MANCHUS. The term Manchu, which is recent in origin, has a dynastic connotation, and refers to those people, linguisti cally and culturally, connected with the eastern Tungus, who in the 7th century conquered China and placed their chief on the Dragon Throne. Somatologically they appear to belong to two strains; one is closely akin to the northern Chinese, the other to an element extremely common among the Buriats. While the first are only moderately roundheaded, the latter are extremely brachy cephalic and probably represent an old mixture of Alpine and Yellow man. While some of the Manchus are hardly to be dis tinguished from the northern Chinese, others have a distinctly western type of countenance. It has been suggested by Shirokogo roff that originally the distribution of the people culturally akin to the Tungus stretched into the plain of China. If this is the case, the gradual absorption of the Manchus by immigrant Chinese is a continuation of a process which has been going on for a long period.
Since the advent of the Manchu dynasty the Manchus, organ ized on a military basis as "bannermen," have been widely scat tered over China, where as a kind of hereditary militia they were supported as a charge on the imperial treasury. For the most part, however, they have become absorbed physically and culturally among the Chinese, and have acquired Chinese culture in the place of their old fishing and hunting habits.
An interesting problem is raised by the long association of the Manchus and the Chinese, first as enemies but with definite sep arate organizations, and later as a mixed people with the Man chus in a nominal ascendancy, occupying the Dragon Throne. The Manchus achieved supremacy in north China at a time when Chinese activity was at a low ebb, all the glories of the 'Pang and Lung periods had become submerged and scholars felt the oppres sion of the long Mongol regime still upon them. Moreover, the Chinese were wasted and weakened by the struggle of warfare.
The Manchu dynasty provided just this necessary stimulation. Flushed with victory and with long-desired power over her south ern neighbour, Manchuria determined to mark the whole empire with her personality. The arts were encouraged and special schools for research were established. The Manchus were fully alive to the necessity for continuing Chinese customs and a form of government which, by long usage, had become not merely pal atable but sacrosanct to the Chinese.
Perhaps the greatest work of the Manchus was the issue of parallel editions of Chinese texts. Many of the Chinese classical books, written in the Ku Wen, a very complicated, highly ellipti cal style, were in later days not understood in parts. Various commentators had attempted expansion of the text in order to bring some meaning out of the passages in question but textual criticism had not yet become a real study.
The Emperor K'ang Hsi, however, gathered together from all parts of the empire the best scholars and grammarians and set them to work on an "Imperial Edition" of the classics. This edi tion was to appear with the text in parallel columns, Chinese and Manchu, and since an acceptable Manchu translation of a passage not understood was impossible, the best commentators were em ployed to elucidate the texts before they went to the Board of Translators. From a careful study of the Manchu versions, light was for the first time thrown on many obscure passages in the classical library.
Another activity of the Manchu dynasty, of great importance to the literary student of Further Asia, was the publication, again bilingual, of Manchu works which were now translated into Chinese. This brought a new force into Chinese effort and the literary changes, small though they were, passed into art in its various forms, being especially marked in the pottery of the Ming dynasty. Paintings also suffered a slight change ; again the stream of active life was informing the latent powers of the Chinese and another golden age was begun.
The well-known capacity of the Chinese for absorption of an alien people is clearly shown in the case of the Manchu. Originally essentially different from the Celestial, he has, through the centuries been impressed with the Chinese seal until to-day there is no means of distinguishing between the members of the two peoples ; they are in effect one and the same. The Manchus began well, full of vigour and animated by a passion for re organization, they occupied themselves with multifarious activities calculated to bring again the Chinese Empire into its former eminence. But the inevitable result of a too highly concentrated period of achievement was the incidence of a time of indulgence and licence and the Manchus were finally overthrown by their subjects.