THE RELATION OF CHINESE AND SIAMESE 6 



of confirmation of all in the Annals that relates to the Tai 

 Race. 



The first mention of the Tai Race in the Annals, as cited 

 by Professor Lacouperie, occurs in the time of the Great Yii, 

 who began to reign 2208 B.C., Mr. Hallett tells us. In a 

 geographical survey which goes under the name of this 

 ancient ruler we hear of the "Ta Mung," which Lacouperie 

 translates "Great Mung," in what is now the northwestern 

 part of Szechuan Province, i.e., in western central modern 

 China. True, the name Mung does not sound much like 

 Shan or Lao or Siam or Tai. But it does sound like Lung 

 and Chung and Nung. As we shall see, the very next mention 

 of the Tai in the Annals is under the name form of Lung, and 

 it occurs in the same region as that inhabited by the Great 

 Mung. And Professor Lacouperie tells us that the Mung 

 formed the leading family in the agglomeration of tribes 

 which united to form the well-known Ai-Lao Kingdom at 

 Talifu, in the seventh century A.D. He also says that they 

 did the same for several other agglomerations in later times. 

 And Mr. Holt Hallett states that in a slightly modified form 

 this is the name by which the race is still known to the 

 Annamese. 



We are not ignorant of the objection of a certain school 

 of critics that the Annals are untrustworthy at so< early a 

 date. And there is good ground for rejecting some state- 

 ments of these early chronicles : some are manifestly my- 

 thical. But with Ball, author of "Things Chinese," we hold 

 that where there is so> much chaff there must be some wheat 

 for the chaff to come from. The task of the discriminating 

 student of history is to segregate these precious grains of 

 truth, not to dump wheat and chaff alike into the waste heap. 

 Now, one of the certainties in Chinese history is the presence 

 of aborigines in what is now China when the Peh Sing or 

 Chinese first came from the west into The Flowery Land. 

 Another certainty is that members of the Tai Race, whether 

 known to the Chinese of to-day as Chung-chia, Tung-jen, 

 Lung-jen, Tu-jen, T'6-jen, Pai-i, or what not, are universally 

 called "aborigines" by the Chinese. A third historic cer- 

 tainty is a general migration in very early times from a wes- 

 tern Asiatic center outward in all directions. Most modern 

 writers do not hesitate to put that migration as early as 

 3000 B.C., that is early enough to allow of the development 

 of the Ta Mung in situ before the time of the Great Yii. For 

 example, Mr. Hallett says, "In the earlier hymns of the Rig 

 Veda (about 3000 B.C.) we find the Aryans on the north- 

 west frontiers of India," And Dr. Arthur H. Smith tells us 

 that "the important fact is that, thirty-five, forty, or perhaps 



