Asia -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Mongols -- History; Polo, Marco, 1254-1323?; Voyages and travels
_Ethnology_.—The Chinese at Ch’êng-tu fu, according to Richthofen,
classify the aborigines of the Sze-ch’wan frontier as _Man-tzŭ,
Lolo, Si-fan_, and _Tibetan_. Of these the Si-fan are furthest
north, and extend far into Tibet. The Man-tzŭ (properly so called)
are regarded as the remnant of the ancient occupants of Sze-ch’wan,
and now dwell in the mountains about the parallel 30°, and along
the Lhása road, Ta-t’sien lu being about the centre of their tract.
The Lolo are the wildest and most independent, occupying the
mountains on the left of the Kin-sha Kiang where it runs northwards
(see above p. 48, and below p. 69) and also to some extent on its
right. The Tibetan tribes lie to the west of the Man-tzŭ, and to
the west of Kien-ch’ang. (See next chapter.)
Towards the Lan-ts’ang Kiang is the quasi-Tibetan tribe called
by the Chinese _Mossos_, by the Tibetans _Guions_, and between
the Lan-ts’ang and the Lú-Kiang or Salwen are the _Lissús_, wild
hill-robbers and great musk hunters, like those described by Polo
at p. 45. Garnier, who gives these latter particulars, mentions
that near the confluence of the Yalung and Kin-sha Kiang there
are tribes called _Pa-i_, as there are in the south of Yun-nan,
and, like the latter, of distinctly Shan or Laotian character. He
also speaks of _Si-fan_ tribes in the vicinity of Li-kiang fu,
and coming south of the Kin-sha Kiang even to the east of Ta-li.
Of these are told such loose tales as Polo tells of _Tebet_ and
_Caindu_.
[In the _Topography of the Yun-nan Province_ (edition of 1836)
there is a catalogue of 141 classes of aborigines, each with a
separate name and illustration, without any attempt to arrive at a
broader classification. Mr. Bourne has been led to the conviction
that exclusive of the Tibetans (including Si-fan and Ku-tsung),
there are but three great non-Chinese races in Southern China: the
Lolo, the Shan, and the Miao-tzŭ. (_Report, China_, No. 1, 1888,
p. 87.) This classification is adopted by Dr. Deblenne. (_Mission
Lyonnaise_.)
_Man-tzŭ, Man_, is a general name for “barbarian” (see my note in
_Odoric de Pordenone_, p. 248 _seqq._); it is applied as well to
the Lolo as to the Si-fan.
Mr. Parker remarks (_China Review_, XX. p. 345) that the epithet
of _Man-tzŭ_, or “barbarians,” dates from the time when the Shans,
Annamese, Miao-tzŭ, etc., occupied nearly all South China, for it
is essentially to the Indo-Chinese that the term Man-tzŭ belongs.
Mr. Hosie writes (_Three years in W. China_, 122): “At the time
when Marco Polo passed through Caindu, this country was in the
possession of the Si-fans.... At the present day, they occupy
the country to the west, and are known under the generic name of
Man-tzŭ.”
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