The Bo people () are an ancient extinct people from the

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in Southwest China, the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is ...

and

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

provinces of Southern China. They are famous for their

hanging coffins Hanging coffins are coffins which have been placed on cliffs. They are practiced by various cultures in China, Indonesia, and the Philippines. China Hanging coffins in China are known in Mandarin as ''xuanguan'' () which also means "hanging c ...

. They were one of the various now extinct peoples from

Southern China South China () is a geographical and cultural region that covers the southernmost part of China. Its precise meaning varies with context. A notable feature of South China in comparison to the rest of China is that most of its citizens are not n ...

known collectively in Chinese records as the Baipu.

History

The Bo people were native to southeastern

. By the Zhou dynasty, they were called Pu (濮) (

Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...

( B-S): *''pˤok'') and mentioned among allies of Zhou against

Shang The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and f ...

. The Pu or Hundred Pu (百濮) was a designation of different peoples living in the upper Yangtze river area, similar to the

Hundred Yue The Baiyue (, ), Hundred Yue, or simply Yue (; ), were various ethnic groups who inhabited the regions of East China, South China and Northern Vietnam during the 1st millennium BC and 1st millennium AD. They were known for their short hair, bo ...

of south Yangtze. The Hundred Pu was eventually conquered by the

Ba state Ba () was an Ancient Chinese states, ancient state in eastern Sichuan, China. Its original capital was Yicheng (Enshi City), Hubei. Ba was conquered by Qin (state), Qin in 316 BC. The historical Bo people (China), Bo people and the modern Tujia pe ...

. The

Qin dynasty The Qin dynasty ( ; zh, c=秦朝, p=Qín cháo, w=), or Ch'in dynasty in Wade–Giles romanization ( zh, c=, p=, w=Ch'in ch'ao), was the first Dynasties in Chinese history, dynasty of Imperial China. Named for its heartland in Qin (state), ...

invaded the Ba state in 316 BC and absorbed into its empire. The Bo fortress of Lingxiao (凌霄城) on Bowangshan Mountain in

Xingwen County Xingwen County () is a County (People's Republic of China), county in Yibin, Sichuan, China. It is located in the southern part of Sichuan province and borders Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. It has become known for its GeoparkXingwen Stoneforest a ...

were the last hold out in China against the Mongol conquest. It fell to the Mongols in 1288, more than 11 years after the end of the Song dynasty. In 1573, Lingxiao and Gong County was besieged by

Ming The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

imperial troops, the Bo were massacred and have disappeared since then. Some descendants of the Bo were reportedly found in 2005 in

Culture

Hanging coffins Hanging coffins are coffins which have been placed on cliffs. They are practiced by various cultures in China, Indonesia, and the Philippines. China Hanging coffins in China are known in Mandarin as ''xuanguan'' () which also means "hanging c ...

carved from a single log and bronze drums are widely found in the areas once inhabited by Bo people.

Possible descendants

The

Lachi people The La Chi people ( vi, Người La Chí; also Cù Tê or La Quả) live in the Hà Giang and Lào Cai provinces of northeastern Vietnam. Their population is 15,126 people (2019). They speak the Lachi language The Lachi language (, Vietnamese: ...

of Vietnam and China may be descended from the Bo, based on the archaic

exonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

Labo (喇僰) in Chinese records. The Lachi language belongs to the Kra subgroup of the Kra-Dai language family. Today, the Lachi refer to themselves as ''qu31 te341'', with ''qu31'' meaning 'people' (from

Proto-Kra Proto-Kra is the reconstructed ancestor of the Kra languages. It was reconstructed in 2000 by Weera Ostapirat in his Ph.D. dissertation. Lower-level reconstructions Ostapirat (2000) provided preliminary phonological reconstructions for severa ...

*khra^C1 'people'). The Ku of Qiubei County currently speak a

Loloish The Loloish languages, also known as Yi in China and occasionally Ngwi or Nisoic, are a family of fifty to a hundred Sino-Tibetan languages spoken primarily in the Yunnan province of China. They are most closely related to Burmese and its relat ...

language, and still practice hanging coffin traditions. According to their own records, the Ku people's ancestors had migrated from

Yibin Yibin (; Sichuanese Pinyin: nyi2bin1; Sichuanese Mandarin, Sichuanese pronunciation: ) is a prefecture-level city in the southeastern part of Sichuan province, China, located at the junction of the Min River (Sichuan), Min and Yangtze Rivers. Its ...

province a few centuries ago in order to escape wars.

Possible languages

Languages spoken by the Bo people(s) may have included: *

Greater Bai languages The Greater Bai or simply Bai languages () are a putative group of Sino-Tibetan languages proposed by Zhengzhang, a linguist, in 2010, who argues that Bai and Caijia are sister languages.Zhèngzhāng Shàngfāng ��张尚芳 2010. Càijiāhuà ...

Caijia language Caijia () is an endangered Sino-Tibetan language spoken in an area centred on Bijie, in the west of the Chinese province of Guizhou. It was first documented by Chinese researchers in the 1980s. It has been described by different authors as a rel ...

Longjia language Longjia (autonym: ') is a Sino-Tibetan language of Guizhou, China related to Caijia and Luren.Hölzl, Andreas. 2021Longjia (China) - Language Contexts ''Language Documentation and Description'' 20, 13-34. Longjia may already be extinct (Zhao 20 ...

* Kra languages ** Lachi language *

Loloish languages The Loloish languages, also known as Yi in China and occasionally Ngwi or Nisoic, are a family of fifty to a hundred Sino-Tibetan languages spoken primarily in the Yunnan province of China. They are most closely related to Burmese and its relat ...

Ku language :''"Ku" is also the ISO 639-1 Language Code for the Kurdish language.'' Ku (autonym: ') is a Loloish language cluster of southeastern Yunnan, China. Varieties There are three different varieties of Ku. Speakers of each consider themselves to be ...

Luoji language Luoji (autonym: ') is a moribund Loloish language of Weining County, Guizhou, China that is spoken by the Qixingmin people. There are a few semi-fluent elderly speakers in Shejie Village 蛇街村, Yangjie Town 羊街镇, Weining County, with no ...

Words of Bo origin that still exist in the local dialect (''tuhua'' 土话) of

Gong County, Sichuan Gong County or Gongxian () is a county located in southern Sichuan Province, China. It is under the administration of Yibin city. It is mainly known to travelers for the hanging coffins, a site which dates back nearly 3,000 years and is attributed ...

include ''máng máng'' 牤牤 or alternatively ''niōng niōng'' ('pig 猪'), and ''gà gà'' 尬尬 ('meat 肉').

References

* * *{{cite book , last=Tapp , first=Nicholas , year=2003 , title=The Hmong of China: Context, Agency, and the Imaginary , location=Leiden , publisher=Brill , isbn=9004121277 Ethnic groups in China Ethnic groups in Yunnan Ethnic groups in Sichuan

History

Culture

Possible descendants

Possible languages

See also

References