Do foreigners have compound toes?

Can you tell whether you are Han Chinese just by looking at whether your little toenails are split?

Introduction: This is a topic that I have been paying attention to and discussing for many years. To be honest, I am still not sure how to determine this point of view. I have also checked a lot of information and read some experts' opinions, but I am still unable to make a decision and feel relieved.

This is a topic that I have been paying attention to and discussing for many years. To be honest, I am still not sure how to determine this point of view. I have also checked a lot of information and read some experts' opinions, but I am still unable to make a decision and feel relieved.

This point of view is: the little toenail of the Han people is the little toenail, and it is not a complete piece, and is bifurcated in the middle; the little toenail of the ethnic minorities is the big toenail, and it is a complete piece, with a split in the middle. Not forked.

The question is, does this view have scientific basis? Is this indeed the case? Can you tell whether you are a pure Han Chinese just by looking at whether your little toenails are split?

I remember that many years ago, I first read this content in a book or an article in a newspaper. I thought it was very novel and mysterious, and it has always been deeply remembered in my mind, almost even Serve as a guide; after all, for many years, I was still an ignorant boy or young man. I believed in everything and lacked the spirit of doubt, criticism and analytical thinking.

Furthermore, I discovered that the little toenails on both of my feet are both little toenails, and they are indeed not one piece, and are split in the middle. Yes, I am Han Chinese. I also carefully observed or asked around dozens of family members, relatives, neighbors, classmates, and friends, and found that their little toenails were the same. Of course, they are all Han Chinese. So why don’t I believe it more?

But then I read from some information that the little toenails of some ethnic minorities are also like this, and the same is true for some people of mixed ethnic and Chinese descent. I even heard that among some brothers and sisters in Han families, some were like this and some were not. Some were not like that when they grew up, and some were not like that when they grew up. So why is this? I couldn't help but be confused.

The most famous ones include the following opinions:

First, 100%, the Han people’s little toenails are forked. This has been the case since the early Ming Dynasty, when the Han people living under the big locust tree in Hongdong County, Shanxi Province immigrated to all parts of the country. One legend is that people from Shanxi were gathered under a big locust tree, and the escorting soldiers chopped each person's little toenails with a knife. From then on, anyone with cracks or split toenails on their little toenails was an immigrant from Shanxi. There is also a folk saying: "Whoever has two little toenails is a child under the big locust tree."

In 2005, Fudan University associate professor Bian Jianchao, graduate student Hao Weiguo and others made a speech about the Hongdong conducted genetic investigation and research into the Legend of Chia. The results showed that the proportion of scalloped nails showed a decreasing trend starting from Shanxi and moving toward the southeast, which is consistent with the historical immigration facts. This shows that the distribution of petal nails is indeed related to Shanxi immigrants.

Second, the Heluo area is the earliest settlement of the Han people, and the people there have their little toenails divided into two halves. Heluo is a regional concept that refers to the vast area of ????the middle reaches of the Yellow River and the Luoshui River Basin, that is, the Central Plains region in a narrow sense; that is, the central and northwestern parts of Henan Province today, symbolized by Zhongyue Songshan Mountain, and the ancient "China" refers to this place.

Thirdly, the little toenails of descendants of the ancient Xianbei people are also bifurcated, and it was Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, who was the first to discover this.

The phenomenon of bifurcated little toenails is also called compound toe. So, who does this compound toe gene come from? When did it start? Looking at ancient and modern Chinese data, from the Huangdi period to the early Tang Dynasty, there is no record of the phenomenon of compound toes in the Han people. Could this mean that our ancestors did not have compound toes at that time?

The first person to discover that he had compound toes was Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty. It was the early years of the Tang Dynasty, the 7th century AD. He was very angry at that time, so he issued a secret order to check the condition of everyone's little toes in the palace. He was shocked to find that not only him, but also almost half of the people in the harem had compound toes, and these people were all Xianbei people. The mother of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty was from Xianbei. (Not only Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, but also the mother of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty was also from Xianbei.) Obviously the Xianbei people have compound toes, and the compound toes of the Han people were actually inherited from the Xianbei people.

Zhang Haiyang, a professor at Minzu University of China, believes that the petal-shaped nails should not be regarded as a unique sexual characteristic of the Han people, but should be regarded as a product of ethnic integration. Before the great immigration of the Ming Dynasty, Shanxi was a place where Han people and ethnic minorities lived together. Among the great immigrants, there were both Mongolian nobles, poor Han people, and many Semu people. These people have brought the blood of the Yuan and Meng, the genes of the Han to the capital, Jiangsu, Yunnan, Hainan and other places, as well as the Han people who have long been barbarized and the Han people's genes... I want to distinguish who is Han and who is not based on blood. Other races have long been unrealistic.

