Quanrong
Ancient northwestern Chinese ethnic group
The Quanrong (Chinese: 犬戎; pinyin: Quǎnróng) or Dog Rong were an ethnic group, classified by the ancient Chinese as "Qiang", active in the northwestern part of China during and after the Zhou dynasty (1046–221 BCE). Their language or languages are considered to have been members of the Tibeto-Burman branch of the Sino-Tibetan languages.
Etymology
Scholars believe Quanrong was a later name for the Xianyun 猃狁 (written with xian, defined as a kind of dog with a long snout [Erya] or a black dog with a yellow face [Shuowen Jiezi]). According to sinologist Li Feng, "It is very probable that when the term Xianyun came to be written with the two characters 獫狁, the notion of 'dog' associated with the character xian thus gave rise to the term Quanrong 犬戎, or the 'Dog Barbarians'."
Claiming ancestry from two white dogs, the Quanrong tribe worshipped a totem in the form of a white dog. They are classified as a nomadic tribe of the Qiang and were the sworn enemies of the Yanhuang tribe.
History
According to the Book of the Later Han:
Former Emperor Gaoxin's (father of Emperor Yao) enemies were the Quanrong. The Emperor suffered violent invasion at their hands but did not retaliate.
The Discourses of Zhou in the Guoyu records that at the time of King Mu of Zhou the power of the Quanrong gradually increased. Conflicts during the king's reign made him consider a punitive expedition to the west against them. Duke of Zhai was against his father's plan: "this is not advisable.
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This entry incorporates text from “Quanrong” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.