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Paleoanthropology and Anthropology in the Chinese Frontier, 1920-1950

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Paleoanthropology and Anthropology in the Chinese Frontier, 1920-1950 Constructing the Chinese: Paleoanthropology and Anthropology in the Chinese Frontier, 1920-1950 The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Yen, Hsiao-pei. 2012. Constructing the Chinese: Paleoanthropology and Anthropology in the Chinese Frontier, 1920-1950. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:10086027 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA Copyright ©2012 by Hsiao-pei Yen All rights reserved To My Parents Advisor: Professor Henrietta Harrison Hsiao-pei Yen Constructing the Chinese: Paleoanthropology and Anthropology in the Chinese Frontier, 1920-1950 ABSTRACT Today’s Chinese ethno-nationalism exploits nativist ancestral claims back to antiquity to legitimize its geo-political occupation of the entire territory of modern China, which includes areas where many non-Han people live. It also insists on the inseparability of the non-Han nationalities as an integrated part of Zhonghua minzu. This dissertation traces the origin of this nationalism to the two major waves of scientific investigation in the fields of paleoanthropology and anthropology in the Chinese frontier during the first half of the twentieth century. Prevailing theories and discoveries in the two scientific disciplines inspired the ways in which the Chinese intellectuals constructed their national identity. The first wave concerns the international quest for human ancestors in North China and the northwestern frontier in the 1920s and 1930s. Foreign scientists, such as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Amadeus Grabau, Roy Chapman Andrews, and Davidson Black, came to China to search for the first human fossils. With the discovery of Peking Man, they made Beijing one of the most prestigious places for the study of human paleontology and popularized the evolutionary Asiacentric theory that designated Chinese Central Asia and Mongolia as the cradle of humans. Inspired by the theory and the study of the Peking Man fossils, Chinese intellectuals turned Peking Man into the first Chinese and a common ancestor of all humans. iv In the second wave, from the late 1930s to the early 1950s, Chinese anthropologists like Rui Yifu, Cen Jiawu, Fei Xiaotong, and Li Anzhai made enormous efforts to inscribe the non-Han people of the southwestern frontier into the genealogy of the Chinese nation (Zhonghua minzu). Their interpretations of the relationship between the Han and the non-Han and between the frontier and the center were influenced by various Western anthropological theories. However, their intensive studies of the southwestern non-Han societies advocated the ethnic integration and nationalization of China’s southwestern frontier. By linking the two waves of scientific endeavor, this dissertation asserts that the Chinese intellectual construction of modern Chinese ethnogenesis and nationalism was not a parochial and reactionary nationalist “invention” but a series of indigenizing attempts to appropriate and interpret scientific theories and discoveries. v CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . viii Chapter INTRODUCTION . 1 Peking Man and Paleoanthropological Nationalism War and Chinese Ethnicity PART ONE: THE FIRST CHINESE 1. IN SEARCH OF THE COMMON ANCESTOR: PALEOANTHROPOLOGY IN NORTH AND NORTHWESTERN CHINA, 1920-1939 . 22 Rendezvous in Beijing: The Transnational Scientific Community The Chinese Institutions Life in Beijing Inner Mongolia: The Jesuit Garden of Eden Mongolia: The American Hunt for the Trophy North and Northwestern China: International Collaboration and the Discovery of Peking Man The End of the Peking Circle Conclusion 2. EVOLUTIONARY ASIACENTRISM, PEKING MAN, AND THE ORIGINS OF SINOCENTRIC ETHNO-NATIONALISM . 93 From Eurocentrism to Asiacentrism Western Origins of Chinese Civilization Asia: Mother of Continents Peking Man and the Antiquity of the Chinese: From Asiacentrism to Sinocentrism Conclusion vi PART TWO: WHO ARE THE CHINESE 3. THE DISCOURSE OF MINZU: ETHNOLOGY AND ETHNO- NATIONALISM IN THE SOUTHWESTERN FRONTIER . 138 The Discourse of Minzu before the Second Sino-Japanese War The Debate in 1939 and the De-ethnicization of Minzu Ethnology, Southwestern Frontier Minorities, and Wartime Nationalism Cen Jiawu, Cultural Evolutionism, and Ethnic Integration Rui Yifu, the Discourse of Minzu, and Ethnic Integration Conclusion 4. INDIGENIZING ANTHROPOLOGY, SINICIZING THE FRONTIER: CHINESE ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE SOUTHWEST . 194 Wu Wenzao and Indigenizing Anthropology The Kuige Scholars in Yunnan Li Anzhai and Applied Anthropology in Sichuan The Frontier Discourse Frontier Social Work Li Anzhai and Tibet Conclusion 5. CONCLUSION . 