Fourth, according to statistics, this compound toe shape of the little toe is common in East Asia, with the highest frequency among the Han people, and is significantly more common in the north than in the south. It is said on the Internet that compound toes come from the Xiongnu, from the Xianbei, from the Khitan (a branch of the Xianbei), from the ancient Qiang people, from the Manchu people, and so on. Compound toe shape is not a deformity and does not cause functional impairment. Compound toe morphology also has delayed characteristics. Some people do not show it when they are young, but develop significantly after adulthood.

After generations of reproduction, by the Song Dynasty, the number of compound toes among the northern Han people increased dramatically; while most of the southern Han people immigrated from the Central Plains to avoid war, and few Xianbei people joined. The compound toe phenomenon Naturally there are very few. So much so that by the Ming Dynasty, people believed that compound toes were a Han Chinese patent. Zhu Yuanzhang, the leader of Mingjiao, once ordered that "anyone with unsplit little toes is a Mongolian and must be killed." Therefore, I don’t know how many Han people were killed by mistake at that time!

The legend of the big locust tree originated in the Ming Dynasty, so people who came out of the big locust tree all had compound toes. In fact, the Han people near Dahuaishu are not authentic Han people, but highly Xianbei Han people. After dynasty changes, wars, and immigration, the Han people without compound toes who previously moved south from the Central Plains were no longer considered authentic, while the Han people with compound toes who had merged with Xianbei became authentic.

Experts believe that the flap-like nails may be a physiological characteristic of the ancient Chinese people; another possibility is that it is a physiological characteristic of an ancient ethnic minority that has long been integrated into the Han people. In short, it is the product of national integration.

Fifth, in addition to the large locust trees in Hongdong County, Shanxi, there is another place called Zhuji Lane in Nanxiong County, Lingnan and northern Guangdong. The rumors here are even more mysterious. One says it was inherited by their ancestors after they bumped their left toes; another says it was a queen among the people who fled south. She immediately gave birth to a dragon seed, and the mother and son were forced to do so while being chased by the enemy. After they separated, the queen bit her son's toes and left a mark in order to recognize each other in the future. From then on, all the descendants of the prince had compound toes.

In this regard, my thinking seems to be getting clearer and clearer. Because my original surname is Xiao, which is the same surname as the capitalized Xiao, but Xiao has been simplified in recent years. Historically, the Xiao surname has two origins. One is from ancient Lanling County, pure ancient Han people, such as Xiao He, the founding prime minister of the Western Han Dynasty, the emperors of Qi and Liang Dynasties in the Southern Dynasties, the litterateur Xiao Tong, and the Empress Xiao of Sui Yang Emperor (Later, she married many people including Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, Yu Wenhuaji, Dou Jiande, etc.); one is from the Khitan tribe, because Xiao is a common surname in the Khitan tribe, and many relatives of the Liao royal family have the surname Xiao, including the queen, the queen mother, and their brothers and sisters. , among which there are many famous fierce generals and beautiful princesses; for example, in "The Generals of the Yang Family" we have the Queen Mother Xiao of the Liao Kingdom, the general Xiao Tianzuo Xiao Tianyou, the male protagonist Xiao Feng (Qiao Feng) and his father Xiao Yuanshan in Jin Yong's martial arts novels, etc. So, my bloodline may come from the Khitan people, who migrated south from the big locust tree in Shanxi, and have always had compound toes; or it may come from the Lanling Xiao family, and later became compound toes in the process of mixing with other ethnic groups. toe.

In any case, my understanding is that the Chinese people, who are mainly Han people, may not have compound toes in ancient times. Later, they mixed with some ethnic minorities in the north and intermarried and mixed blood, and later they had compound toes; but later on , to this day, the phenomenon of compound toes and non- compound toes has become more and more complicated, but the majority of Han people still have compound toes. However, today's Han people are not the ancient Han people. Today's Han people are no longer the very pure Han people of the past, but a mixed nation. Therefore, I have always advocated the concept of the Greater Chinese nation, and there is no need to put too much emphasis on whether it is Han or non-Han. Because you are Han now, who knows whether you were Han in the past? You were Han in the past, but who knows whether you are Han now?

But I have said that at certain times and in certain areas in ancient times, people could still use compound toes or non-compound toes to identify Han or non-Han people.