The Bo people () are an ancient extinct people from the
Yunnan
Yunnan; is an inland Provinces of China, province in Southwestern China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 47.2 million (as of 2020). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the Chinese provinces ...
and
Sichuan
Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...
provinces of
Southwestern China. They are famous for their
hanging coffins.
They were one of the various now extinct peoples from
Southern China
Northern China () and Southern China () are two approximate regions that display certain differences in terms of their geography, demographics, economy, and culture.
Extent
The Qinling–Daba Mountains serve as the transition zone between ...
known collectively in Chinese records as the Baipu.
History
The Bo people were native to southeastern
Sichuan
Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...
. By the Zhou dynasty, they were called Pu (濮) (
Old Chinese
Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...
(
B-S): *''pˤok'') and mentioned among allies of Zhou against
Shang. The Pu or Hundred Pu (
百濮) was a designation of different peoples living in the upper Yangtze river area, similar to the
Hundred Yue of south Yangtze. The Hundred Pu was eventually conquered by the
Ba state. The
Qin dynasty
The Qin dynasty ( ) was the first Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China. It is named for its progenitor state of Qin, a fief of the confederal Zhou dynasty (256 BC). Beginning in 230 BC, the Qin under King Ying Zheng enga ...
invaded the Ba state in 316 BC and absorbed into its empire.
The Bo fortress of Lingxiao (凌霄城) on Bowangshan Mountain in
Xingwen County were the last hold out in China against the
Mongol conquest. It fell to the Mongols in 1288, more than 11 years after the end of the
Song dynasty
The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...
. In 1573, Lingxiao and
Gong County was besieged by
Ming imperial troops, the Bo were massacred and have disappeared since then. Some descendants of the Bo were reportedly found in 2005 in
Xingwen County,
Sichuan
Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...
.
Culture
Hanging coffins carved from a single log and bronze drums are widely found in the areas once inhabited by Bo people.
Possible descendants
The Lachi people of Vietnam and China may be descended from the Bo, based on the archaic exonym
An endonym (also known as autonym ) is a common, name for a group of people, individual person, geographical place, language, or dialect, meaning that it is used inside a particular group or linguistic community to identify or designate them ...
Labo (喇僰) in Chinese records. The Lachi language belongs to the Kra subgroup of the Kra-Dai language family. Today, the Lachi refer to themselves as ''qu31 te341'', with ''qu31'' meaning 'people' (from Proto-Kra *khraC1 'people').
The Ku of Qiubei County currently speak a Loloish language, and still practice hanging coffin traditions. According to their own records, the Ku people's ancestors had migrated from Yibin, Sichuan
Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...
province a few centuries ago in order to escape wars.
Possible languages
Languages spoken by the Bo people(s) may have included:
* Macro-Bai languages
** Caijia language
** Longjia language
* Kra languages
** Lachi language
*Loloish languages
The Loloish languages, also known as Yi (like the Yi people) and occasionally Ngwi or Nisoic, are a family of 50–100 Tibeto-Burman languages spoken primarily in the Yunnan province of Southwestern China. They are most closely related to Bur ...
** Ku language
** Luoji language
Words of Bo origin that still exist in the local dialect (''tuhua'' 土话) of Gong County, Sichuan include ''máng máng'' 牤牤 or alternatively ''niōng niōng'' ('pig 猪'), and ''gà gà'' 尬尬 ('meat 肉').
See also
* Ba (state)
References
*
*
*{{cite book , last=Tapp , first=Nicholas , year=2003 , title=The Hmong of China: Context, Agency, and the Imaginary , location=Leiden , publisher=Brill , isbn=9004121277
Ethnic groups in China
Ethnic groups in Yunnan
Ethnic groups in Sichuan