The Descendants of Jurchen Warriors? The Nien Clan of Taiwan

The "Nien Clan Village" is a coastal fishing town. There are less than 6000 people in the whole place. Of the nearly 800 households, 85% have the surname Nien.

The older generation from around Lukang all know the Nien Clan Village well. "The town is divided into two communities by a railroad line. That part to the north is known as ‘Upper Nien,’ while that to the south is Lower Nien.' And in between," adds our taxi driver, making a play on the word "nien" (which also means to stick together' in Chinese), "there is ‘No Nien’ [nothing holding the two sides together]." The passenger laughs out loud at the pun, grasping that of course there is no such place as "No Nien," and she laughingly replies, "You're pulling my leg!"

"The people there are very strange. They are descended from Chao Kuang-yin [the founder of the Sung dynasty]. The people in that village all have red facial hair, and if you don't believe me you can see for yourself. Yet they are just like us: they raise oysters for food, plant rice, and chew betel nut," says the driver, continuing his introductory spiel. The passenger only half trusts what he says, because as far as she knows the ancestors of the Nien are the Jurchen people of the Northern Sung dynasty, and had no relationship with Chao Kuang-yin (except for being around at the same time). Now as for the red whiskers....

The surname Nien is a rare one in Taiwan. "All of the Niens in Taiwan come from this village, without question," proclaims Nien Huo-ying, the director of the Nien Clan Association. As for where the village residents came from, the Nien genealogy has this to say:

About the year 1000 by the Western calendar, Wugunai, the leader of the Jurchen tribe, had two sons. The elder was named Ho, the younger named Minmin, also called Ahguda. The latter eradicated the Liao (a Tartar dynasty in Manchuria) and established the Chin dynasty, taking the name Chin Tai-tzu (which means "founder of the Chin dynasty").

Ahguda's older brother Ho then had a son, named Sagaigong, whom Ahguda appointed premier. The family genealogy says that he was "wise and generous, and lived simply" and that he "labored hard and made great achievements as prime minister." Also, he was posthumously honored as "the King of Yen" along with other titles. He was clearly an important figure in the Chin court.

Sagaigong had three sons, the eldest named Nienmoho, (in Chinese he was known as Nienhan), who helped the throne to attack the Liao dynasty. The genealogy describes him as "straightforward and fearless" and adds: "The Emperor was very pleased with him. The Emperor personally poured the imperial wine and drank with him, and also gave him imperial clothes to wear. The histories say of Nienmoho that in domestic affairs he planned for the good of the nation, and abroad he was capable of crushing enemies, having a reputation as one of the great generals of antiquity." The clan surname "Nien" is a simplification of the name of this figure, and the Nien clan worship him as their founding forebear.

From the records it appears that the Nien progenitor to whom today's folk trace their ancestry was from the same family as Ahguda. Therefore, his descendants should actually have the surname "Wanyen" to be truly unadulterated offspring of the Jurchen.

The line from Nienmoho to the present has, according to the genealogy, continued unbroken for over 800 years. The first seven generations were all officials in the Chin court. In the eighth generation, Powen Cha'er became an official in the Yuan dynasty. Because of the chaotic situation in those times, he and his family drifted southward, eventually going by boat to Chinchiang in Fujian Province. The genealogy then says that the family continued to flourish, adding sons and grandsons through the twelfth generation. A certain member of that generation then begat three sons, one of whom brought his branch of the family to Taiwan.

Yang Hsu-hsien, the former director of the Historical Research Commission of Taiwan Province, once published the Nien clan genealogy in Taiwan Historical Documents, bringing the Niens face-to-face with the world. He says that behind the current knowledge the Niens have of their clan history lies the story of a difficult quest.

