occasion for us to review the rise and progress of the three great States of Ts'in, Tsin, and Ts'oo. The practice was probably of old existence among the Chinese tribe as well as other neighbouring tribes. A story of Tsze-k'in, one of Confucius' disciples, mentioned in a note on p. 6 of the Analects, would indicate that it had not fallen into entire disuse, even in the time of the sage, in the most polished States of the kingdom. Among the Tartars so called it continues to the present day. Dr. Williams states, on the authority of De Guignes, that the emperor Shun-che, the first of the present Manchew dynasty, ordered thirty persons to be immolated at the funeral of his consort, but K'ang-he, his son, forbade four persons from sacrificing themselves at the death of his consort.1 1 The Middle Kingdom, Vol. I., p. 267. APPENDIX. RESEARCHES INTO THE MANNERS OF THE ANCIENT CHINESE, By M. EDOUARD BIOT. TRANSLATED FROM THE JOURNAL The She-king is one of the most remarkable Works, as a picture of manners, which eastern Asia has transmitted to us; and at the same time it is the one whose authenticity is perhaps the least contested. We know that this sacred Book of verse is a collection in which Confucius gathered together,1 without much order, odes or songs, all anterior to the 6th century before our era, and which were sung in China at ceremonies and festivals, and also in the intercourses of private life, as the compositions of the earliest poets of our Europe were sung in ancient Greece. The style of these odes is simple; their subjects are various; and they are in reality the national songs of the first age of China. 1 It had not occurred to Biot to question the ordinary accounts of the compilation of the odes by Confucius. While these have been exploded in Ch. I. of these proleg., the antiquity and authenticity of the odes remain, as much entitled to our acknowledgment as before. The She-king suffered the fate of the other ancient books at the general burning of them, attributed to the first emperor of the Ts'in dynasty, in the third century before our era; but it was natural that the pieces composing it, made in rhyme and having been sung, should have been preserved in the memory of the literati and of the people much more easily than the different parts of the other sacred Works; and hence, on the revival of letters, under the Han dynasty, in the second century before our era, the She-king reappeared almost complete, while the Le Ke and other Works underwent serious alterations. The discovery, a little time before, of Chinese ink and paper, allowed the multiplication of copies; and the text was commented on by several learned scholars. Their commentaries have come down to us; and in the absence of ancient manuscripts the preservation of which is impossible from the bad quality of Chinese paper, these, written at a time not far removed from the first publication of the She-king, afford to us sufficient guarantees that the primitive text has not been altered by the copyist, from antiquity down to our days. It is evident that this collection of pieces, all perfectly authentic, and of a form generally simple and naive, represents the manners of the ancient Chinese in the purest way, and offers to him who wishes to make a study of those manners a mine more easy to work than the historical books, such as the Shoo-king, the Tsochuen, and the Kwoh-yu, where the facts relative to the manners and the social constitution of the ancient Chinese are as it were drowned in the midst of long moral discourses. There exist, as we know, two special collections of ancient usages:-the Le Ke, or collection of rites properly so called, which has been classed among the sacred Books; and the Chow Le, or rites of Chow. A faithful translation of these two Works would throw a great light on the ancient usages of the Chinese; but their extent and the extreme conciseness of the text make such translation very difficult. We can establish in a sure mauner the sense of each phrase only by reading and discussing the numerous commentaries found in the imperial editions. M. Stan. Julien has given us hopes of a translation of the Le Ke; but the vast labour demands from him a long preparation, and will require perhaps years before it is completely accomplished. While waiting for the publication of this translation so desirable, for that of the Chow Le which I have undertaken, and for those of the Tso-chuen, and the Kwoh-yu, which will perhaps be attempted one day by some patient Sinologues :while waiting for these things, I have concentrated in this memoir my investigations on the She-king, the reading of which is, to say the least, greatly facilitated by the Latin translation of Lacharme. That translation, made in China by this missionary, has been published by the zeal of M. Mohl; and if we can discover in it some inaccuracies, in consequence of the author's having used in great measure the Manchew version of the original, we owe, as a compensation, to the learned missionary, a series of notes extracted from the commentaries, very useful in throwing light upon the historical allusions, as well as the probable identification of the animals and vegetables mentioned in the text with those with which we are acquainted. I have explored the She-king as a traveller in the 6th century before our era might have been able to explore China; and to give order to my notes, I have classed the analogous facts which 1 have succeeded in gathering under different titles which divide my labour into so many small separate chapters. I