Everything about Manchus totally explained
The
Manchu people (
Manchu:
Manju;,
Mongolian: Манж) are a
Tungusic people who originated in
Manchuria (today's
Northeastern China). During their rise in the
seventeenth century, along with the help of Ming rebels (such as general
Wu Sangui), they conquered the
Ming Dynasty and founded the
Qing Dynasty, which ruled
China until its abolition in 1911 after the
Xinhai Revolution, which established
a republican government in its place.
The Manchu ethnicity have largely been assimilated with the
Han Chinese. The
Manchu language is almost extinct, now spoken only among a small number of elderly in remote rural areas of northeastern China and a few scholars; there are around ten thousand speakers of
Sibe (Xibo), a Manchu dialect spoken in the
Ili region of
Xinjiang. In recent years, however, there has been a resurgence of interest in Manchu culture among both ethnic Manchus and Han. The number of Chinese today with some Manchu ancestry is quite large, and the adoption of favorable policies towards ethnic minorities (such as preferential university admission and government employment opportunities) has encouraged some people with mixed-Han and Manchu ancestry to re-identify themselves as Manchu.
Much recent scholarship in ethnic identity emphasizes that ethnic categories are not static, objective category, but rather fluid, subjective ones. This applies to the notion of a Manchu ethnicity which much recent scholarship suggests was strengthened in the early 19th century to distinguish members of the Qing military elites from the peoples they ruled.
Culture
Aspects of Manchu customs and traditions can be seen in local cuisines, language and customs in today's Manchuria as well as cities in that region. After the fall of the
Ming Dynasty, Manchus also adopted many
Han customs and traditions.
They traditionally coiled their hair in high tufts on top of their heads and wore earrings, long gowns and embroidered shoes. The women with higher social standing wore silk and satin clothing while cotton clothing was worn by women of lower social standing. Variants of such vestments (including
qi pao and
ma gua,
Mandarin dress) are still popular all over China. The man's clothing once consisted of a short and adjusted jacket over a long gown with a belt at the waist to facilitate horse-riding and hunting. Unlike the Han, the Manchu didn't practice
foot binding.
The traditional Manchu dwellings were made up of three quarters. In the center of the house was the kitchen while the wings contained the dormitory and the living room. The unique Manchu tradition didn't allow people to die on
nahan to the west or north. Believing that doors were made for living souls, the Manchus allowed dead bodies to be taken out only through windows. Ground burial was the general practice.
The
Manchu language is a member of the
Tungusic language group, itself a member of the proposed
Altaic language family.
Origins
Ancestors of the Manchu were the peoples of the
Mongolian steppes. The first ancestors of the Manchu were the
Sushen, a people who lived during the second and first millennia BC. They were followed by the
Yilou people, who were active from AD 202 to 220. The
Wuji followed in the fifth century and the tribes of the
Mohe in the sixth century. One of the tribes of the Mohe, the Heishui (
Black Water) tribe, eventually became the ancestors of the Jurchens, from whom the Manchu originated.
The
Jurchens under the Wanyan clan established the
Jin Dynasty (literally Golden Dynasty) that ruled the northern half of China (1115–1234) and rivaled the
Song Dynasty in southern China. The Jin were conquered by the
Mongols under
Genghis Khan.
Before the seventeenth century, the ancestors of the Manchus were generally a
pastoral people,
hunting,
fishing and engaging in limited
agriculture and
pig-farming.
Founding of the Qing Dynasty
In 1616 a Manchu leader,
Nurhaci (
1559-
1626) broke away from the power of the decaying
Ming Dynasty and established the Later Jin Dynasty (後金 Hòu Jīn) /
Amaga Aisin Gurun, domestically called the State of Manchu (
manju gurun), and unified Manchu tribes, establishing (or at least expanding) the Manchu
Banner system, a military structure which made their forces quite resilient in the face of superior
Ming Dynasty numbers in the field. Nurhaci later conquered Mukden (modern-day
Shenyang) and built it into the new capital in 1621. In 1636 Nurhaci's son
Huang Taiji, reorganized the Manchus, including those Mongolians, Koreans and Hans who had joined them, changed the nation's name to
Qing, and formally changed the name of the nationality to Manchu.
The early significance of
Manchu hasn't been established satisfactorily. It may have been an old term for the Jianzhou Jurchens. One theory claims that the name came from the
Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī (the Bodhisattva of Wisdom), of which Nurhaci claimed to be an incarnation. Another theory is that the Manchus, like a number of other
Tungusic peoples, take their name from the common Tungusic word *
mangu(n), 'a great river'.
When
Beijing was captured by
Li Zicheng's peasant rebels in
1644, the last Ming Emperor Chongzhen committed suicide. The Manchu then allied with
Ming Dynasty general
Wu Sangui and seized control of Beijing, which became the new capital of the new ruling
Qing dynasty. Over the next two decades, the Manchu took command of all of China.
For political purposes, the early
Manchurian emperors took wives descended from the
Mongol Great Khans, so that their descendants (such as the
Kangxi Emperor) would also be seen as legitimate heirs of the Mongolian
Yuan dynasty. During the
Qing Dynasty, the Manchu government made efforts to preserve Manchu culture and the
language. These efforts were largely unsuccessful in that Manchus gradually adopted the customs and language of the surrounding Han Chinese and, by the
nineteenth century, spoken Manchu was rarely used even in the Imperial court. Written Manchu, however, was still used for the keeping of records and communication between the emperor and the Banner officials until the collapse of the dynasty. The Qing dynasty also maintained a system of dual appointments in which all major imperial offices would have a Manchu and a Han Chinese member. Because of the small number of Manchus, this insured that a large fraction of them would be government officials.
Near the end of the Qing Dynasty, Manchus were portrayed as outside colonizers by
Chinese nationalists such as
Sun Yat-Sen, even though the Republican revolution he brought about was supported by many reform-minded Manchu officials and military officers. This portrayal quickly dissipated after the
1911 revolution as the new Republic of China now sought to include Manchus within its
national identity.
Manchukuo
In
1931, the
Empire of Japan created a puppet state in Manchuria called
Manchukuo. The new state was nominally ruled by Emperor
Puyi. By this time the population of Manchuria was overwhelmingly
Han Chinese, and though Manchukuo was intended to be a state for Manchus, the way its borders were drawn produced a state that had a majority
Han population. Manchukuo was abolished at the end of
World War II, with its territory incorporated back into China.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Manchus'.
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