Viewing page 5 of 45

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

character and date we can as yet say little, in the absence of scientific excavations.

[[underlined]] The State of Shu [[/underlined]]
The earliest Yangtze River state of which we have definite historical knowledge was Shu 蜀.  This occupied the fertile and well-watered subtropical "Red Basin" region of (the modern) Szechuan, on the upper Yangtze, and extended thence for an unknown distance northeast, toward the mountainous southwestern borderland of the (later) province of the Shensi.
Shu seems at its first appearance in history to have somehow acquired a Bronze Age civilization of the sort mentioned above; [[strikethrough]] ([[underlined]] cf. [[/underlined]] pp. 1 [[underlined]] sqq [[/underlined]]); [[/strikethrough]] and its economic basis was from the first, beyond much doubt, the growing of rice as its staple food-crop.  Linguistically its inhabitants may have belonged to the great T'ai-speaking family; [[superscript]] (4) [[/superscript]] for they are regu-
--------------------------
[[superscript]] (4) [[/superscript]] See [[underlined]] infra [[/underlined]], notes 24 (page 9) and 32 (page 11).  The most prominent modern representatives of the T'ai-speaking group of peoples are the Siamese, who are known to have migrated only a few centuries ago to their present territory (to which they have arrogated the name "T'ai-land", or "Land of the T'ai").
This name is sometimes, though less happily (for the first two consonants are pronounced separately, like the "th" in "hothouse", or like the initial "T'" in the Chinese dynastic name "T'ang"), spelled "Thailand".  It is strictly speaking, moreover, a misnomer; for it is by no means the equivalent of "Siam".  Actually the T'ai-speaking peoples occupy a far wider area of southern Asia, [[strikethrough]] clear [[/strikethrough]] from the Bhramaputra on the one hand to the Gulf on Tongking on the other.
The original center of dispersion [[strikethrough]] the [[underlined]] berceau [[/underlined]] [[/strikethrough]] of the T'ai-speaking peoples seems to have been south-central China---roughly the ancient kingdom of Ch'u (regarding the latter, see [[underlined]] infra, [[/underlined]] pp.7 [[underlined]] sqq. [[/underlined]])
---------------------
larly called Man, [[superscript]] (5) [[/superscript]] not Ch'iang 羌 (also written  羗) or Jung 戍.  There
------------------
[[superscript]] (5) [[superscript]] On the Man
aborigines, [[underlined]] cf. [[/underlined]] note 204 (page 222 of the text).
-----------------
is some reason for suspecting, however, that its ruling class may have been of the Tibeto-Burman linguistic stock. [[superscript]] (6) [[/superscript]]  Its kings (who are specifically called [[underlined]] wangs [[/underlined]]) [[superscript]] (7) [[/superscript]] are, however, said to have claimed descent from the

Transcription Notes:
page number is cut off