The Luochong lu is a collection of outlandish descriptions of over a hundred foreign countries and peoples, many of them imaginary. It was most likely originally commissioned (under a different title) by a Ming prince in the early fifteenth century. It became, in Yuming He’s words, “the most popular, comprehensive, and widely circulating source of documentation about exotic lands and peoples” in the Ming, frequently reprinted (with variations in content) in mass-market encyclopedias produced by commercial publishers.¹ The passage below is a preface to the text that appears in an encyclopedia published in 1612; other versions of the same preface are known. Its contents suggest that dehumanizing attitudes toward “barbarians” became the norm in the Ming, spread by popular reference works of dubious reliability and justified by spurious appeals to Confucius’s authority and that of the classics.

The translation below is mine. For a different translation and detailed analysis of this passage, see Yuming He, “The Book and the Barbarian in Ming China and Beyond: The Luo chong lu, or ‘Record of Naked Creatures,’” Asia Major, Third Series, 24.1 (2011), 43-85, esp. 70-71.

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Among the three hundred and sixty kinds of scaled creatures, the dragon is the leader (zhang 長). Among the three hundred and sixty kinds of feathered creatures, the phoenix is the leader. Among the three hundred and sixty kinds of furred creatures, the qilin is the leader. Among the three hundred and sixty kinds of shelled creatures, the tortoise is the leader. Among the three hundred and sixty kinds of naked creatures, the human being is the leader.²

“Naked creatures” refers to the barbarians (Yi) of the four quarters, beyond the [emperor’s] transformative influence. Why then do we call human beings the leaders of the naked creatures? The Documents says: “Those who are born and live in the Central Lands have received the correctly balanced qi of heaven and earth and are human beings; those who are born and live in the lands beyond the [emperor’s] transformative influence, who have not received the correctly balanced qi of heaven and earth, are animals and thus called ‘naked creatures.’” Confucius said, “Governing the barbarians (Yi-Di) is like governing animals.”³ He had good reason for saying so, because [the barbarians] have no ethical norms, love warfare and fighting, and treat life contemptuously and delight in death, their nature being like that of tigers and wolves. They are greedy for wealth and profit and fond of licentious behavior, conducting themselves like deer [in heat]. They are truly far from the nature and disposition of human beings!

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1. See Yuming He, “The Book and the Barbarian in Ming China and Beyond: The Luo chong lu, or ‘Record of Naked Creatures,’” Asia Major, Third Series, 24.1 (2011), 43-85. ↩︎
2. This taxonomy of animate creatures is adapted from the Da Dai Liji (see source 1.6), which however identifies the leader of the naked creatures as “the sage” (shengren 聖人) rather than the generic “human being” (ren 人); it is thus implied that the 360 kinds of “naked creatures” are different kinds of human being. The later Kongzi jiayu (Family Sayings of Confucius), a sequel to the Analects attributed to an early Han descendant of Confucius, does have “human being” rather than “sage,” but this preface to the Luochong lu is the only text known to have linked the taxonomy to the Chinese-barbarian dichotomy and used it to claim that only the Chinese are truly human. ↩︎
3. These quotes are not, in fact, found in the Documents and Annals or any other Confucian classics, though similar ideas can be found in various imperial-era texts. ↩︎