Sima Qian and the Xiongnu During China’s Han Dynasty
Sima Qian offers an abundance examples demonstrating Xiongnu customs and culture. First he explains that they are a nomadic people who move “to follow their flocks” and to find water and grass for their livestock (1 Ebrey, 55). He goes on to say that they have “no cities, permanent dwellings or agriculture” (1 Ebrey, 55). This way of life stands in stark contrast to that of the Chinese in the Han period. “Han civilization was built on an agrarian base” (2 Ebrey, 73). It was a time of great agricultural development in terms of technology. The people were stationary, not nomadic. They owned property and homes that tied them to specific geographical places. Cities, permanent dwellings and agriculture defined the term “civilized” to Sima Qian’s Chinese audience during the Han period. By simply pointing out that the Xiongnu had none of these things he effectively depicted them as primitive in comparison to the Chinese.
Shortly after Sima Qian describes the lifestyle of Xiongnu, he points out that they have no written language (1 Ebrey, 55). The archeological record indicates the Chinese have had a written script since at least the time of the Shang dynasty (1600-1050 B.C.E.) (2 Ebrey, 23). Written Chinese played a major role in both governing the people and religious studies. To become a scholar or official in Han times, it was imperative that one be literate. These scholars and officials were often looked upon as the pinnacle of success. Sima Qian, as well as his audience, probably found it very difficult to relate to a society with no conception of the written word. Here again, Sima Qian’s description makes the Xiongnu seem less intelligent than his Chinese audience. In effect, he reinforces the cultural importance of writing to the Chinese civilization.
Sima Qian goes on to describe the military tactics of the Xiongnu. His description of their attack strategies shows an excellent example of the polemical nature of this text. “When it is to their advantage, they advance; when not they retreat, as they see no shame in retreat. Concern for propriety or duty does not inhibit their pursuit of advantage” (1 Ebrey, 55). Feeling no sense of duty toward a centralized government, the Xiongnu seemed as though they were free to pillage, rob or attack when opportunity presented itself, as they felt no sense of dishonor or shame at the prospect of retreat. This was incongruent with Chinese values, because the Chinese had a centralized government to hold individuals accountable for their actions, and in whose name honor in battle was sought. Sima Qian’s audience surely would have picked up on this point, since government as they knew it was involved in their lives every day, and their Confucian principles dictated that the people need be in reverence of their ruler.
In Sima Qian’s time, the Han dynasty was ruled by Emperor Wudi, and many aspects of the Chinese culture were changing for the people. Wudi made drastic reforms to the government, employing Confucianism as state policy. The doctrine of Confucianism emphasized the cultivation of filial piety, or “loving, respectful and dutiful attention to the needs and wishes of family elders, especially parents and grandparents.” Exemplary filial piety became one of the goals of the Chinese people. The importance and reverence given to filial piety in the Han dynasty was so great that people with reputations of superlative filial piety were given government jobs solely on the basis of that reputation (2 Ebrey, 81)!
As family and hierarchical relationships pertain to the Xiongnu, Sima Qian wrote, “The strongest eat the best food; the old eat the leftovers. They honor the young and the strong, and despise the old and weak” (1 Ebrey, 55). These ideas were directly antithetical to the Han Chinese sensibilities. The idea of despising one’s elders and feeding them only the left over food was probably seen as incredibly barbarous to the Han Chinese. As the most polemical of all observations Sima Qian wrote about the Xiongnu, the great disparity between Han Chinese and Xiongnu views on these hierarchical relationships serves to reinforce what and who could be termed “Chinese” by depicting what was most certainly no longer part of the “modern” Chinese identity during the Han dynasty.
Through his writings, Sima Qian was able to point out the characteristics, practices and behaviors of the Xiongnu as notably different from Chinese. By pointing out these differences, he was subtly solidifying the idea of what was not Chinese during a period of great cultural reform. In this era of changing government policy and expanding centralized power in , with different types of people coming into the fold with every newly conquered territory, it was important to define what Chinese was not in addition to what it had become. Sima Qian effectively defined Chinese culture during the Han dynasty through a subtly polemic discourse on the Xiongnu.
Ebrey, Patrica Buckley. Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook. Free Press: 1993.
