Zhuang people

Chinese character names

The Chinese character used for the Zhuang people has changed several times. Their autonym, "Cuengh" in Standard Zhuang, was originally written with the graphic pejorative Zhuàng 獞 (or tóng, meaning "a variety of wild dog"). Chinese characters typically combine a semantic element or radical and a phonetic element. John DeFrancis calls Zhuàng 獞, with the "dog radical" 犭 and a tóng 童 phonetic, an ethnic slur and describes how the People's Republic of China removed it. In 1949, after the Chinese civil war, the logograph 獞 was officially replaced with Zhuàng 僮 (or tóng "child; boy servant"), with the "human radical" 亻and the same phonetic. Later, during the standardization of simplified Chinese characters, Zhuàng 僮 was changed to a completely different character Zhuàng 壮 (meaning "strong; robust").

Language

The Zhuang languages are a group of mutually unintelligible languages of the Tai family, heavily influenced by nearby varieties of Chinese. The Standard Zhuang language is based on a northern dialect, but few people learn it. Therefore, Zhuang people from different dialect areas use Chinese to communicate with each other. According to a 1980s survey, 42% of Zhuang people were monolingual in Zhuang, while 55% were bilingual in Zhuang and Chinese.

Whilst according to some semi-official sources "In Guangxi, compulsory education is bilingual in Zhuang and Chinese, with a focus on early Zhuang literacy," only small percentage of schools teach written Zhuang. Zhuang has been written using logograms based on Chinese characters ("Sawndip") for over 1,000 years. Standard Zhuang, the official alphabetical script, was introduced in 1957, and in 1982 the Cyrillic letters were changed to Latin letters. However, the traditional character-based script is more commonly used in less formal domains.

The Zhuang have their own scriptures written in poetic form such as the Baeu Rodo.

Religion

Most Zhuang follow a traditional animist faith known as Shigongism or Moism, which include elements of ancestor worship. The Mo have their own sutra and professional priests known as bu mo who traditionally use chicken bones for divination. In Moism, the creator is known as Bu Luotuo and the universe is tripartite, with all things composed from the three elements of heaven, earth, and water.

There are also a number of Buddhists, Taoists, and Christians among the Zhuang.

Sawndip literature

For over one thousand years the Zhuang have used Sawndip to write a wide variety of literature, including folk songs, operas, poems, scriptures, letters, contracts, and court documents. The works include both entirely indigenous works and translations from Chinese, fact and fiction, religious texts and secular texts that give us insight into the life of the Zhuang and the people they have had contact with over a period of two millennia in a writing system that is still used to this day.

Food

Zhuang cuisine includes many salty and sour dishes such as pickled cabbage, pickled vegetables and pork, and dried fish. A common Zhuang drink is "oil tea", tea leaves fried in oil with rice grains brewed and drunk with peanuts or a rice cake.

Prehistory

While Chinese scholarship continues to place the Zhuang–Dong languages among the Sino-Tibetan family, other linguists treat the Tai languages as a separate family. They have been linked with the Austronesian languages, which dispersed from Taiwan after a migration from the mainland. However, the Austro-Tai hypothesis uniting these families is now supported by few scholars.

Genetic evidence points out Zhuang possesses a very high frequency of Haplogroup O2 with most of them being subclade O2a making it the most dominant marker, one that they share with Austro-Asiatic. The other portion of O2 belongs to subclade O2a1. Zhuangs have prevalent frequencies of O1 which links them with Austronesian, but O1 is at much lower rate compared to O2a and only slightly higher than O2a1. Haplogroup O2 in Taiwan aborigines is almost completely non-existent, but they exhibit very high frequencies of O1. This suggests that after the separation of Tai and Austronesian, Tai-Kadai speakers assimilated mostly Austro-Asiatic people into their population.

Chinese empires

The Zhuang are the indigenous peoples of Guangxi. The Zhuang's origins can be traced back to the paleolithic ancient human, as demonstrated by a large amount of contemporary archaeological evidence.

The earliest historical records of the Zhuang so far discovered are among the Rock Paintings of Hua Mountain, dated to the Warring States period (475–221 BC) of Chinese history.

Chinese historical documents are minimal prior to their primitive lives in the region, simply referring to the lands south of the Yangtze as the "Hundred Yue". Qin Shihuang's southern invasions are detailed in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian. The initial thrust south of the Nanling proved disastrous, with the general Tu Sui falling in battle around 218 BC, but his engineer Shi Lu completed the construction of the Ling Canal, which linked the Xiang and Li rivers. By 214, Zhao Tuo and Ren Xiao had returned and pacified the Western Valley Yue, opening up Guangxi and the south to the immigration of hundreds of thousands of Chinese.