244 GLOSSARY . 253 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 259 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am greatly indebted to Arif Dirlik, who illuminated my intellectual world nine years ago and has never ceased to be a magnificent source of inspiration and support. This project would have looked quite different without his influence. This dissertation would not have been completed without the continuous encouragement, support, and guidance I have received from the members of my dissertation committee at Harvard: Henrietta Harrison, Mark Elliott, and William Kirby. They have nourished my scholarly development during my graduate studies and provided useful and pointed criticism of this dissertation. I thank them for their dedication. I am particularly grateful to Henrietta Harrison, who has stood by me through all the stages, as an intelligent and caring advisor but also a sincere friend. Many people have offered their insights and help in the making of this dissertation. I would like to thank Kuang-chi Hung, Julie L. Cormack, Fa-ti Fan, Song- chiao Shen, Ming-ke Wang, Chen Bo, Wang Mingming, Qin Heping, Andres Rodriguez, Miwa Shimada, and Hsien-chun Wang and his graduate students in the Institute of History at National Tsing-Hua University. I must particularly thank Darrell Arnold, who read every part of the dissertation and provided much needed comments to make it a polished product. I would also like to express my gratitude to Barbara Mathé of the Special Collections at the American Museum of Natural History, Lee Hiltzik of the Rockefeller Archive Center, and the archivists of the Fu Sinian Library at the Academia Sinica. Their professional aid has made the research of the materials less daunting. viii This dissertation could not have been possible without the generous financial support from several institutions. The Fellowship for Doctoral Candidates in the Humanities and Social Sciences offered by the Institute of Modern History of the Academic Sinica in Taiwan and the Dissertation Improvement Grant from the National Science Foundation allowed me to conduct my research in Taiwan and China. The ACLS/Melon Dissertation Completion Fellowship has supported the writing of the dissertation. I also thank the History Department at Harvard University for funding my graduate studies. No word can express my gratitude to my parents, who have patiently maintained their faith in me throughout the extremely long period of my graduate studies. I dedicate this dissertation to them. As always, Evan Lampe has been the most supportive and inspiring companion one can ever ask for. He carefully read the dissertation and gave many valuable comments. I also appreciate him for inventing “Daddy-Daughter Days” when he took our daughter, Ninel, to playgrounds, parks, and movies so I could focus on writing without interruption. Ninel was born in the first week I started my Ph.D. program at Harvard. I thank her for adding more human dimensions and adventures to my academic life. ix INTRODUCTION A couple recent events highlight the temporal and spacial dimensions of modern Chinese ethno-nationalism. On August 8, 2008, with unprecedented global media attention fixed on the opening ceremony of the 29th Olympic Games in Beijing, an article appeared on China’s official newspaper Renmin ribao (People’s Daily) celebrating the inauguration of the great event. Entitled “A Historical Fusion of a Great Nation and a Great Games," the article started, with much elation, by describing the last section of the Olympic torch relay that took place during the day: Early this morning, the Olympic torch, which has been passed on through the hands of more than 20,000 torch bearers in more than 100 cities of the five continents, was relayed from the Peking Man site at Zhoukoudian once inhabited by ancestors of the Chinese once inhabited, and will reach the cauldron located in the Bird’s Nest Stadium later tonight. The opening of the 29th Olympic Games marks the arrival of a long awaited great moment. This glorious historical moment congeals with the unswerving pursuit of a people; it records the steadfastly progressive steps of a nation; and it is filled with true desires of the Chinese sons and daughters (huaxia ernü) for friendship and peace with peoples of the world.1 The choice of Zhoukoudian as the starting site of the torch relay on the day of the opening is significant not only because Peking Man was one of the first hominids to use fire, but he was also seen as the common ancestor of the Chinese. Thus the route from Zhoukoudian to the Bird’s Nest symbolized the long journey of the “Chinese” from their prehistoric origins to a recognized place as a great nation
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