East Asian History - ANU

62229 On the 932 and 933 expeditions topunish the Tangut for their raids on Uyghuremissaries see Xin Wudai shi, juan 74,p.912, and Dunnel, "The Hsi Hsia," p.165.230 See Ksenia Kepping, "The name of theTangut empire," T'oung Pao 80 (1994): 355-76. On p.370 she explains that in Tangutrhetoric whiteness was associated with thesun, the earth and the east, maternal power,and the Yellow River; paired with andopposed to Loftiness, which is associatedwith the west, the male principle, the Helan111 mountains and heaven. She suggeststhat this is linked with the geography of theTangut royal tombs situated on the rightbank of the Yellow River and the Helanmountains to the west. The state is thusimagined as a unity of male and femaleprinciples. The sacred Tangut mountainwas known in Tangut as "the White andLofty Mother," pp.370-3. This reverence forwhiteness tallies with the privileged positiongiven to whiteness amongst the Qiangicpeoples of whom the Tanguts were anoffshoot.231 Zizhi tongjian, juan 278, p.9078. Thenotes give an explanation of the expression"goshawk gaze." The same phrase is foundin the biography of Li Congrong in XinWudai shi, juan 15, p.163.232 The Latter Tang was destroyed when aninternal rebellion supported by the Khitanoverthrew the dynasty and established theregime of the Latter Jin, largely regarded asa puppet of the Liao. For an account of theKhitan involvement in the overthrow of theLatter Tang, see the Denis Twitchett andKlaus-Peter Tietze, "The Liao," in Twitchettand Franke, Cambridge history oj China,vol.6, pp.70-l.233 Liao shi Jit.rJ:. [History of the Liaol,juan3 (Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju, 1974), p.27.234 Schafer argues that the haidong qingwas a gyrfalcon. See "Falconry in T'angtimes," p.309. However, Dou Gong's poemrefers to a white goshawk from the east ofthe sea. (See Schafer, The golden peaches ojSamarkand, p.94.) In the description of thespring hunts in the Liao shi (juan 40, dili zhi4, p.496), haidong qing is used as anattributive for hu falcon, as it is in mostplaces in the Liaoshi and in other Liaosources. (See Fu Lehuan, "Liaodai sishi nabokao wu pian," pp.42-4.) Song sources suchas the Qidan guo zhi ft;E; [Monographon the Khitan state] by Ye Longli LEWIS MAYOpunitive raids on Tanguts who had been attacking emissaries from the westcrossing the Ordos,229 or that the Tangut white goshawk that so temptedMingzong in 929 was offered in the same year that the Latter Tang forces wereseeking to re-establish control of Tangut-dominated regions. This history ofstruggles to constitute sovereignty which structures the fate of the whitegoshawk and falcon was, like the birds themselves, colour-coded: the Xia state that the Tanguts would later found in the Ordos desert, which wouldeventually conquer both the Ganzhou Uyghurs and the Guiyi jun, was knownas the Great State of The White and The Lofty, succeeding to the long historyof whiteness as a mark of political pre-eminence in these regions.230 Therejection of white hunting birds as an assertion of sovereign powers is linkeda wider series of anxieties in the Latter Tang about the usurping drives ofraptorial subordinates and affiliates: the political ambitions of Mingzong's sonLi Congrong *1Jt, the prince of Qin *, are marked by his "goshawk gaze"(yingshi lI:fJD, glossed as the restless surveillance of a raptor seeking hisquarry and waiting for the moment to seize it231-the predatory qapghantendencies which distinguished the tuyghun-white goshawk in Uyghurrhetoric.But the most spectacular engagement between birds and political forcein this era occurred in the state which would ultimately bring about thedownfall of the Latter Tang,232 the Liao empire of the Khitan. Hunting birdsdistinguished for their whiteness had a central role in the constitution ofKhitan imperium. A white goshawk captured by a hunter along with a whitedeer presaged the future political success of the Liao emperor Taizong, acontemporary and rival of Mingzong of the Latter Tang. 233 The dominationof the Khitan ruling house over other Khitan clans and over the lands andpeoples of the Mongolian steppelands, the southern fringes of Manchuria and/ [liiil (frequently refer to the haidong qing asa goshawk. In the five-language Qing dictionaryof c.1787, haidong qing is given as theChinese for the Manchu word songkoro, forwhich the Mongolian is toyiyon songqor. (SeeSunja hacin-i hergen kamciha Manju gisunibuleku bithe or Wuti Qing wen jian.lifttllfj(. [Annotated translation of theMirror oj the five types oj language oj the Qingl[Beijing: Minzu Chubanshe, 19571, vol.l,p.4132.) The Japanese commentary on theentry states that songkoro is an alternativename for sanyan songkon, bai haiqingS#!JW in Chinese and cayan songqor inMongolian: the Japanese commentary alsostates that this bird is bigger than the songkon(haiqing #!JW, Mongolian songqor) and thatthe feathers on its back are white. See TamuraJitsuzo, Imanishi Shunju, and Sato Hisashi,Gotai Shinbunkan yakkai [Annotatedtranslation of the Mirror oj the five types oj lan-/guagel (Kyoto: Kyoto Daigaku Nairiku AjiaKenkylljo, 1966), voU, p.883. The bird inquestion is a gyrfalcon. Cayan songqor (oreayan Singqor in Middle Mongolian) is thewhite gyrfalcon in the Secret History oj theMongols which appears carrying the sun andmoon in its claws in the dream of ChingghisKhan's father-in-law discussed below. (I amgrateful for Igor de Rachewiltz's advice onthis, and on Mongolian spelling.) Haidongqing in Chinese, toyiyon songqor in Mongolianand songkoro in Manchu are thus names for akind of white gyrfalcon. As pointed out infootnote 92 above, Svetlana Jacquessonsuggests that the word tuyghun is not linkedto a particular category of birds, eithergoshawks or or gyrfalcons, but denotes raptorsdistinguished by whiteness. Thus in theManchurian and Mongolian homelands of theTuyuhun and the hunting grounds of theKhitan, tuyghun was a white gyrfalcon (hai-