At the fall of the Qin Dynasty a decade later, Zhao Tuo, using his position as the commander of the Nanhai Commandery, formed a state centered on Panyu called Southern Yue (Nanyue). Alternatively submissive to and independent of Han control, this Kingdom expanded colonization and Sinification under its policy of "Harmonizing and Gathering the Hundred Yue" (和集百越) but was supported by the Zhuang until its collapse in 111 BC.

The Han Dynasty reduced local authority and established military posts at Guilin, Wuzhou, and Yulin. An uprising in Vietnam led by the Trưng sisters was put down in AD 42 by general Ma Yuan, who is recorded as helping to pacify the regions by improving its irrigation networks and improving various Han laws. Despite his efforts, immigration of the Yao from near Changsha unsettled the region.

Under the Tang, the Zhuang moved to support the Tai kingdom of Southern Zhao (Nanzhao) in Yunnan which successfully repulsed imperial armies in 751 and 754. Guangxi was then divided into an area of Zhuang ascendancy west of Nanning and an area of Han ascendancy east of Nanning.

After the collapse of the Southern Zhao, Liu Yan established the Southern Han (Nanhan) in Guangdong. Although this state gained minimal control over the Zhuang, the Southern Han were plagued by instability and annexed by the Song Dynasty in 971.

Harassed by both Song and the Jiaozhi in modern Vietnam, the Zhuang leader Nong Zhigao led a revolt in 1052 for which he is still remembered by the Zhuang people. His independent kingdom was short-lived, however, and the tattooed Song general Di Qing returned Guangxi to China.

The Mongolian Yuan Dynasty established control over the Southern Song following the Battle of Yamen in 1279 and annexed the independent state of Dali that had arisen in Yunnan. Rather than ruling Lingnan as a subject territory, the Mongolians established Guangxi as a proper province, but the introduction of the Miao from Guizhou and Hunan kept the region unsettled.

The area continued to be unruly, leading the Ming Dynasty to employ the different groups against one another. One of the bloodiest battles in Zhuang history was that at Big Rattan Gorge against the Yao in 1465, where 20,000 deaths were reported.

The Manchurian Qing Dynasty left the region alone until the imposition of direct rule in 1726, but the 19th century was one of constant unrest. A Yao revolt in 1831 was followed by the Taiping Rebellion in 1850. The execution of St. Auguste Chapdelaine by local officials in Guangxi provoked the Second Opium War in 1858 and subsequent French interference in the interior. Although Brière de l'Isle was unable to invade its depot at Longzhou, the Guangxi Army saw a great deal of action in the 1884 Franco-Chinese War. Largely ineffective within Vietnam, it was able to repulse the French from China itself at the Battle of Zhennan Pass.

Modern times

Following the Wuchang Uprising, Guangxi seceded from the Qing Empire on 6 November 1911. The Qing governor, Shen Bingdan, initially remained in place, but was subsequently removed by a mutiny commanded by General Lu Rongting. General Lu's Guangxi Clique overran Hunan and Guangdong as well and helped lead the resistance to Yuan Shikai's attempt to reestablish an imperial government. Zhuang loyalty made his Self-Government Army cohesive but reluctant to move far beyond its own provinces. Subsequent feuding with Sun Yat-sen led to defeat in the 1920 and 1921 Yue-Gui Wars. After a brief occupation by Chen Jiongming's Cantonese forces, Guangxi fell into disunity and profound banditry for several years until Li Zongren's Guangxi Pacification Army established the New Guangxi Clique dominated by Li, Huang Shaohong, and Bai Chongxi.

Successful action in Hunan against Wu Peifu led to the Zhuang GPA becoming known as the "Flying Army" and the "Army of Steel." After the death of Sun Yat-sen, Li also repulsed Tang Jiyao's revolt in the Yunnan–Guangxi War and joined the Northern Expedition establishing Republican control over other warlords. His was one of the few Nationalist units free from serious Communist influence and was therefore employed by Chiang Kai-shek in the Shanghai Massacre of 1927.

After a falling out with Chiang, Li joined Yan Xishan's revolt in the Central Plains War. His defeat did not remove him from control of Guangxi and the Mukden Incident and Japanese invasion kept Chiang and the Communists from removing his influence until 1949. During World War II, Guangxi was a major target of Japanese attacks. The 1944 Operation Ichi-Go successfully expanded Japanese control along the rail lines through Guangxi into French Indochina, although the line remained harassed by American bombers and Zhuang guerrillas under Bai Chongxi.

By county

(Only includes counties or county-equivalents containing >0.1% of China's Zhuang population.)

Notable Zhuang people