TRIBES IN WESTERN SZECHCWAN 68 



ing shepherds '\ nor would he recommend envoys to and 

 from Bactria passing through the country. In one place, at 

 least, he speaks of them as a people united with the Ti (Ti 

 Ch'iang). In the official account of Tibet (Hsi Tsang Tu 

 Kao) ®JtH# Tibet is spoken of as the land of all the 

 Chiang and Yong; and again that the "Hsi Yong" of the 

 "Yu Kong" Classic & K are "the Chiang Hordes of 

 Songp'an, Mao Cheo, Wei Chow, Lifan, and the two regions 

 comprising Tibet ff It. Then follows an account how 

 Ch'iang fugitives (Uigurs?) spread into Tibet; multiplied 

 rapidly; and set up a kingdom amidst the earlier Ch'iang 

 hordes. It is difficult to find the true value of the term 

 Ch'iang. Under "FourYi m%" in Doolittle's "Numerical 

 Phrases, ' ' the Barbarians or " Yi" of the West M % are known 

 as Ch'iang ^1, Fan HI, or Yong ft; and in the " Wen Ch'eng" 

 they are called "the Western Y T i ... who are shep- 

 herds." Klaproth makes "Tibetan Nations" and "Ch'iang" 

 synonymous terms. But the " Hsi Ch'iang " are fugitives 

 from iW n^ Hunan. Are the Ti Ch'iang and the Shuh Ch'iang 

 then the same people as the Hsi Ch'iang ? Or were they from 

 one parent stock modified differently by alien influences 

 during widely separated migrations in time and regions? A 

 scientific study of frontier phonetics may throw some light on 

 this question. The Ch'iang seem to be the great fugitives 

 of Chinese History and we often find them split up into 

 divisions which, if they had been united, would have given 

 China an uneasy time. They were, and are, ani mists, and 

 their white stone worship may suggest a desert people who 

 depended on the moisture of snow peaks to fertilise their 

 oases. A region like Eastern Turkestan or North Western 

 Kansu, is immediately implied. Their exorcists, in some 

 regions, worship the monkey which may be connected with 

 the belief of Tibetans, and some early Ch'iang tribes, of their 

 descent from this animal. 



(3) The Yong ft.— The "New Dictionary" says "Yong" 

 is a general name for all the Western Tribes; and the ' ' T'u 

 K'ao " defines the Hsi Yong M ft as the Tibetan and Frontier 

 " Chiang." "Yong " seems to be an ancient term and has 

 probably lost its original meaning in the West of Szechcwan. 

 But it mav be (judging from my slight study of Frontier 

 phonetics ), suspected in " Hsiung (Nu) ; the "Hsi long 

 could be the same word where the " s " would be retained. 

 In the west of Szechcwan is a very numerous people, Lama- 

 ists who are known as " Gya Bung 6 " by the Tibetans, and 



'Gyanag (Chiana) the Tibetan word for China. 



