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The name Jurchen dates back to at least the beginning of the tenth century. It comes from the Jurchen word jusen, the original meaning of which is unclear. The Jurchen tribes of northern Manchuria were originally vassals of the Khitans (see also Liao Dynasty). They rose to power after an outstanding leader unified them in 1115, declared himself emperor, and quickly seized the Supreme Capital of Liao. The Jurchens overran most of North China and captured the Song capital of Kaifeng in 1126. Their armies pushed all the way south to the Yangzi but the boundary with the Southern Song was eventually stabilised roughly along the Huai River .
The Jurchen named their dynasty the Jin ("Golden") after a river in their homeland. (For more detailed treatment of dynastic history and administration, see Jin Dynasty) At first, the Jurchen tribesmen, were kept in readines for warfare but decades of settled lifestyle eroded their pastoral identity. Eventually intermarriage with Chinese was permitted and peace with the Southern Song confirmed. The Jin rulers themselves came to follow Confucian norms. After 1189, the Jin became involved on two front in exhausting wars with the Mongols and the Southern song. By 1215, under Mongol pressure, they were forced to move their capital south from Beijing to Kaifeng, where the Mongols extinguished the Jin dynasty in 1234.
The Jurchens generally lived by traditions that reflected the pastoral culture of early steppe peoples. Like the Khitans and Mongols, they took pride in feats of strength, horsemanship, archery and hunting. They engaged in shamanic cults and believed in a supreme sky god (abka-i enduri, abka-i han).
The early Jurchen script was based on the Khitan script , which in turn was inspired by Chinese characterTraditional Chinese and other languages. Simplified Chinese Chinese characters or Han characters (/) are used in the written forms of the Chinese language, and to varying degrees in the Japanese and Korean languages (though the latter only in South Korea)s. However, because Chinese is an isolating language and the Jurchen and Khitan languages are agglutinativeAn agglutinative language is a language in which the words are formed by joining morphemes together. This term was introduced by Wilhelm von Humboldt in 1836 to classify languages from a morphological point of view. It was derived from the Latin verb aggl, the script proved to be cumbersome. The written Jurchen language died out soon after the fall of the Jin Dynasty though its spoken form survived. Until the end of the sixteenth century, when ManchuThe Manchu language is a member of the Tungusic languages; it used to be the language of the Manchu, though now most Manchus speak Chinese and there are less than 100 native speakers of Manchu out of a total of nearly 10 million ethnic Manchus. However, t became the new literary language, the Jurchens used a combination of Mongolian and Chinese.
The cultural conceptualisation of Jurchen society owes a great deal to the Mongols. Both Mongols and Jurchens used the title han for the leaders of a political entity, whether "emperor" or "chief". A particularly powerful chief was called beile ("prince, nobleman"), corresponding with the Mongolian beki and Turkish beg or bey. Also like the Mongols and the Turks, the Jurchens did not observe a law of primogeniture. According to tradition, any capable son or nephew could be chosen to become leader.
During MingThe Ming Dynasty ( Chinese: ; Pinyin: ming chao was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, though claims to the Ming throne (now collectively called the Southern Ming survived until 1662. The dynasty followed the Yuan Dynasty and preceded the Qing times the Jurchen people lived in social units that were sub-clans (mukun or hala mukun) of ancient clans (hala). Members of Jurchen clans shared a consciousness of a common ancestor and were led by a head man (mukunda). Not all clan members were blood related and division and integration of different clans was common. Jurchen households (boo) lived as families (booigon), consisting of five to seven blood-related family members and a number of slaves. Households formed squads (tatan) to engage in tasks related to hunting and food gathering; and formed companies (niru) for larger activities, such as war.