2. Records of early Han history

(1) The known facts from Han history records.

From the recent archeology findings, there were wide spread settlements all over China, including Tibet, over 6,000 years ago. One could use the phrase `10,000 stars' to discrib the situation. There were even some primitive written languages, one of them at `Ban-po' which I had personally observed. Note that the settlement in Tibet may or may not be by Tibetans.

(a) The relation between Shang people and Jian-Tibetan

At the time around 1,400 B.C., there was a semi-Tibetan people called `Jian' mixed with Shang people. From the oracles, one see phrases as `Today we captured 50 Jians' frequently. Certainly, some Shang people were captured by Jian, but not recorded. By the way, the Tibetan people was considered to be the descendent of Jian by some scholars in the past. Today, Jian and Tibetan are classified as one race, Jian-Tibetan people. Anyway, we are satisfied with the closeness of Tibetan and Jian.

One of the Kings of Shang Dynasty had a name Jian-Chia. For the convenience of the reader, I will use English alphabet A, B,.. to replace the Han ordering Chia, Yee,... So , let us call this King Jian-A. There were possible explanations of his name, maybe his mother was a Jian, maybe he was a Jian-conqueror, i.e., he killed a lot of Jian, and was famous for his acts. However, there was no record of big battle between Shang people and Jian people at that time. I would rather think that his mother was a Jian. In any case, there were some inter-marriage between Shang people and Jian people who lived near each other.

Let us consider the life style of the two people. The name Jian has a root in Yion (goat, the animal `sheep' was transplanted to Han people from Northwest during Han Dynasty, sheep was called Hu-Yion, and later Mion-Yion), which indicates that Jian was likely to be goat raising nomad. This observation checks with the later records of Jian people. On the other hand, Shang people was semi-nomad with settlements, as indicated by (1) large amount of animal bones discovered in the sites of Shang people, (2) the animal decorations of bronzes, (3) the associations of Yion (goat root) in Han Characters of beauty, taste good, etc, (5) the fame that Shang people ate a lot of meat, (4) the constant movements of Shang people, one Shang King moved his capital 8 times.

Next we will discuss one of the most important relations of a society, the marriage. In Tibet, there are multihusbands-multiwives marriage system from very ancient time. The husbands may or may not be related, similarly, the wives may or may not be related. According to the government officials, this is a thing of the past. I have evidences to the contrary. In this system, husbands and wives are ordered. If the number 1 husband passes away, then the number 2 husband will assume the position of number 1 husband, etc. The children will consider all present husbands of the mother as fathers. The property will be commonly owned by the marriage group.

The marriage system of Shang people is a hot subject. The records show that there were Shang Kings with more than one wife, the oracles contains statements `number 1 father, number 2 father, number 3 father' , and `one ox for father A, one ox for father G, one ox for father H', etc. Furthermore, it had been established that fathers A, G, and H in the previous statement are brothers. Many scholars mention the possibility of multi-husbands (likely brothers)-multi-wives(likely sisters) marriage system for early to middle Shang people. If this is the case, then the brother succession system of early Shang people means the promotion of number 2 husband to number 1 as in the Tibetan system and can be easily understood.

On the religions, both believed shamanisms and both use bone-oracles. In fact the ancient Tibetan written language I saw was carved on bones.

(b)Later records of Jian-Tibetan

One thing I noticed is the resemblance of the classical Tibetan poems with Chuu-Shi (southern Chinese poems of `Spring-Autumn' and `Warring States' periods). Both are with 4-7 syllables with the middle syllable or the end syllable denote a sigh, and of comparable lengths.

From there to the Early-Han Dynasty, we have little records of Jian. The ambassador, Chang Chien, of Emperor Wu tried to come back to the capital of Han through Qinghai (Jian Land or Jian Chung) and failed. Jian assumed a peaceful life during that time. Later on, in the Later-Han Dynasty, there were troubles in Jian Land. It was largely a war between farmers and nomads. General Chao Tson-Kuo spent many years to safe guard the fertile corner of Qinghai. In fact, the battle continued for many generations and was indecisive. After the down fall of Later-Han, Jian people started moving towards the central China. During the South-North Dynastys, from the fourth to the sixth century, Jian and a relative, Tze, built several Kingdoms in the central China. These people cross married with the Han people of the northern China, and thus assimilated.

From now on we should turn to the history time of Tibetans.