Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/846

 INDO-CHINA

766

INDOCHINA

inhabitants were savage tribes of Malay origin, prob- ably from the islands of the Pacific, and that they are represented to-day by the numerous wild tribes scat- tered over the great eastern range of mountains from Yun-nan to Cochin China. Thej^ are variously named in the different localities: Mois in Annam, Pnongs in Cambodia, Khas in Laos, etc. They probably occu- pied at first the greater portion of the peninsula, but were driven by the invading races into the mountains, where they lead to-day a wretched, if practically inde- pendent existence. They are in general small (aljout five feet), dolichocephalic, of a swarthy complexion, and wavy hair. The difference of tyjie found among them is due mainly to intermarriage with members of the invading races who fled to the mountains to evade war, justice, or creditors. They represent every de- gree of civilization from the almost absolute savagery of the Khas and Souis on the banks of the Se-bang- hieng on the werstern slopes of the Annamite Range to the half-civilization of the Muongs in the north-east of Tong-king and of the Thos of the River Lang-son. The Muongs are possilily more nearly related to the Laotines (see below) : their writing is phonographic, as distinct from the idcalogical characters of the Cliinese and Annamites, while their language bears more than the usual resemblance to Laotine. As one proceeds southwards the mountain tribes become less and less civilized — a phenomenon traceable to the increasing dread of the people of seeing their women and children carried off by bands of kidnappers from the plains to be sold as "slaves in the markets of Laos, Siam, and Cambodia. This form of slave-hunting is practised mainly by the Laotines. The various tribes of the Annamite Range name themselves Phou-tays, Souis, Bahnars, Stiengs, Mois, Kouys, Pnongs, etc.: almost all are of Malay origin, and their language always re- sembles Laotine.

At a very remote period two great floods of immi- gration poured into Indo-China. The first of these currents consisted of the tribes of Arj-an race coming from Northern India via Burmah and Siam — a tradi- tion of the royal house of Cambodia makes the neigh- l)ourhood of Benares the cradle of the Khmer people. Driving the primitive inhabitants to the mount.ains the Arj'ans possessed themselves of the districts known to-day as Laos, Siam, Cambodia, Cochin China, and Central and Southern Annam. That all these ter- ritories were once included in the mighty Khmer Em- pire seems established liy the numerous existing monuments and inscriptions, by the striking similarity between the constitutions of Cambodia and Siam, and by the many resemblances between the character- istics, legends, and languages of the Khmers and Ciampas. It seems impossiljle to fix definitively the date or sequence of the Aryan and Mongol invasions of Indo-Chma. We are, however, justified in suppos- ing that the Khmers anticipated the peoples of yellow race, unless indeed the organization of their realms was much more rapid.

The second early current of immigration was that of the Mongols from the plateaux of Southern China. Establishing themselves first in Tong-king, they later proceeded southwards, occupied North .Vnnam, and founded the .'\rmamite Empire. If credence is to be attached to local legends, these invaders — whom we may henceforth call the .Xnnamites — intermingled freely with the primitive inhabitants and gradually absorbed them. A reference to the Annamites as the Giao-chi (i. e. the "big-toed" — the wide separation of the big toe from the others is still a distinctive char- acteristic of the .\nnamite), found in the Chinese Annals in 23.57 B. c, affords us a faint clue to the great antiquity of the .\nnamite race, which some ethnolo- gists believe not descended from, but coeval with the Chinese. According to .\nnaniite legends, however, their first rulers were descended from the royal house of China, and the Chinese dynasty ruled Annam as

vassals to the Celestial Empire until 257 B. c. From 2.57-110 B. c. the Annamite Empire was governed by two native dynasties, both feudatory to China, but in the latter year China occupied Annam, and from 110 B. c. to A. D. 939 Annam was administered by Chinese governors, except during the domination of a few short-lived native dynasties.

It is also to the Ctunese Annals that we are indebted for our earliest documentary information concerning the Khmer Empire. From these we learn that early in our era China reduced the Khmers to a state of vassalage, though the entire absence from Chinese records of all mention of Angkor imtil 129G seems to suggest that the suzerainty of China may perhaps have been of a shadowy kind. As their subjugation by China must be taken as the first indication of Khmer decadence, our documentary information con- cerning the Khmer Empire, meagre as it is, relates only to the period of its decline. \Vhat the history of Khmer civilization may have been is still a mystery, but its glorious remains are ample evidence of the mightiness of Khmer power in its day of greatness. Only a nation, to whom fear of invasion was unknown, could conceivably have undertaken public works of such magnitude; a prolonged era of peace was indis- pensable for the completion of such monuments, and for the evolution of that high standard of civiliza- tion, whose existing remains indicate a culture unsur- passed in the Far East. The striking resemblance of the carving and of the features of the statues to the productions of Hindu art demonstrate clearly that the artistic greatness of the nation was contemporaneous with .\ryan predominance, and the decline of the Khmers is probably to be attriliuted to the weakening of the Aryan element in the population occasioned by intermarriage with the surrounding yellow races and Malays. A second indication of Khmer decline was the establishment of the Kingdom of the Ciampas in Central and Southern Annam about the fifth century. That the Khmers and Ciampas belonged to the same race is now undisputed, although some hold that the latter belonged to a later Indian immigration than that of the Khmers.

Concerning the first nine centuries of our era we have little historical information al)OUt Indo-China. .\l)out the beginning of the tenth century the Anna- mite chiefs revolted, cast off the Chinese yoke, and set up a native dynasty, although China continued to ex- erci.se a nominal suzerainty over .Xnnani until the intervention of France in the nineteenth century. At this period .'Vnnamite influence extendeil only over Tong-king and Northern Annam, Init henceforth, un- embarrassed by China, Annam directed all its forces against the Ciampas. The vigorous opposition offered to the .\nnamite advance may be judged from the fact that, notwithstanding the almost inces.sant warfare, Hue was still the capital of the Ciampese Kingdom as late as the fifteenth century. Forced subsequently into the southern provinces, the Ciampas chose Clia- ban as their head-cjuarters, Init, towards the close of the fifteenth century, Chaban also was seized by the Annamites, and by the end of the seventeenth century the Kingdom of the Ciampas had disappeared. The ruin of the Khmer Empire occtirred about the same period. In 1658 the King of Camlxxlia w.-is defeated by the united .\nnamites and Ciampas on the northern frontiers of Cochin China, and compelled to acknowl- edge himself .-^nnam's va.s.sal. Civil war having broken out in his territories, Annam interfered in 175 to re- establish peace, and, on the pacification of the coim- try, set uj) one king at Odong and another at Saigon. In 1689 .\imam took advantage of a new revolution in Camboilia to establish in the country a royal commis- sary, who colonized various districts with malefactors from .\nnam. The Empire of .\nnam now included all the territories which constitute the m<Hlern countries of Tong-king, Annam, and Cochin China, and was fur-