Ethnology.—­The Chinese at Ch’eng-tu fu, according to Richthofen, classify the aborigines of the Sze-ch’wan frontier as Man-tzu, Lolo, Si-fan, and Tibetan.  Of these the Si-fan are furthest north, and extend far into Tibet.  The Man-tzu (properly so called) are regarded as the remnant of the ancient occupants of Sze-ch’wan, and now dwell in the mountains about the parallel 30 deg., and along the Lhasa road, Ta-t’sien lu being about the centre of their tract.  The Lolo are the wildest and most independent, occupying the mountains on the left of the Kin-sha Kiang where it runs northwards (see above p. 48, and below p. 69) and also to some extent on its right.  The Tibetan tribes lie to the west of the Man-tzu, and to the west of Kien-ch’ang. (See next chapter.)

Towards the Lan-ts’ang Kiang is the quasi-Tibetan tribe called by the Chinese Mossos, by the Tibetans Guions, and between the Lan-ts’ang and the Lu-Kiang or Salwen are the Lissus, wild hill-robbers and great musk hunters, like those described by Polo at p. 45.  Garnier, who gives these latter particulars, mentions that near the confluence of the Yalung and Kin-sha Kiang there are tribes called Pa-i, as there are in the south of Yun-nan, and, like the latter, of distinctly Shan or Laotian character.  He also speaks of Si-fan tribes in the vicinity of Li-kiang fu, and coming south of the Kin-sha Kiang even to the east of Ta-li.  Of these are told such loose tales as Polo tells of Tebet and Caindu.

[In the Topography of the Yun-nan Province (edition of 1836) there is a catalogue of 141 classes of aborigines, each with a separate name and illustration, without any attempt to arrive at a broader classification.  Mr. Bourne has been led to the conviction that exclusive of the Tibetans (including Si-fan and Ku-tsung), there are but three great non-Chinese races in Southern China:  the Lolo, the Shan, and the Miao-tzu. (Report, China, No. 1, 1888, p. 87.) This classification is adopted by Dr. Deblenne. (Mission Lyonnaise.)

Man-tzu, Man, is a general name for “barbarian” (see my note in Odoric de Pordenone, p. 248 seqq.); it is applied as well to the Lolo as to the Si-fan.

Mr. Parker remarks (China Review, XX. p. 345) that the epithet of Man-tzu, or “barbarians,” dates from the time when the Shans, Annamese, Miao-tzu, etc., occupied nearly all South China, for it is essentially to the Indo-Chinese that the term Man-tzu belongs.

Mr. Hosie writes (Three years in W. China, 122):  “At the time when Marco Polo passed through Caindu, this country was in the possession of the Si-fans....  At the present day, they occupy the country to the west, and are known under the generic name of Man-tzu.”

“It has already been remarked that Si-fan, convertible with Man-tzu, is a loose Chinese expression of no ethnological value, meaning nothing more than Western barbarians; but in a more restricted sense it is used to designate a people (or peoples) which inhabits the valley of the Yalung and the upper T’ung, with contiguous valleys and ranges, from about the twenty-seventh parallel to the borders of Koko-nor.  This people is sub-divided into eighteen tribes.” (Baber, p. 81.)