There have always been people surnamed Nien in Changhua County, though nobody knows when they first arrived. Most of these people lived on the coast, in Fuhsing Rural Township, coalescing into the Nien Clan Village. They have long recognized that their family name is not run of the mill, but, regrettably, they had no family history by which they could trace its origins. In 1923, a certain Nien Chuan from Sanhsing Street in Lukang traveled to mainland China with a temple procession for the goddess Matsu. While there, he visited Chinchiang, which rumor had it was the family's place of origin, in search of a family genealogy. Alas, the search turned up nothing.

Just as Nien Chuan was about to embark on the boat to return to Taiwan, a Fujianese relative named Nien Chuan-jen declared that he would spare no effort to scour the mainland for a family genealogy, which he would make a copy of. Besides being delighted, Nien Chuan agreed to pay 300 dollars. In the end, after ten years, the "Hsunchiang Nien Clan Genealogy" written up by Nien Chuan-jen was finally delivered to Taiwan. By then, Nien Chuan had already passed away, and his son Nien Jui-hsi took charge of the document.

In the 1970s, when Yang Hsu-hsien, then still at the Historical Research Commission, got wind of this story, he became extraordinarily curious about the contents of this family history. He visited the Nien clan in Lukang many times, but all of his requests to borrow the genealogy were refused. "That is because the family members thought of the genealogy as being the fulfillment of a great desire of their grandfather's, and that it was therefore like a family heirloom, not to be lightly taken out for outsiders to inspect," explains Yang. He used all his powers of persuasion to gain the family's trust before he was finally allowed to see the document.

Yang was astounded when he got a look at the genealogy, because it traced the Nien family back to its origins and related changes in the family line, case histories, and clan rules. It touched on historical events from the Chin, Yuan, and Sung dynasties, events which could be checked against orthodox histories and for which the genealogy could supplement existing records. Further, one could use the record to study the experience of a non-Han family as it took a surname in the Han manner after penetrating the central plains of China, and how the family name changed from a polysyllabic to a monosyllabic surname. "It includes evidence touching on a wide variety of incidents in the history of the Chinese people," he concludes.

The above story is the Fuhsing Rural Township's Nien clan's version of "Roots." "As of the present, the Nien clan has sustained itself for 31 generations, and there are 6,000 clan members who have spread outward from the coast at Fuhsing to places all across Taiwan. Most of them are farmers, fishermen, laborers, or shop owners," says Nien Huo-ying.

Perhaps because the origins of the Nien clan are so special, they remain a very close-knit family "The whole community works together, contributing money or labor," says Nien Wan-chun, Taoist Master of the Pao Shun Temple. Even today it is said in Lukang that "it's best not to antagonize anybody from the Nien Clan Village." And when elections come, the candidate favored by the clan hierarchy has a "lock" on 90% of the clan votes.

In explaining the cohesiveness of the Nien clan, the attraction of the clan shrine cannot be overlooked. The shrine was built in 1974 in Lower Nien Village. There are two shrine festivals per year, which draw Niens from across the island. The spring festival, held on the fourth day after the Lunar New Year, is especially boisterous, because people from the village who have been working outside come back for the holiday. The fall gathering is held on the sixth day of the tenth month in the lunar calendar, attracting those from nearby Changhua and Taichung counties.

The clan shrine festivals, held continuously for the past two decades, are of a scale rarely seen for such bashes in Taiwan. In recent years, in fact, because the Nien clan is descended from the Jurchen tribe of Manchuria, some non-Niens from the Taipei Manchu Heritage Association have also joined in. Indeed, this year there were even Manchus from mainland China and overseas in attendance.

Yet despite the fact that those in attendance have a certain non-Han Chinese aspect, it is impossible to notice any significant differences between their shrine worship ceremony and that of Han Chinese. They seem identical in everything from the deployment of the props, the attire of the ceremonial officials, the playing of drums, the lighting of incense, and the offering of gifts like flowers, fruit, and cash right through to the ritual "three kneelings and nine kowtowings."

