<P> Two millennia before the French anthropologist Claude Lévi - Strauss wrote The Raw and the Cooked, the Chinese differentiated "raw" and "cooked" categories of barbarian peoples who lived in China . The shufan 熟 番 "cooked (food eating) barbarians" are sometimes interpreted as Sinicized, and the shengfan 生 番 "raw (food eating) barbarians" as not Sinicized . The Liji gives this description . </P> <P> The people of those five regions--the Middle states, and the (Rong), (Yi) (and other wild tribes around them)--had all their several natures, which they could not be made to alter . The tribes on the east were called (Yi). They had their hair unbound, and tattooed their bodies . Some of them ate their food without its being cooked with fire . Those on the south were called Man . They tattooed their foreheads, and had their feet turned toward each other . Some of them ate their food without its being cooked with fire . Those on the west were called (Rong). They had their hair unbound, and wore skins . Some of them did not eat grain - food . Those on the north were called (Di). They wore skins of animals and birds, and dwelt in caves . Some of them did not eat grain - food . </P> <P> Dikötter explains the close association between nature and nurture . "The shengfan, literally' raw barbarians', were considered savage and resisting . The shufan, or' cooked barbarians', were tame and submissive . The consumption of raw food was regarded as an infallible sign of savagery that affected the physiological state of the barbarian ." </P> <P> Some Warring States period texts record a belief that the respective natures of the Chinese and the barbarian were incompatible . Mencius, for instance, once stated: "I have heard of the Chinese converting barbarians to their ways, but not of their being converted to barbarian ways ." Dikötter says, "The nature of the Chinese was regarded as impermeable to the evil influences of the barbarian; no retrogression was possible . Only the barbarian might eventually change by adopting Chinese ways ." </P>

Who were the barbarians in the middle ages