The Nature of the Hu: Wuhuan and Xianbei Ethnography in the San guo zhi and Hou Han shu

Scholars of early China have dedicated considerable attention to the encounter between the Han dynasty and the Xiongnu, as it stands as the archetypal conflict between the Huaxia cultural order of the Central State(s) and the northern cultural others known as the Hu. This issue has been viewed from an array of diverse perspectives, including literary studies of the Xiongnu ethnographies found in the Shi ji and Han shu. The present article seeks to illuminate the representation of northern others in the post-Han era through an examination of the earliest ethnographies of the Wuhuan and Xianbei, as preserved in the San guo zhi commentary edition and the Hou Han shu. A close reading of the Wuhuan and Xianbei accounts reveals deep resonances with earlier Xiongnu accounts, but finds many divergences as well, which combine to produce a more ambivalent interpretation of the contemporary northern others.