Community Matters in Xinjiang 1880–1949 China Studies
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Community Matters in Xinjiang 1880–1949 China Studies Published for the Institute for Chinese Studies University of Oxford Editors Glen Dudbridge Frank Pieke VOLUME 17 Community Matters in Xinjiang 1880–1949 Towards a Historical Anthropology of the Uyghur By Ildikó Bellér-Hann LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008 Cover illustration: Woman baking bread in the missionaries’ home (Box 145, sheet nr. 26. Hanna Anderssons samling). Courtesy of the National Archives of Sweden (Riksarkivet) and The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden (Svenska Missionskyrkan). This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bellér-Hann, Ildikó. Community matters in Xinjiang, 1880–1949 : towards a historical anthropology of the Uyghur / by Ildikó Bellér-Hann. p. cm — (China studies, ISSN 1570–1344 ; v. 17) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-16675-2 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Uighur (Turkic people)—China— Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu—Social life and customs. 2. Uighur (Turkic people)—China— Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu—Religion. 3. Muslims—China—Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu. 4. Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (China)—Social life and customs. 5. Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (China)—Ethnic relations. 6. Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu (China)—History—19th century. I. Title. II. Series. DS731.U4B35 2008 951’.604—dc22 2008018717 ISSN 1570-1344 ISBN 978 90 04 16675 2 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. 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Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS Preface and Acknowledgements ................................................. vii Note on Transliteration and Usage ............................................ xi List of Maps and Illustrations .................................................... xiii Chapter One Introduction ...................................................... 1 1.1 Theoretical Framework ................................................. 1 1.2 Recent Scholarly Contributions .................................... 21 1.3 The Time Frame ........................................................... 26 1.4 Methods ......................................................................... 27 1.5 Structure of this Work ................................................... 31 Chapter Two Place and People ............................................... 35 2.1 Place ............................................................................... 35 2.2 History ........................................................................... 41 2.3 People ............................................................................. 49 2.4 Summary ........................................................................ 52 Chapter Three Economic and Social Organization ............... 55 3.1 From Ya{qub Beg to Mao .............................................. 55 3.2 Demography and Group Relations ............................... 60 3.3 The Economy ................................................................ 91 3.4 Social Structure: Access to Power ................................. 115 3.5 Taxes, Corruption and Migration ................................. 164 3.6 Summary ........................................................................ 177 Chapter Four Regulating Social Relations: The Force of Custom .................................................................................... 179 4.1 Dispute Settlement ......................................................... 182 4.2 Family Law and Gender Relations ............................... 188 4.3 The Law of Hospitality ................................................. 202 4.4 Summary ........................................................................ 215 Chapter Five The Life Cycle ................................................... 217 5.1 Entering the Human Community ................................. 217 5.2 Circumcision .................................................................. 233 vi contents 5.3 Marriage ........................................................................ 235 5.4 Divorce ........................................................................... 261 5.5 Polygamy, Temporary Marriage, Adultery .................... 266 5.6 Moral Evaluations .......................................................... 273 5.7 Celebrating Female Fertility .......................................... 279 5.8 Death Rituals and the Afterlife ..................................... 284 5.9 Summary ........................................................................ 300 Chapter Six Religion, Islamic Institutions and Dealing with the Supernatural ............................................................. 303 6.1 Islam in Eastern Turkestan ........................................... 303 6.2 Islamic Institutions ......................................................... 316 6.3 Manifestations of Faith .................................................. 338 6.4 Healing ........................................................................... 400 6.5 Summary ........................................................................ 420 Chapter Seven Conclusion ...................................................... 423 Illustrations .................................................................................. 431 Bibliography ................................................................................ 449 Glossary of Frequently Used Turki/Uyghur Terms .................. 469 Index ........................................................................................... 471 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book is about the modern Uyghur, an ethnic group living in the far northwest of the People’s Republic of China. They speak a Turkic language and adhere to the Hanafi school of Islam. One of the fi fty- six recognised ethnic groups of the PRC, the Uyghur share the Xin- jiang Uyghur Autonomous Region with twelve other recognized ethnic groups, the second-largest of which is formed by the Han Chinese. In spite of the presence of a number of other groups representing diverse economic, ethnic and religious traditions, the major antagonism in the region consists of the ethnic tensions between the Uyghur and the Han Chinese. My interest in Xinjiang dates to the mid-1970s, when I began study- ing Turkic languages at the University of Budapest. The Turcological perspective has determined and infl uenced the nature of my work. As I started reading about the region, I came to see the linguistic, religious and social traditions of its settled populations as a direct continuation of the Turco-Persian civilisation of Inner Asia, and only secondarily did I consider it as part of the Chinese political entity. I only became fully aware of the powerful presence of the Chinese state during my extended visits, fi rst in the mid-1980s and then in the 1990s. In recent decades a sizable literature has grown out of Ph.D. disser- tations based on empirical research, which, together with the work of historians, now make it possible to speak of Xinjiang studies. The two lines of enquiry still seem to run parallel, with very little overlapping. Contemporary anthropological writings yield rich ethnographic data concerning the reform period but can say little about the immediate antecedents of social values and practices. There is no need here to argue for bringing historicity into anthropology, since many scholars have already done this, but the particular fi eld of Xinjiang anthro- pology is still ‘presentist’ and largely dominated by the discourse on ethnicity. Although the existing scholarly literature makes ample use of the concepts of ‘tradition’ and ‘custom’, so far no attempt has been made to substantiate these terms by looking at pre-socialist evidence. Using diverse sources, this work will at least partially fi ll this gap by drawing viii preface and acknowledgements the contours of the economic and social conditions in which the sed- entary Turki-speaking Muslims inhabiting the oasis settlements of the region lived and made sense of their lives within the political confi nes of the Chinese Empire. Augmenting these written sources with data collected during fi eldwork carried out in the mid-1990s, I have exam- ined aspects of sociality during the socialist period and draw attention to continuities with the period before 1949. The original intention, to investigate continuities and changes in nor- mative ideals and daily practices of the Turki/modern Uyghur in the course of the entire twentieth century, could be realized only in part. I had hoped to gain access to local archive materials in China, providing data, both qualitative and quantitative, on key issues in local society, such as marriage and divorce contracts, inheritance and other legal documents issued by Islamic courts, private correspondence and com- mercial transactions. Although I could establish that such documents did indeed exist, I was denied access to local archives and,