Nien Huo-ying protests, and relates that the long yellow robe worn by the master of ceremonies represents the Chin ("Gold") dynasty and that the black ceremonial jacket represents the Heilongjiang ("Black Dragon River") of Manchuria, both recalling the homeland of the Jurchen. He adds that the maolian alcohol also has a symbolic meaning, as it refers back to the beverage delivered to the Chin royal court by the Kingdom of Mao. Though he may have a point about the alcohol, in fact, the ceremonial officials at other clan shrine festivals in Taiwan also wear the yellow robe and black jacket.

Perhaps it is because the Jurchen people are too far removed in time, or perhaps it is because minority peoples were rapidly sinicized after penetrating into central China, but, whatever the reason, it's hard to know what traditional Jurchen ceremonies were really like. At this year's shrine festival, clan association head Nien Huo-ying asked people from the Manchu Heritage Association to perform some Manchu rites. But the Manchus in attendance were rather embarrassed, as they didn't know any of the rituals, and they just ended up bowing three times.

It may sound odd, but here it is: Although the Nien genealogy clearly states that they are descended from the Jurchen, as far as the people of the Nien Clan Village are concerned, being identified as the heirs of Ahguda seems only to have occasional symbolic meaning, with little substantive impact.

Nien Huo-ying is a case in point. On the one hand, in discussing the historical struggle between the Jurchen Chin dynasty and the Han Chinese Sung dynasty, Nien says that if it weren't for the peace party in the Sung court (under Chin Kuei) recalling the border defenders (under General Yueh Fei), then "we could never have become the lords of the north." This comment is made from the Chin dynasty point of view of history, so Nien seems to be a true descendant of the Jurchen people.

But on another occasion, when relating an anecdote about the 19th generation of Niens included in the genealogy, he mentions the legend that the brilliant Kang Hsi emperor of the Ching dynasty (a dynasty established by Manchus) was actually born of Han Chinese parents, and vowed to "eradicate the Manchus" after discovering this. Whatever the truth of this story (and it should be noted that Kang Hsi continued to rule over China as a Manchu emperor, and the story may have been made up by Han Chinese jealous of Kang Hsi's success), it's interesting that in telling it Nien Huo-ying showed not the least bit of resentment. At that moment he seemed very much a Chinese.

When you get to the collective historical memory of the people of the Nien Clan Village, it seems to only go back as far as the 22nd generation, when brothers Nien Ao and Nien En came to Taiwan. The genealogy relates that the brothers, carrying the memorial tablets of their grandparents and parents, came to Taiwan to pioneer new land in the Ching dynasty, during the reign of the Chien Lung emperor (1736-1796). The statue of the main deity worshipped in the Pao Shun Temple, Lower Nien Village's primary temple, is the representation of a protective deity brought over to Taiwan by the brothers.

Nien clan legend has it that in the early days the family first went to the foot of the mountains in Changhua, but "when they saw that the soil was of the same yellowy, sticky nature as the unproductive soil of their home in the mainland, they turned around and headed back to the coast. Seeing the clear sand, they thought that, being different from what they had seen before, it must be easier to cultivate and grow crops there, so they settled in," says 56-year-old Huang Chun-chin. She has heard this legend many times since marrying into the Nien family. But, comparing their village to the bustle of tourists over at Pakua Mountain, now a popular scenic spot, she jokes that it seems the family forebears were a little mistaken in their judgment.

When you mention to people in the Nien Clan Village that they may be non-Han Chinese, mostly their responses are limited to "that's what the genealogy says, anyway" or "I'll take you to see the head of the clan association, he knows about that kind of stuff." Only a couple of people, those who participate in local public affairs, seem to have much of an interest. Nien Wan-chun, the Master of the Pao Shun Temple, for example, complains: "The Niens are from a minority group, and people do not understand us. Many people can't even read the character for our surname properly, and the TV portrays Manchus as evil types."

