong-i" (Korean pronunciation of Dongyi) as people in "Manchuria, the eastern littoral of China, areas north of the Yangtze River, and the Korean Peninsula" [1]. Although they do not explain what Dong-i actually were, it looks like they mix up several different historical uses of "Dongyi" in Classical Chinese and assume that Dongyi referred to a specific ethnic group though it was a general term for people in the east. South Korean official publications give "Dong-i" to the English "translation" of "eastern bowmen" although yi never means "bowmen" and Xu Shen's "big arrow" theory is defunct today.

Based on the concept of "Dong-i", some nonacademic South Korean historians make various claims that sound absurd to other people: Confucius was Korean. Chinese characters were invented by Koreans. etc. However such nationalist claims made are not accepted by mainstream Korean history.

See also

• Han chauvinism

References

• Cai Fengshu 蔡鳳書, Kodai Santō bunka to kōryū 古代山東文化と交流, Higashi Ajia to hantō kūkan 東アジアと『半島空間』, pp. 45-58, 2003.
• Luan Fengshi 栾丰实, 论"夷"和"东夷" (On "Yi" and "Dong Yi"), Zhongyuan Wenwu 中原文物 (Cultural Relics of Central China), 2002.1, pp. 16-20.
• Matsumaru Michio 松丸道雄, Kanji kigen mondai no shintenkai 漢字起源問題の新展開, Chūgoku kodai no moji to bunka 中国古代の文字と文化, 1999.
• Matsumaru Michio 松丸道雄 and Takashima Ken'ichi 高嶋謙一 ed., Kōkotsumoji Jishaku Sōran 甲骨文字字釋綜覽, 1994.
• Shirakawa Shizuka 白川静, Jitō 字統, 2004.
• Tang Jiahong 唐嘉弘, 东夷及其历史地位, Shixue yuekan 史学月刊, 1989.4, pp.37-46.
• Xu Guanghui 徐光輝, Kodai no bōgyo shūraku to seidōki bunka no kōryū 古代の防御集落と青銅器文化の交流, Higashi Ajia to hantō kūkan 東アジアと『半島空間』, pp. 21-44, 2003.
• Yoshimoto Michimasa 吉本道雅. "Chūgoku Sengoku jidai ni okeru "Shii" kannen no seiritsu 中国戦国時代における「四夷」観念の成立". Retrieved 2006-03-04.