have indicated the odes from which my quotations are taken, and have thus composed a sort of catalogue of subjects in the She-king. This arrangement will allow the reader to glance easily at the passages which I have brought together, and the results deduced from them; he will be able to verify them, if he desires it, in the text which I have carefully consulted, or at least in the translation of Lacharme. He will be able in the same way to verify, in the text, or in the published translations of them, the occasional quotations which I have made from the Shoo-king, the Yih-king (that ancient Work on divination, at least as old as the She-king), and finally from the curious work of Mencius. He will thus be placed in the early age of China, and contemplate at his ease the spectacle of the primitive manners of that society, so different from those which were then found in Europe and in western Asia, in that part of the globe designated on our charts by the name of The World known to the ancients." PHYSICAL CONSTITUTION OF THE CHINESE. The epithalamium of the princess of Ts'e (I. v. III.) gives us a portrait of a Chinese beauty of that period. It is there said :— Her fingers were like the blades of the young white grass; Her skin was like congealed ointment; Her neck was like the tree-grub; Her teeth were like melon-seeds; Her [fore-] head cicada-like; her eyebrows like [the antennæ of] the silkworm moth.1 The form of the head (or forehead), compared to that of a cicada or grasshopper, indicates evidently the rounded temples, which are a characteristic of the portraits that we have of the Chinese of the present day. The slender and long eyebrows were a sign of long life, as we see in II. ii. VII. 4.2 In I. iv. III. 2 the beauty of a princess of Wei3 is mentioned in similar terms. The piece celebrates the whiteness of her temples, and the splendour of her black hair, in masses like clouds. The black colour of the hair is, as we know, habitual among the Chinese of our day. Three odes call the Chinese 'the black-haired nation (II. i. VI. 5: III. iii. III. 2; IV. 3).' This designation which is found also in the first chapters of the Shoo, in Mencius, in the Tso-chuen, and other ancient Works, is still used in the present day in official publications. The narratives of missionaries inform us that every individual whose hair and eyes are not black is immediately recognized in China as a foreigner. In I. vii. IX. 1, the complexion of a beautiful lady is compared to the colour of the flower of a tree, analogous to our plum tree.4 In men they admired a highcoloured complexion as if the face had been rouged (I. xi. V. 1). We do not find in the She-king any notice about man's height; but I will add here a reference to Mencius, VI. Pt. ii. II. 2, where it is said that king Wăn was believed to have been 10 cubits high, and Tang 9 cubits. The speaker in that passage gives his own height as 9 cubits 4 inches. According to the measures of Amyot (Vol. XIII. of the Memoirs by Missionaries), the Chinese cubit, in the time of the Chow dynasty amounted to about 20 centimetres. The three preceding numbers therefore correspond to about, in English, 6 feet, 5 ft. 10 in, and 6 ft. 1 in. 1 M. Biot translates the description in the present tense after Lacharme, after whom also he calls the piece an epithalamium. But the tense does not affect the portrait given us in the description. See the notes on the ode 2 This is a mistake. The slender eyebrows in this ode were a trait of female beauty, different from the bushy eyebrows of men which were a sign of longevity. 3 This princess of Wei was, like the one in I. v. III., a native of Tse. See the notes on the ode. Not a plum tree. 4 Mencius' questioner quotes these heights as remarkable, from which we may presume, with a degree of probability, that man's height has not sensibly varied in China from ancient times.5 CLOTHING. The officers had six sorts of different clothes for the different seasons, or epochs of the year, and the princes had seven (I. x. IX. 1, 2). At the court of king Wan (in Shen-se) the officers wore habits of wool, embroidered with silk in five different ways (I. ii. VII.).2 In many courts the garment which was worn uppermost was garnished with cuffs of leopard-skin (I. vii. VI.; x. VII.). In Shen-se, the king3 of Ts'in wore a garment of fox-fur, with one of broidered silk over it (I. xi. V.). Similar garments of fox-skin were worn at the court of P'ei by the officers (I. iii. XII.). The robes of the feudal princes were generally of embroidered silk (I. xiv. I.: IV. i. [iii.] VII.). Red was adopted by the kings of Chow for the garments of the princes and officers at their court (I. xiv. II. 1: II. iii. V. 4). The officers at the courts of the feudal princes wore a red collar to their principal robe (I. x. III. 1). One of the feudal princes appears wearing a cap of skin adorned with precious stones (I. v. I. 2). Their officers had in summer a cap woven from the straw of the tue plant, and in winter one of black cotton (II. viii. I. 2). Husbandmen wore, in summer, caps of straw (IV. i. [iii.] VI.). These caps were fastened on the head with strings (I. viii. VI. 2), like those of the Chinese at the present day. A princess of the State of Wei had her upper robe of a green colour, and the under one of yellow (I. iii. II.). In a time of mourning the cap and garments were required to be white (I. xiii. II.). Beyond the court, dresses were of various colours with the exception of red. People wore caps of black fur (I. xiv. III. 2). Girdles were of silk (I. xiv. III.), and of various colours, very long, and fastened by a clasp (I. vii. IX.).5 Men and women who were rich attached to the ends of those girdles precious stones (I. vi. X. 3; v. V. 3).5 When a rich man wished to do honour to his friends who visited him, he gave them precious stones to adorn their girdles (I. vii. VIII. 3; vi. X. 3).6 The princes of the blood wore red shoes (I. xv. VII: III. iii. VII. 2), embroidered with gold (II. iii. V. 4).7 In general, shoes of cloth made from the dolichos plant (a kind of flax) were worn in summer (I. viii. VI. 2: II. v. IX. 2),8 and leather shoes in winter. In two odes (I. ix. I. 1: II. v. IX. 2), men of the eastern districts complain of being reduced by the prevailing misery to have only cloth shoes in winter.9 Women of the ordinary class wore their garments undyed, and a veil or coiffure of a greyish colour (I. vii. XIX.). 5 Biot might have added that tallness was admired in ladies (I. v. III.) 1 See the notes on I. x. IX. Biot has misunderstood the meaning. 2 I. ii. VII. does not speak of the court of king Wăn, nor of garments of wool worn by the officers at the court in the writer's eye, who has before him their jackets of sheep-skin and lamb-skin. king of Ts'in in the age of the She. The ruler of the State of Ts'in was an earl. interpretation of the line referred to is very doubtful. 3 There was no 4 This 5 The odes here referred to do not 6 This 7 All the feudal princes did the speak of the girdle, but of the girdle-pendant; worn by ladies. See on I. vii. VIII. general conclusion cannot be drawn from these passages. same. 8 The plant, koh, was not a kind of flax; nor could the shoes made of its fibres be said to be made of cloth. 9 In I. ix. I. there is no complaint of the kind intimated. Princes and dignitaries habitually wore ear-pendants (I. v. I. 2: II. viii. I. 3).10 I. iv. III. criticizes the elaborate toilette of a Chinese lady who wore plates of gold in the braids of her hair, and had six precious stones on each of her ear-pendants. Her comb is of ivory, and her robe is embroidered in silk of various colours. The ode says that she wore no false hair, and that she had only her own black hair, thick as clouds.11 The toilette of Chinese ladies was made before a mirror which must have been of metal (I. iii. I. 2). The wives of dignitaries twisted their hair on the sides of the head, or they curled it (II. viii. I. 4). As a sign of sadness, they let it hang loose (II. viii. II. 1). Widows cut their hair, preserving a lock on each side of the head (I. iv. I.).12 The children of the rich wore at their girdle an ivory pin, which was used to open the knot when they undressed, and they wore also a ring of ivory (I. v. VI.).13 Until their majority the hair was twisted up in two horns on the top of the head (I. viii. VII. 3). We know that this bifurcated coiffure is still that of Chinese maid-servants, often designated, because of this peculiarity, by a character which has the form of our Y. At sixteen, boys assumed the cap called pëen (ib.). Men and women used pommade for their hair (I. v. VIII. 2), and wore at their side an ivory comb. We know that the practice of having the head shaved was introduced into China by the Manchew Tartars in the 17th century. A recent traveller, M. Tradescant Lay, has remarked upon the habitually dirty state of the hair of Chinese children; and he even says that the the hair is of such a nature as easily to become matted, which produces a disagreeable malady. It was probably to avoid this matting that people in easy circumstances carried about them a comb in the times described in the She-king. BUILDINGS AND DWELLING HOUSES. The walls of houses were ordinarily made of earth. For the foundations they pounded the soil hard where it was intended to erect the walls (II. iv. V. 3); over this space they placed a frame-work of four planks, two of which corresponded to the two faces of the wall, and were arranged by the help of a plumb-line (III. i. III. 5). The interval between the planks was filled with earth wetted and brought to it in baskets (ib., 6). They rammed in this earth with heavy poles of wood, and thus made a length of wall of a certain height, all the parts of which they brought to the same level, filling up where the earth failed, and paring away where there was too much (ib.; see also the ancient dictionary Urh-ya, Ch. IV.). They then moved the frame-work higher, and proceeded to make the upper part of the wall. It was precisely the same kind of construction which we see in the south of France, and which goes by the name of pisé. Foo Yueh, the minister of the emperor Woo-ting of the Shang dynasty, was at first a pisé-mason (Shoo, IV. viii Pt. I. 3). The workmen encouraged one another by cries. For the foundation of a town and for the construction of a considerable edifice, the drum gave the signal for the commencement and leaving off of work (III. i. III. 6).2 The beams were of bamboo, of pine (II. iv. 10, 11. These ear-pendants were the ear-plugs or stoppers, not suspended from the ears, but from a comb in the hair, coming down to cover the ears. See the notes on I. iv. III. 12 See the notes on I. iv. I. The view of it taken by Biot has been maintained. 13 I. v. VI. does not speak of the children (les enfants) of the rich; but of a young dandy. The pin or spike was for loosing knots generally. 1 Woo-ting was not emperor, but king. Emperors should not be spoken of during the Hea, Shang, and Chow dynasties. 2. The drum in III. i. III. 6 would seem to have sounded to inspirit the workmen. |