Some urban-dwelling Niens have a deeper understanding of their Jurchen ancestry. Nien Tsung-ming, an attorney who serves as director of the Manchu Heritage Association, in fact considers himself not a "Manchu," but rather a "Jurchen." "The Jurchen of the Northern Sung dynasty period [960-1127] are known to history as the ‘early Chin’ court, while the Jurchen at the time of the Manchu-led Ching dynasty [1644-1911 ] are known to history as the ‘later Chin,’ and the two groups [i.e. the Jurchen and the Manchus] were different. But people today don't understand any of this, and just lump all of us together. In fact, that's just the way I got into the Manchurian Heritage Association." He describes himself as "straightforward and easily provoked," still having the character of his minority people forebears.

Lin En-hsien, a professor in the Department of Sociology at National Chengchih University, says that the problem of ethnic identity is a complex one. How does one determine whether or not one is part of this or that ethnic group? Besides direct bloodlines, other important indicators include language, culinary culture, life styles, and other aspects of culture. Beyond these, belonging to an ethnic group or not becomes very subjective. He argues that the Niens of Taiwan are unlikely to find any cultural links to their ancestors, but that many people still have a spiritual attachment. The case of Nien Tsung-ming, who joined the Manchu Heritage Association and went to Manchuria to seek out his roots, shows at least the hint that there are "Taiwan Manchus" about.

But, it seems, only a small minority of people show the same enthusiasm for finding their roots as Nien Tsung-ming. Since visits to the mainland have been permitted, the Nien Clan Shrine has sponsored nine trips to find relatives, but these journeys have only gone as far as Fujian Province. Why don't they trace the family tree all the way back to Manchuria? Nien Huo-ying's explanation is: "Because they've got no connection to us." He says that sometimes the question arises whether he is Han Chinese or Jurchen, and he always replies "Han."

This is all getting a bit confusing. Are Taiwan's Niens truly descendants of the Jurchen? Scholarly opinion is divided.

Li Hsueh-chih, now retired, spent decades researching Jurchen history at the Institute of History and Philology at the Academia Sinica. He says that there is something not quite right about the idea of tracing Jurchen descendants, because his research suggests that the Jurchen had no family names at all up through the Yung Cheng reign (1723-1736) of the Ching dynasty; instead, they ordinarily used place of residence to serve as a surname. "Thus someone living in Harbin would be So-and-so Harbin," he says by way of illustration.

The Ching emperor Chien Lung (1736-1796) decided that the surname-less Jurchen consequently fell into rampant incestuous marriages. Only after a long period did fixed clan names evolve. The names of the eight Manchurian tribes were first recorded and explained in the Complete Record of the Family Names of the Eight Banners, so it was only from this time forward that the Jurchen had a relatively well-ordered system of family names.

What is especially controversial is that though the Complete Record does indeed include the surname Nien, it is not said to originate among the "people of Chin" (i.e. the Jurchen people, whose dynastic house, it will be recalled, went by the name of Chin). Moreover, adds Li Hsueh-chih, "Go through The History of the Chin Dynasty, the dictionaries of the Liao, Chin, and Yuan languages prepared under the emperor Chien Lung, A Record of the Origins of Manchuria, or the Complete Record of Family Names of the Eight Banners. Nowhere does anyone mention people of Chin with the surname 'Nien.' Nor does anyone mention that the children of this so-called 'Nienmoho' adopted his name as a surname, contrary to what it says in the Nien genealogy."

Strictly speaking, the Nien family history seems a little confused on some critical points. It says that Powen Cha'er of the eighth generation fled to Fujian to escape chaos. But what chaos was he supposedly running from? What route did he follow? How did he reestablish the family and what business did he go into? You can't really get the answers to any of these questions from the single source of the family genealogy. Li Hsueh-chih thus concludes that it is very doubtful that the Fuhsing Rural Township Niens of Taiwan are descendant from the Jurchen. "It's just like assuming that everyone surnamed Li can trace their ancestry back to Li Shih-min, the founder of the Tang dynasty, or that everyone name Kung [the family name of Confucius] can trace their line back to the Sage. Of course people want to have ancestors with a better history, but just having the same surname doesn't mean there is any connection. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn't. You have to do detailed research to know for sure," explains Li.

