Tatar

“Mr. Rockhill is quite correct in his Turkish and Chinese dates for the first use of the word Tatar, but it seems very likely that the much older eponymous word T’atun refers to the same people. The Toba History says that in A.D. 258 the chieftain of that Tartar Tribe (not yet arrived at imperial dignity) at a public durbar read a homily to various chiefs, pointing out to them the mistake made by the Hiung-nu (Early Turks) and ‘T’a-tun fellows’ (Early Mongols) in raiding his frontiers. If we go back still further, we find the After Han History speaking of the ‘Middle T’atun’; and a scholion tells us not to pronounce the final ‘n.’ If we pursue our inquiry yet further back, we find that T’ah-tun was originally the name of a Sien-pi or Wu-hwan (apparently Mongol) Prince, who tried to secure the shen-yü ship for himself, and that it gradually became (1) a title, (2) and the name of a tribal division (see also the Wei Chi and the Early Han History). Both Sien-pi and Wu-hwan are the names of mountain haunts, and at this very day part of the Russian Liao-tung railway is styled the ‘Sien-pi railway’ by the native Chinese newspapers.” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, p. 141.)

Page 231, note 3. Instead of Yuché, read Juché.

XLVI., p. 232.