A Manufactured History: The Oral Tales of the Kaifeng Jews

The three Kaifeng stone inscriptions erected during the Ming and Qing dynasties give different times for the Kaifeng Ancestors’ settlement in China. The 1489 stone cites the Song Dynasty (10th-13th c. CE), the 1512 stone cites the Han Dynasty (2nd c. BCE-2nd c. CE), and the 1663 (side A) stone cites the Zhou Dynasty (11th-3rd c. BCE). Well, it turns out that there are two oral traditions separate from the stones that give reasons for when and why they came to China. The first comes from the 17th century and the second comes from the 20th century. Both contain anachronistic and fictional material that renders them useless as sources for serious scholarly research on the subject. Nevertheless, they serve as interesting examples of how a group of disenfranchised people will try to “reconstruct” a forgotten history for themselves. As the old Sioux Indian saying goes: “A people without history is like wind on the buffalo grass.” [1]

The famous Jesuit Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) first learned about the ancient Jewish community of Kaifeng when a Jew named Ai Tian (艾田) contacted him in 1605. Matteo recorded in his diary that Ai had told him “they [the community] had preserved the tradition that many Moors, Christians and Jews had come with the King Tamerlane, when he conquered Persia and also China 800 years ago.” [2] Eight hundred years prior would have put the Jews’ arrival during the middle of the Tang Dynasty (618-907). The only problem is King Tamerlane, a.k.a. Timur (1336-1405), the conqueror of Central Asia and ancestor of the Moghul rulers of India, [3] lived during the early Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and died just 200 years prior to Ai and Ricci’s meeting.

Additionally, he never conquered China at all. Tamerlane originally became upset when Ming Emperor Hongwu (洪武, 1328-1398) sent him a letter describing him as a vassal in 1397. He didn’t start amassing forces for an offensive against China until 1404, during the rule of the Yongle Emperor (永樂], 1360-1424). Fortunately, Tamerlane died of an illness in 1405 in the Central Asian town of Otrar before ever reaching China. [4] He originally intended on converting all of China to Islam, [5] so the legend of him conquering the land may have been spawned by wishful thinking Muslims living in the Middle Kingdom.

Something about this legend must have appealed to later Jews for two of the three main inscriptions were erected over 100 years after the death of Tamerlane, but yet Ai Tian chose to relay this legend to Ricci as opposed to what was written in stone and prominently displayed outside of his community’s synagogue.

A modern forensic reconstruction of what Tamerlane looked like.

The second legend was recorded by Wang Yisha, Emeritus Curator of the Kaifeng Museum, in his book Spring and Autumn of the Chinese Jews (1993). [6] It is quite developed with plenty of dialogue between numerous characters, giving the impression that it was either told and built upon for generations, or someone with some literary skills just created it from scratch. The story tells of how the Jews flee the Mediterranean city of Bodrum, Turkey to escape the wrath of the Crusaders during the late 11th century. They choose to travel to China because the community’s merchants had heard of the Chinese hospitality toward foreigners. Five hundred families of Jews then pack up their belongings and travel by foot, donkey, and camel across the Silk Road.

While in the Gobi Desert of northern China, a doctor among them named Ibn Daud uses his skills to cure an ailing Chinese widower named Zhang, who was traveling back to Henan province from the Uighur territories with his son. He agrees to show them the way, but both Zhang and Ibn Daud drown during a tumultuous river crossing, leaving their respective children orphans. The community adopts the Chinese teenager, and it is mentioned in passing that the Emperor of China later marries young Zhang to Ibn Daud’s daughter.

The large caravan eventually makes it to Shanxi province and finds the beautiful scenery and welcoming environment suitable to their tastes. However, after a debate between elders underneath a locust tree, it is decided that they should continue on to Kaifeng because only the prosperous capital would be able to support such a large group. The religious leader Levi volunteers, along with six others, to go in advance of the community with a tribute of colored cotton, cotton seeds, and other types of textiles for the Chinese emperor.

Upon reaching Kaifeng, the envoy is surprised when the emperor holds a huge banquet in their honor. Since he can’t understand their foreign names, the emperor bestows upon the seven Jews the seven Chinese surnames of Zhao (趙), Li (李), Ai (艾), Zhang (張), Gao (高), Jin (金), and Shi (石). [7] He also issues a decree allowing them to settle in Kaifeng and to continue practicing the traditions of their forefathers. The group travels back to Shanxi to pass on the good news. The entire caravan continues onto the capital where they begin their new lives. [8]

A scale model of the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.

Although this is a wonderful story, it is just an embellishment on two of the inscriptions, with copious fiction thrown in. There is absolutely no evidence that the Jews had ever lived in Bodrum, Turkey, or fled from the Crusaders. In fact, Bodrum, which is located on the southwestern coast line of Turkey, was not even close to the route that the armies of the First Crusade took through Asia Minor. [9] I’m puzzled as to why the modern descendents of the Kaifeng Jews would pick the city as their point of origin. It’s such a specific location.