Chen Chieh-hsien, the director of the National Studies Document Center at the United Daily News, holds the same point of view. With a background in the history of the Liao, Chin, and Yuan dynasties, he indicates that, because there is only this one existing family history, which leaves many key questions unanswered, it is impossible to determine whether Taiwan's Niens are or are not Jurchen descendants. Perhaps it would be possible to make a judgment if there were more relevant historical materials and more in-depth research.

Back in the Nien Clan Village, on the other hand, no one seems to get very exercised over the connection, or lack thereof, to the Jurchen. They still hold the clan shrine festivals in Lower Nien Village, as always.

The clan shrine also serves as an important space and gathering place for village residents. There is rice drying in the sun out in the shrine yard. The neighborhood nursery school is located in an adjacent room. Other rooms serve as meeting halls or as places where clan members from afar can stay overnight.

And at the clan gathering, young and old congregate to swap stories: "The harvest was really poor this year." "There have been so many typhoons this year; my oyster ponds were all damaged!" "Is this your new daughter-in-law? How beautiful!" One clan member from the mainland who came via Hong Kong asks about work opportunities and wages. Then there are candidates for county assembly who come by to drum up support and talk about subsidies for senior citizens.... It seems that the traditional clan functions of keeping in touch, discussion of the latest issues, and mutual assistance have been very well maintained.

It seems that for people of the Nien clan, regardless of whether they are Jurchen or not, the clan shrine at the very least gives them the sense that they will always have a place to go!

[Picture Caption]

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The ceremonial officials are in position; the ritual can begin. The clan members flock over to observe, light incense, and worship. Whether they are descended from the Jurchen or not, the ceremony retains the significance o f praying for good fortune and passing along tradition.

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Traditionally an esteemed elder takes the role of master of ceremonies, but now accomplished young people are often asked instead. The ceremonial official this year is an elected official who hails from the village.

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Some people of Manchurian descent took part this year; their writing in Manchu distinguished them even more deeply from Han Chinese.

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The book A Record of the Origins of Manchuria, commissioned by the Chien Lung emperor, clearly records the origins of the Jurchen people, a Manchurian tribe.

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The book An Explanation of Terms in the History of the Chin, also commissioned by the Chien Lung emperor, lists many Manchu surnames, but no "Nien." The closest match is "Niugulu."

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Before the festival begins, the shrine is silent.

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After the worship ceremony is over, the shrine lays out a feast. The excess table represents a "surplus," expressing the wish that the clan will grow and prosper with each passing year.

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The names given to the private homes in the Nien Clan Village still carry the flavor of the ancestral place of origin.

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Oysters collected from seaside oyster fields are brought to the temple in the special "oyster cart." Oyster raising is an important source of income in the Nien Clan Village.

Traditionally an esteemed elder takes the role of master of ceremonies, but now accomplished young people are often asked instead. The ceremonial official this year is an elected official who hails from the village.

Some people of Manchurian descent took part this year; their writing in Manchu distinguished them even more deeply from Han Chinese.

The book A Record of the Origins of Manchuria, commissioned by the Chien Lung emperor, clearly records the origins of the Jurchen people, a Manchurian tribe.

The book An Explanation of Terms in the History of the Chin, also commissioned by the Chien Lung emperor, lists many Manchu surnames, but no "Nien." The closest match is "Niugulu.".

Before the festival begins, the shrine is silent.

After the worship ceremony is over, the shrine lays out a feast. The excess table represents a "surplus," expressing the wish that the clan will grow and prosper with each passing year.

The names given to the private homes in the Nien Clan Village still carry the flavor of the ancestral place of origin.

Oysters collected from seaside oyster fields are brought to the temple in the special "oyster cart." Oyster raising is an important source of income in the Nien Clan Village.