Four Barbarians

"Four Barbarians" (Chinese: 四夷; pinyin: sìyí) was a term used by subjects of the Zhou and Han dynasties to refer to the four major people groups living outside the borders of Huaxia. Each was named for a cardinal direction: the Dongyi ("Eastern Barbarians"), Nanman ("Southern Barbarians"), Xirong ("Western Barbarians"), and Beidi ("Northern Barbarians"). Ultimately, the four barbarian groups either emigrated away from the Chinese heartland or were partly assimilated through sinicization into Chinese culture during later dynasties. After this early period, "barbarians" to the north and the west would often be designated as "Hu" (胡).

Ancient China was composed of a group of states that arose in the Yellow River valley. According to historian Li Feng, during the Zhou dynasty (c. 1041–771 BCE), the contrast between the 'Chinese' Zhou and the 'non-Chinese' Xirong or Dongyi was "more political than cultural or ethnic". Lothar von Falkenhausen argues that the perceived contrast between "Chinese" and "Barbarians" was accentuated during the Eastern Zhou period (770–256 BCE), when adherence to Zhou rituals became increasingly recognised as a "barometer of civilisation"; a meter for sophistication and cultural refinement. The Chinese began making a distinction between China (Hua) and the barbarians (Yi) during that period. Huaxia, the earliest concept of "China", was at the center of tianxia ("[everywhere] under heaven; the world"). It was surrounded by "Four Directions/Corners" (四方; sìfāng), "Four Lands/Regions" (四土; sìtǔ), "Four Seas", and "Four Barbarians/Foreigners". The text Erya from the late Zhou dynasty defines the Four Seas as " the place where the barbarians lived, hence by extension, the Four Barbarians... are called the four seas".

The Four Barbarians were the Yi to the east of China, Man in the south, Rong in the west, and Di in the north. Scholars such as Herrlee Glessner Creel argue that Yi, Man, Rong, and Di were originally Chinese names of particular ethnic groups or tribes. During the Spring and Autumn period (771–476 BC), these four exonyms were expanded into "general designations referring to the barbarian tribes" in a given cardinal direction. For example, "Yi" became "Dongyi", literally meaning "East(ern) Yi". The Russian anthropologist Mikhail Kryukov concludes:

This would, in the final analysis, mean that once again territory had become the primary criterion of the we-group, whereas the consciousness of common origin remained secondary. What continued to be important were the factors of language, the acceptance of certain forms of material culture, the adherence to certain rituals, and, above all, the economy and the way of life. Agriculture was the only appropriate way of life for the [Huaxia].

In Chinese, the term "Four Barbarians" uses the character for Yi (夷). The sinologist Edwin G. Pulleyblank states that the name Yi "furnished the primary Chinese term for 'barbarian'," despite paradoxically being "considered the most civilized of the non-Chinese peoples." Yi is the Modern Chinese pronunciation. The Old Chinese pronunciation is reconstructed as *‍dyər (Bernhard Karlgren), *ɤier (Zhou Fagao), *ləj (William H. Baxter), and *l(ə)i (Axel Schuessler). Schuessler defines Yi as "The name of non-Chinese tribes, prob[ably] Austroasiatic, to the east and southeast of the central plain (Shandong, Huái River basin), since the Spring and Autumn period also a general word for 'barbarian'", and proposes a "sea" etymology, "Since the ancient Yuè (=Viet) word for 'sea' is said to have been yí, the people's name might have originated as referring to people living by the sea".

The modern character for yi (夷), like the Qin dynasty seal script, is composed of 大 "big" and 弓 "bow" – but the earliest Shang dynasty oracle bone script was used interchangeably for yi and shi 尸 "corpse", depicting a person with bent back and dangling legs. The archeologist and scholar Guo Moruo believed the oracle graph for yi denotes "a dead body, i.e., the killed enemy", while the bronze graph denotes "a man bound by a rope, i.e., a prisoner or slave". Ignoring this historical paleography, the Chinese historian K. C. Wu claimed that Yi should not be translated as "barbarian" because the modern graph implies a big person carrying a bow, someone to perhaps be feared or respected, but not to be despised. The scholar Léon Wieger provided multiple definitions to the term yi: “The men 大 armed with bows 弓, the primitive inhabitants, barbarians, borderers of the Eastern Sea, inhabitants of the South-West countries." Hanyu Da Cidian, a major Chinese language dictionary, notes Siyi as derogatory: 古代華夏族对四方小数民族的統称. 含有轻蔑之意.; "Contrasting with the ancient Chinese people, a name for ethnic minorities in all four directions. Contains a pejorative meaning."

"Four barbarians" is the common English translation of Siyi. Compare these Chinese-English dictionary equivalents for Siyi: "the four barbarian tribes on the borders of ancient China", "the barbarians on borders of China", and "four barbarian tribes on the borders". Some scholars interpret the si "four" in Siyi as sifang (四方 "four directions"). Liu Xiaoyuan says the meaning of Siyi "is not 'four barbarians' but numerous 'barbarous tribes' in the four directions". However, Liu also states that the term yi might have been used by the early Chinese to simply mean "ordinary others". Yuri Pines translates Siyi as "barbarians of the four corners".

In Chinese Buddhism, siyi (四夷) or siyijie (四夷戒) abbreviates the si boluoyi (四波羅夷) "Four Parajikas" (grave offenses that entail expulsion of a monk or nun from the sangha).