My only guess is that they may have read something mentioning Bodrum as housing the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus (c. 350 BCE), which was considered one of the “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.” [10] Crusader Hospitallers (Knights of St. John) are known to have destroyed the mausoleum in 1494 to beef up the defenses of their nearly century old castle in Bodrum. Perhaps this is why they included Bodrum and the Crusades in the legend. As for the names (many of which I did not mention), the river crossing, the time in Shanxi, the envoy of seven people, and the bestowing of the seven Chinese surnames, none of these happened either. The latter part of the story is based on an embellishment of the 1489 stone which reads:

They were Li [李], An [俺], Ai [艾], Gao [高], Mu [穆], Zhao [趙], Jin [金], Zhou [周], Zhang [張], Shi [石], Huang [黄], Li [李], Nie [聶], Jin [金], Zhang [張], Zuo [左], Bai [白]—in all, seventy or more clans. Bringing tribute of Western cloth, they entered (the court of) Song, and the Emperor said: “you have come to our China; reverence and preserve the customs of your ancestors, and hand them down at Bianliang (汴梁, Kaifeng). [11]

The inscription only lists 14 surnames with 3 duplicates, so 70 (七十) is taken to be a scribal mistake for 17 (十七). [12] This has led to past miscalculations in the community’s original size. [13] The 70 clans are cast as being fully sinicized with Chinese surnames upon their arrival in China. But prior researchers have noted it is far more likely the community took on Chinese surnames during the Yuan or early Ming period after having begun the assimilation process into Chinese society. [14] The bestowing of the seven surnames is a play on a 17th century tragedy. A great man-made flood destroyed the city of Kaifeng in 1642, killing hundreds of thousands of the inhabitants. [15] Only 200-250 Jewish families comprising the seven Zhao, Li, Ai, Zhang, Gao, Jin, and Shi clans survived the deluge. [16] Therefore, this portion of the legend is just an idealized combination of this sad event and the tribute mission from the 1489 stone. The mention of 500 families from earlier in the story actually comes from the unofficial 1679 stone. [17] This is considered an unreliable embellishment as well since the same inscription increases the (already faulty) clan number to 73. [18]

Notes

[1] Brian Swann, Smoothing the Ground: Essays on Native American Oral Literature (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), 261.
[2] Donald Leslie, The Survival of the Chinese Jews: The Jewish Community of Kaifeng (Tʻoung pao, 10. Leiden: Brill, 1972), 9 and 32. The bracketed words are mine.
[3] Francis Robinson, The Mughal Emperors and the Islamic Dynasties of India, Iran, and Central Asia, 1206-1925 (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007), 114.
[4] Denis Crispin Twitchett, John K. Fairbank, and Frederick W. Mote, The Cambridge History of China. Vol.7, The Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644, Part 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 259.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Xu Xin, Beverly Friend, and Cheng Ting, Legends of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng (Hoboken, N.J.: KTAV Pub, 1995), xi.
[7] The Chinese characters are from William Charles White, Chinese Jews: A Complication of Matters Relating to the Jews of K’ai-Feng Fu, 2nd ed. (New York: Paragon Book Reprint, 1966), Part III, 167-187.
[8] Xu, 1-26.
[9] William Shepherd, Route of the Leaders of the First Crusade (1911), Wikipedia, JPEG file, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/First.Crusade.Map.jpg (accessed December 14, 2011).
[10] Geoffrey B. Waywell, “The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus,” In The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, ed. Peter Clayton and Martin Price (Routledge, 1990), 100.
[11] White, Part II, 11. I converted the names from Wade-Giles to Pinyin. For the difference, see also Tiberiu Weisz, The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions: The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China (New York: iUniverse, 2006), 10.
[12] Leslie, 23 n. 1.
[13] Michael Pollak, Mandarins, Jews, and Missionaries: The Jewish Experience in the Chinese Empire (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1980), 317-318.
[14] Leslie, 27. Leslie believes the defining moment that hastened their sinicization was when a man named An-San (俺三), a possible transliteration of “Hasan,” notified the Ming court of Prince Ding of Zhou’s (周定王) plans to usurp the throne from his brother, the Yongle Emperor (永樂), in 1421. For his good deed, An-San was not only given military rank, but was granted the proper Chinese name Zhao Cheng (趙誠, “Zhao the Honest”) (Ibid, 25-26).
[15] Ibid, 37.
[16] Ibid, 108-109.
[17] White, Part II, 97.
[18] Pollak, 317.

Bibliography

Leslie, Donald. The Survival of the Chinese Jews: The Jewish Community of Kaifeng. Tʻoung pao, 10. Leiden: Brill, 1972.

Pollak, Michael. Mandarins, Jews, and Missionaries: The Jewish Experience in the Chinese Empire. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1980.

Robinson, Francis. The Mughal Emperors and the Islamic Dynasties of India, Iran, and Central Asia, 1206-1925. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2007.

Swann, Brian. Smoothing the Ground: Essays on Native American Oral Literature. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.

Twitchett, Denis Crispin, John K. Fairbank, and Frederick W. Mote. The Cambridge History of China. Vol.7, The Ming Dynasty, 1368-1644, Part 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Waywell, Geoffrey B. “The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus,” In The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, ed. Peter Clayton and Martin Price. Routledge, 1990.

Weisz, Tiberiu. The Kaifeng Stone Inscriptions: The Legacy of the Jewish Community in Ancient China. New York: iUniverse, 2006.

White, William Charles. Chinese Jews: A Complication of Matters Relating to the Jews of K’ai-Feng Fu, 2nd ed. New York: Paragon Book Reprint, 1966.

Xu, Xin, Beverly Friend, and Cheng Ting. Legends of the Chinese Jews of Kaifeng. Hoboken, N.J.: KTAV Pub, 1995.