The country of Wu is in many respects even more interesting
ethnologically than that of Ts'u. When, a generation or two before
the then vassal Chou family conquered China, two of the sons of
the ruler of that vassal principality decided to forego their
rights of succession, they settled amongst the Jungle savages, cut
their hair, adopted the local raiment, and tattooed their bodies;
or, rather, it is said the elder of the two covered his head and
his body decently, while the younger cut his hair, went naked, and
tattooed his body. The words "Jungle savages" apply to the country
later called Ts'u; but as Wu, when we first hear of her, was a
subordinate country belonging to Ts'u; and as in any case the word
"Wu" was unknown to orthodox China, not to say to extreme western
China, in 1200 B.C. when the adventurous brothers migrated; this
particular point need not trouble us so much as it seems to have
puzzled the Chinese critics. About 575 the first really historical
King of Wu paid visits to the Emperor's court, to the court of his
suzerain the King of Ts'u, and to the court of Lu: probably the
Hwai system of rivers would carry him within measurable distance
of all three, for the headwaters almost touch the tributaries of
the Han, and the then Ts'u capital (modern King-thou Fu) was in
touch with the River Han. He observed when in Lu: "We only know
how to knot our hair in Wu; what could we do with such fine
clothes as you wear?" It was the policy of Tsin and of the other
minor federal princes to make use of Wu as a diversion against the
advance of Ts'u: it is evident that by this time Ts'u had begun to
count seriously as a Chinese federal state, for one of the
powerful private families behind the throne and against the throne
in Lu expressed horror that "southern savages (i.e. Wu) should
invade China (i.e. Ts'u)," by taking from it part of modern An
Hwei province: as, however, barbarian Ts'u had taken it first from
orthodox China, perhaps the mesne element of Ts'u was not in the
statesman's mind at all, but only the original element,--China. An
important remark is made by one of the old historians to the
effect that the language and manners of Wu were the same as those
of Yiieh. In 483, when Wu's pretensions as Protector were at their
greatest, the people of Ts'i made use of ropes eight feet long in
order to bind certain Wu prisoners they had taken, "because their
heads were cropped so close": this statement hardly agrees with
that concerning "knotted hair," unless the _toupet_ or chignon
was very short indeed. 'There are not many native Wu words quoted,
beyond the bare name of the country itself, which is something like
_Keu-gu,_ or _Kou-gu:_ an executioner's knife is mentioned under
the foreign name _chuh-lu,_ presented to persons expected to commit
suicide, after the Japanese _harakiri_ fashion. In 584 B.C., when the first
steps were taken by orthodox China to utilize Wu politically, it was
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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