Proceedings of the First National Joint Conference of Librarians of Color - 74

persons of the same family name. Genealogical roots were also found in the preoccupation era as evidenced in the oracle bones (jiaguwen 甲 骨 文 ) and bronze inscriptions (jinwen 金文) of the Shang and Zhou dynasties. The major discoveries were in the neighborhood of Anyang Xian 安陽縣 in Henan 河 南 Province where between 100,000 and 150,000 tortoise-shell and bone inscriptions from the late Shang dynasty have been discovered i . Other genealogical evidences include about 6,000 or 7,000 bronze vessels and objects with inscriptions were found in Shang (ca. 1,000 pieces), Zhou (ca. 4,000 pieces), and Qin and Han (ca. 1,000 pieces) dynastiesii. Genealogical tradition was flourished following the Zhou conquest of the Shang dynasty around 1122 B.C. with records of emperors, lords, nobles, and officials. For example, Shi ben 世 本 , a genealogical masterwork from the Zhou dynasty, illustrates the family history and origin of the feudal lords and nobles tracing back from the Yellow Emperor to the Spring and Autumn Period (Chun Qiu 春秋, 770-476 B.C.), including their generational orders, relocation history, noble status, and personal and literary names. The book was considered as one of the earliest and most important tools for researching Chinese genealogies. From the Zhou to the succeeding Qin (秦 221-206 B.C.) dynasty, Shi Huang-di 始皇 帝 pursued an aggressive policy directed against the remaining feudal states, he had assumed the full control of his government, with the weakening of the power of the nobles, the genealogical tradition was flourished and spread widely to civilian people as well. Scholars also consider other possibilities such as the legendary emperor Huang-di 黃 帝(2697-2597? B.C.) and the early Chinese matriarchal societies as possible sources of 74 Chinese family names. From an anthropological point of view, the totems of the ancient Chinese people as evidenced in the oracle bones and bronze inscriptions of the Shang and Zhou dynasties mentioned earlier also had a great impact on the Chinese family names. In all, the family names of legendary emperors, the family names of the ancient matriarchal clans, and the totems of the ancient people fostered the evolution of the Chinese family names. Gu Yanwu 顧炎武, a prominent scholar in the Ming (A.D. 1368-1644) dynasty, stated in his Book of Daily Records (Rizhilu 日知 錄): "When people were discussing family names (xing), they based their arguments on the Five Emperors, including Shao Hao 邵 昊 , Chuan Xu 顓 頊 , Di Ku 帝 嚳 , Tang Diyao 唐 帝 堯 and Yu Dishun 虞 帝 舜 . There were twenty-two surnames found in the Spring and Autumn Annals (Chun Qiu 春 秋 ). After the Warring States Period, people identified the shi with the xing, thus the xing, which had existed from the age of the Five Emperors, disappeared." He also said: "Generally speaking, people of the Warring States Period still used a clan (shizu 氏族) designation which people of the Han (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) dynasty period usually called xing although the shizu designation continued the xingshi designations have been mixed as one and the same since the time of the Grande Duke of Tai (Taishi gong 太史公), or Sima Qian 司馬遷." At present, though xing and shi are mixed as one and the same, their function is not even slightly diminished. Today, people who bear the same surname, though not of the same ancestry, still largely identify themselves as having a clan relationship. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF CHINESE NAMES Everyone should have a name. Names are used as tokens to distinguish between two persons. A Chinese name is a personal identification, a representation of a person’s

Proceedings of the First National Joint Conference of Librarians of Color

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