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 TheGolden Sun Bird, a rediscovered artifact of theBa–Shu culture, believed to be a totem of theancient Shu people,[1] and the emblem ofChengdu since 2011.[2] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Mainland China | Sichuan Chongqing |
| Taiwan | As part ofMainlander population |
| Languages | |
| HistoricallyBa–Shu Chinese, also known as Old Sichuanese. PresentlySichuanese dialects ofSouthwestern Mandarin. | |
| Religion | |
| TraditionallyMahayana Buddhism,Taoism,Confucianism andChinese folk religion, but alsoChristianity (seeChristianity in Sichuan),Islam (seeIslam in Sichuan), and historicallyZoroastrianism (seeZoroastrianism in Sichuan) | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| otherHan Chinese,Yi people,Tujia people,Qiang people | |
TheSichuanese people[a] are aHan Chinese subgroup comprising most of the population of China'sSichuan province and theChongqing municipality.
Beginning from the 9th century BC, theKingdom of Shu (on theChengdu Plain) and theState of Ba (which had its first capital atEnshi City inHubei and controlled part of theHan Valley) emerged as cultural and administrative centers where two rival kingdoms were established. In 316 BC, the two kingdoms were destroyed by theState of Qin. After theQin conquest of the six warring states, thenewly formed empire carried out a forced resettlement.[3] The now-extinctBa–Shu language was derived from Qin-era settlers and represents the earliest documented division fromMiddle Chinese.
South Sichuan was also inhabited by theDai people who formed theserfs class. They were later thoroughly sinicized, adopting the local language of speech. Large numbers of foreign merchant families fromSogdia,Persia and other Central Asian countries immigrated to Sichuan.[4] A Sogdian temple is attested inChengdu.[5]
During theYuan andMing dynasties, the population of Sichuan, Chongqing had been reduced due to immigration, deportation and flight of refugees fleeing war and plague, new or returning settlers from modernHunan,Hubei,Guangdong andJiangxi, replacing the earlier spoken language with different languages they adopted from the former regions to form a new standard language off communication.[6][7][8]
Many migrant workers from rural Sichuan have migrated to other parts of the country, where they often facediscrimination in employment, housing etc.[9] This is due to China's household registration policy and other parts of people from midwest China face the same problem.
Thecult for supernatural forces and entities is a long-established tradition among the Sichuanese people, tracing its roots back to theancientBa–Shu era.Taoism played a major role since the late antiquity with the emergence of theWay of the Celestial Master movement.[10]Confucianism had relatively less influence, because of Ba–Shu's remoteness from theZhongyuan region and theQilu region.[11] The cultural characteristics of the Sichuanese people were described in the 2014 bookAll about Sichuan as "a 'heretical biography' that deviated from Confucian orthodoxy, a free-spirited cultural group that opposed, despised and subverted Confucian ethics and imperial autocracy."[12]
The Sichuanese once spoke their own variety of spoken Chinese calledBa–Shu Chinese, or Old Sichuanese before it became extinct during the Ming dynasty. Now most of them speakSichuanese Mandarin. TheMinjiang dialects are thought by some linguists to be a bona fide descendant of Old Sichuanese due to many characteristics of Ba–Shu Chinese phonology and vocabulary being found in the dialects,[13] but there is no conclusive evidence whether Minjiang dialects are derived from Old Sichuanese or Southwestern Mandarin.
Sichuan is well known for its spicy cuisine and use ofSichuan peppers due to its more arid climate.
Well known Sichuanese people are such as:
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