The Man, commonly known as the Nanman or Southern Man (Chinese: 南蠻; Jyutping: Naam4 Maan4; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Lâm-bân, lit. Southern Barbarians), were ancient indigenous peoples who lived in inland South and Southwest China, mainly around the Yangtze River valley. In ancient Chinese sources, the term Nanman was used to collectively describe multiple ethnic groups, probably the predecessors of the modern Miao, Zhuang, and Dai peoples, and non-Chinese Sino-Tibetan groups such as the Jingpo and Yi peoples. It was an umbrella term that included any groups south of the expanding Huaxia civilization, and there was never a single polity that united these people, although the state of Chu ruled over much of the Yangtze region during the Zhou dynasty and was partly influenced by the Man culture.
_q.jpg)
>>>PUT SHARE BUTTONS HERE<<<
In this Dossier
Nanman in the context of Four Barbarians
"Four Barbarians" (Chinese: 四夷; pinyin: sìyí) was a term used by subjects of the Zhou and Han dynasties to refer to the four major people groups living outside the borders of Huaxia. Each was named for a cardinal direction: the Dongyi ("Eastern Barbarians"), Nanman ("Southern Barbarians"), Xirong ("Western Barbarians"), and Beidi ("Northern Barbarians"). Ultimately, the four barbarian groups either emigrated away from the Chinese heartland or were partly assimilated through sinicization into Chinese culture during later dynasties. After this early period, "barbarians" to the north and the west would often be designated as "Hu" (胡).