试论蜑名变迁与蜑民族属

On the Evolution of the Different Names of Dan in Chinese and the Ethnicities of the Different Dan Groups

"蜑"是中国古代汉族对南方少数民族的称谓,它最初称"诞",不同历史时期,有"蜒"、"蛋"、"疍"等同音同义异体字。历史上名为"蜑"的族群有两支——长江流域蜑民和南方沿海地区蜑民,前者是今天土家、瑶、苗等族先民,后者则是古越族后裔,两者没有血缘关系。"蜑"除专指上述两个区域的族群外,还用来泛指其他非汉人族群,与"蛮"的泛称同义。"蛮蜑"称呼甚为复杂,须依据他们所处区域及其族群特征,并通过语境来判断其所指代的族属。

In ancient China the word 'Dan' was used to denote the ethnic minorities living in South China by the Hans. There were several substitutional Chinese characters of 'Dan' with the same sound in different periods. Historically, there were two large ethnic groups of Dan in ancient China. One lived in the Yangtze River valley, which was the ancestors of some modern ethnic minorities including Tujia, Yao, and Miao. The other lived in the southern coastal areas of China, which derived from the ancient Yue. There was no blood relation between the two ethnic groups above-mentioned. The related ethnic groups living in the coastal areas began to be called 'the Dans' in the Song Dynasty, and this phenomenon reflected the tendency of the Hans' going down south. While the name of 'the Dans' was applied to the ethnic groups living in the two above areas, it was also used to denote the non-Hans, in other words, 'the Barbarians'. The applications of the name of 'the Dans' and ' the Barbarians' were quite complex. Therefore, in order to judge correctly the ethnicities of different Dan groups, one need to pay much attention to the areas where they lived, the specific ethnic features which they had, and the contexts in which they were referred to.