360 
JEWS IN CHINA. 
blishments. For a great number of years they were preserved only by 
marriages, and by the alliances which they contracted ; but for some 
time past, they seem to have been more particularly attentive to the 
care of extending their sect, and propagating their doctrine. The prin- 
cipal means which they employ for this purpose are, to purchase for a 
sum of money a great number of children brought up in idolatry, whom 
their poor parents, compelled by necessity, readily part with. These they 
circumcise, and afterwards educate and instruct in the principles of their 
religion. During the time of a terrible famine which desolated the province 
of Chang-tong, they purchased more than ten thousand of these children, for 
whom when grown up they procured wives, and built houses, and they even 
formed whole villages of them. They insensibly increased, and are now 
become so numerous, that they entirely exclude from those places in which 
they reside, every inhabitant who does not believe in their prophet, and 
frequent a mosque. Grosier’s Description of China, Transl. 8vo. vol. ii. 
p. 270, 271. 
Grosier’s account of the Jews alluded to by Mr. Morrison, is entirely taken 
from a letter written from Caisong-fou, the capital of Honan, by Father 
Gozani, a Portuguese missionary, in November 1704. * This letter, and in- 
formation derived from other missionaries who had conversed with Jews 
in China or visited them, have afforded materials for an interesting memoir 
on the Jews in China, published in the 18th volume of the Lettres Edifiantes. 
From all the authentic evidence adduced, it appears that a Jewish colony 
first appeared in China in the reign of Hang-ming-ti, of the dynasty Han, 
which began about the year 206 A.C. t, and that they came from Si-yu or 
the western country. This country is supposed by the author of the memoir 
to be Persia, as the Jews of Cai-song-fou have still many Persian words in 
their language. They are called by the Chinese Hoai-hoai, an appellation 
common to them and the Mahometans ; but call themselves Tiao-kin-kiao, 
“ the law of those who pluck out the sinews,” because they have a law which 
prohibits their eating them, in memory of the combat of Jacob and the 
angel, t During prayer in the synagogue they wear a kind of blue cap, 
whence they derive the name of Xtm-maho-hoai-hoai, to distinguish them 
* A translation of this letter from the Portuguese, is published in the eighteenth volume of the 
Lettres Edifiantes. 
f See Grosier, vol. ii. p. 259. 
J See Genesis, chapter xxxii. 
