Part I: The Broken Path
I have often wondered why Chinese spoke of 5000 years of
continuous civilization in China while westerners claimed China only has
3000 years. The difference had usually been attributed to the Chinese
for using mythological basis to rack up years for its homegrown
civilization while westerners only acknowledged China's civilization for
the duration of its written history which had only begun 3000 years
ago.
For many Chinese, though hardly the majority, mythological
reference serves just as well as true historiography. In Chinese
folklore, a sagelike emperor called Huangdi, situated around 5000 years
ago, was said to have used military might to pacify barbarians headed by
a warlike figure, Chiyou, in order to start the prosperous society
of Huaxia peoples, the supposed ancestors of Han Chinese supra-ethnic
peoples. Rumour has it that this was the period when the ethnocultural
backdrop for the Han Chinese developed since Han Chinese supposedly
viewed themselves with prideful regard for achieving distinct
nationhood against those less civilized than they.
Therefore the mythology of Huangdi and Chiyou served as a
reference for the ideal of "civilizing the barbarian masses". It
reasoned civilization in China was created when some men suddenly
realized their civilized status by arbitrarily assigning barbarian
status for those whom they have deemed necessary to civilize which is
another way of saying a superiority complex was key to implementing
civilization. By converting this ideal into a parameter for the search
of China's ancient civilization, many archaeologists discovering
upon the artifactual remains of China's neolithic past began to draw
associations between the two.
Where they found the ending phase of one Chinese neolithic
culture became perceived to indicate where an ancient battle was lost
against some more civilized conqueror. Where they found the beginning
phase of a Chinese neolithic culture became perceived to indicate
transition towards a more civilized status. In other words they
mistook what they discovered through archaeology to necessarily
reflect events portrayed in the Huangdi and Chiyou mythology by using
the same ideological justification which perpetuated that mythology in
the first place. But in this manner, the archaeology was never verified
to demonstrate whether ancient Chinese civilization existed at all.
Rather, all that had been accomplished was the needless rendition of
mythology as truth.
No grave site of Huangdi nor Chiyou could actually be
identified since identifying them would entail the required
historiography to reveal the locations of neolithic ceremonial burial
sites. Needless to say those do not exist. Despite this, efforts were
not made to halt early Chinese archaeology from vainfully assigning
various grave sites as the final resting grounds of various mythological
characters.
To be continued in Part II: Clearing a New Path
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Liangzhu was typified by hallmarks which glorified 5000 years of China.
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