Southern China), are believed to be the ancestors of the modern Zhuang people;[5][6] additionally, Luoyue in southern China are believed to be ancestors of Hlai people.[7]
Etymology
The etymology of the ethnonym Lạc applied to this people is uncertain.
Based on Chinese observers' remarks that the Lạc people's
Red River delta might be suitable for agriculture, many scholars opted to find its etymology in the semantic field "water". Japanese scholar Gotō Kimpei links Lạc to Vietnamese noun(s) lạch ~ rạch "ditch, canal, waterway".[8] Vietnamese scholar Nguyễn Kim Thản (apud Vũ Thế Ngọc, 1989) suggests that Lạc simply means "water" and is comparable to phonetically similar elements in two compounds nước rạc (lit. "ebbing (tidal) water") & cạn rặc (lit. "utterly dried up [of water]").[a][10]
On the other hand, French linguist
Kra-Dai cognate words meaning "taro" (e.g. Thai เผือก pʰɨakD1, Lakkiaja:k, Pahapɣaːk, etc.[b]); and Ferlus additionally proposes that *p.ra:k was used to by rice-growers to designate taro-growing horticulturists.[13]
History
According to legend, the Lạc Việt founded a state called
The Warring States period's encyclopedia Lüshi Chunqiu mentioned the name Yueluo 越駱 (SV: Việt Lạc), which Han period's scholar Gao You asserted to be a country's name (國名).[17][18] However, neither Lüshi Chunqiu nor Gao You indicated where Yueluo was located. Sinologists Knoblock and Riegel propose that Yueluo 越駱 was probably a mistake for Luoyue 駱越.[19]
According to a fourth century chronicle,
annexed the lands of the Lac Viet into the Han empire, and established the Jiaozhi, Jiuzhen and Rinan
commanderies.
Reacting against a Chinese attempt to colonialize and civilize, the Trung sisters revolted against the Sinitic ruling class in 39 AD.[22] After gaining a brief independence amid the Trung sisters' rebellion, Lac chiefs along with its social elites were massacred, deported, and forced to adopt Han cultures in a reactionary military response led by Chinese general Ma Yuan.[23]
Later, Chinese historians writing of Ma Yuan's expedition referred to the Lac/Luo as the "Luoyue" or simply as the "Yue."[24] Furthermore, there is no information and record about the Lac after 44 AD.[c][26] Some of them were hypothesized to have fled to the southern hinterlands.[27]
Language and genetics
The linguistic origins of the Lạc Việt have continued to remain controversial as they were generally believed to be
Southwestern Tai and other historical evidence, Pittayawat Pittayaporn (2014) proposes that the southwestward migration of southwestern Tai-speaking tribes from the modern Guangxi to the mainland of Southeast Asia must have taken place sometimes between the 8th–10th centuries CE at the earliest,[35] long after 44BCE, when the Luoyue had been last mentioned.[26]
Archaeological evidence reveals that during the pre-Dongson period, the
Lạc lords were hereditary aristocrats in something like a feudal system. The status of Lạc lords passed through the family line of one's mother and tribute was obtained from communities of agriculturalists who practiced group responsibility. In Lạc society, access to land was based on communal usage rather than individual ownership and women possessed inheritance rights. While in Chinese society men inherited wealth through their fathers, in Lạc society both men and women inherited wealth through their mothers.[38]
Ancient Han Chinese had described the people of Âu Lạc as barbaric in need of civilizing, regarding them as lacking morals and modesty.
