EARLY CHINESE CULTURES— EBERHARD 515 



the country is pronounced in very different ways ; and that, moreover, 

 the old dictionaries give long lists of such dialectical forms. I need 

 only mention here, by way of illustration, the word ch^ii, hsii, or ch'iu, 

 signifying in modern Chinese "place", "cave", or "hill", but which 

 goes back originally to an old word belonging to the Coast Culture 

 (the latter we shall discuss at some length later on)^ and which there 

 had the meaning of "market place." The distribution of those 

 place names in which this word forms an element is somewhat nar- 

 rowly restricted; reference to the Ch'un-ch'iu and the Tso-chuan 

 shows that it appears only in a region where the Coast Cultui*e may 

 be supposed to have exerted influence. Another word belonging to 

 the same culture group appears to be lang, meaning "youth," "man." 

 A word of the Southern Culture seems to be yin, common in titles 

 and often signifying something like "leader." The study of such 

 dialect- words has so far only just been begun by a very few sinologists, 

 but has not yet been carried to a definite conclusion.* 



PART I 



In my investigations I have begun to include the use of such sources 

 of information as those just mentioned. Those from the most differ- 

 ent periods must be employed. The task is still in its infancy. No 

 one man can hope to carry it out successfully; for it involves nothing 

 less than the careful reexamination of the entire body of the Chinese 

 Uterature, art, and all other cultural phenomena. For the present, 

 only brief reference will be made to the results aheady attained, and 

 a working-hypothesis will be set forth which appears to me to accord 

 well with both the historical and the archeological evidence thus far 

 available. In this hypothesis there will be no effort to go back to any 

 ultimate beginnings or even to the origins of the basic cultures in- 

 volved, but only to a cultural stage already "late" in the ethnological 

 sense and which, historically speaking, covers roughly the period 

 2500-500 B. C. 



The theory that the Chinese civiUzation was single in its origin can 

 no longer be upheld. Since even today, after a development extend- 

 ing over 2,000 years, there may still be recognized several more or 

 less distinct local cultures, the latter must also have been present in 

 times earlier still. Through their interaction it was that the civiliza- 

 tion which we know as Chinese assumed form. The fixing of the 

 territorial limits and the distinguishing characteristics of these local 

 cultures is consequently one of the most important tasks in the whole 

 field of Chinese ethnology. 



» It is also possible that this word may have belonged to the Coast Culture only in a secondary sense, but 

 originally to the Southern Culture; on this point further investigation is needed. 

 * It is to be hoped that the above suggestion may stimulate someone to undertake this study in earnest. 