Hou Hanshu described the region as thick with dense forests, and full of ponds and lakes, with countless wild animals like elephants, rhinoceros and tigers, while the locals earned their living by hunting and fishing, using bows propelling poisoned arrows, tattooing themselves, and wearing chignon and turbans. They also are said to know how to cast copper implements and pointed arrowheads, chewing betel nuts and blackening their teeth.[46] However, such descriptions of the kingdom bear little resemblance to what we know: not a place of fertile cultivation or habitation on a large scale. Some of the descriptions may apply rather well to the region of present-day Guangxi and Guangdong, which remain inhospitable for many years to come, evident in census of the year 2 AD.[47]
Women enjoyed high status in Lạc society.[48] Such a society is a matrilocal society, a societal system in which a married couple resides with or near the wife's parents. Thus, the female offspring of a mother remain living in (or near) the mother's house, forming large clan-families couples after marriage would often go to live with the wife's family. It has also been said that Proto-Vietnamese society was matrilineal.[49] The status of Lạc lords transferred through the mother's lineage while women possessed inheritance rights.[38] In addition, they also practiced levirate,[50][51] meaning widows had a right to marry a male relative of her late husband, often his brother, to obtain heirs. This practice provided an heir for the mother, protecting widows' interests and reflecting female authority, although some patriarchal societies used it to keep wealth within the male family bloodline.[38][50]
The economy was characterized by agriculture with wet rice cultivation,
draft animals, metal plowshares, axes and other tools, as well as irrigation complexes.[44] The cultivation of irrigated rice may have started in the beginning of the second millennium BCE, evidenced by findings from palynological sequences,[52][44] while metal tools were regularly used before any significant Sino-Vietic interaction.[44] Chapuis (1995) also suggested the existence of line fishing and some specialization and division of labor.[53] The region was also a major node or hub of interregional access and exchange, connected to other area through an extensive extraregional trade network, since well before the first millennium BC, thanks to its strategic location, enjoying access to key interaction routes and resources, including proximity to major rivers or the coast[d] and a high distribution of copper, tin, and lead ores.[55][56] Kim (2015) believed its economic and commercial value, including its location and access to key waterways and exotic tropical goods, would have been main reasons the Chinese conquered the region, giving them unrestricted access to other parts of Southeast Asia.[57]
Contested ancestors and nationalism
The Lạc Việt's vague identity and heritage are claimed today by from both those in China and Vietnam. Nationalist scholarships from both sides misinterpret the Lạc Việt/Luoyue as a distinct ancient ethnic group with direct unbreakable connections to modern
Kinh people . On the Chinese side, the Lạc Việt/Luoyue are remembered as an ancient Zhuang kingdom and ancestors of the Zhuang. Lạc Việt/Luoyue however was a merely xenonym used by ancient Han Empire scribers to refer the tribal confederation in ancient Guangxi and Northern Vietnam whom they believed to be a variety of the Yue.[58] These Yue and Luoyue likely refer to diverse groups of peoples speaking different languages who perhaps shared certain cultural practices, rather than to a clearly defined ethnic group speaking a single language.[59][60][61]
^One such last mention of the Luoyue was by Western Han official Jia Juanzhi during the Chuyuan years (48 - 44 BCE) of Emperor Yuan of Han's reign and recorded in the Han Shu (finished in 111 CE).[25]
^During the mid-Holocene transgression, the sea level rose and immersed low-lying areas; geological data show the coastline was located near present-day Hanoi.[54]
References
^Schuessler, Axel. (2007) An Etymological Dictionary of Old Chinese. University of Hawaii Press. p. 372
^"黎族 (The Li People)" (in Chinese). 国家民委网站 (State Ethnic Affairs Commission). 14 April 2006. Retrieved 22 March 2020. 在我国古籍上很早就有关于黎族先民的记载。西汉以前曾经以 "骆越",东汉以"里"、"蛮",隋唐以"俚"、"僚"等名称,来泛称我国南方的一些少数民族,其中也包括海南岛黎族的远古祖先。"黎"这一族称最早正式出现在唐代后期的文献上...... 南朝梁大同中(540—541年),由于儋耳地方俚僚(包括黎族先民)1000多峒 "归附"冼夫人,由"请命于朝",而重置崖州。
^Lüshi Chunqiuoriginal text: "和之美者:…… ,越駱之菌,……" Knoblock & Riegel (2000)'s translation: "The finest of the seasoning agents are [...] the bamboo shoots from Yueluo; [...]"
^Lüshi Chunqiu, commentated by Gao You. Sibu Congkan version. original text: "越駱國名" page 14
^Knoblock, John & Riegel, Jeffrey (translators) (2000) The Annals of Lü Buwei. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. p. 810
^Hanshu Vol. 64b Account of Jia Juanzhi text: "何況乃復其南方萬里之蠻乎!駱越之人父子同川而浴,相習以鼻飲,與禽獸無異,本不足郡縣置也。" translation: "Let alone, again, the barbarians tens-of-thousands of li to the South! The Luoyue: their fathers and children bathe in the same river; they drink together with their noses; they're not different at all from the birds and beasts It's not worth it establishing commanderies and prefectures there!"
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