State and Ethnicity in China’s Southwest GUO_f1_i-x.indd i 3/26/2008 5:24:18 PM China Studies Published for the Institute for Chinese Studies University of Oxford Editors Glen Dudbridge Frank Pieke VOLUME 15 GUO_f1_i-x.indd ii 3/26/2008 5:24:19 PM State and Ethnicity in China’s Southwest By Xiaolin Guo LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008 GUO_f1_i-x.indd iii 3/26/2008 5:24:19 PM On the cover. Lugu Lake, photograph by Xiaolin Guo. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Guo, Xiaolin. State and ethnicity in China’s Southwest / by Xiaolin Guo. p. cm. — (China studies ; 15) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-16775-9 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Ethnicity—China—Yunnan Sheng. 2. Matrilineal kinship—China—Yunnan Sheng. 3. Patrilineal kinship— China—Yunnan Sheng. 4. Human ecology—China—Yunnan Sheng. 5. Politics and culture—China—Yunnan Sheng. 6. Yunnan Sheng (China)—Ethnic relations. 7. Yunnan Sheng (China)—Politics and government. 8. Yunnan Sheng (China)— Environmental conditions. I. Title. II. Series. GN635.C5G86 2008 305.800951’35—dc22 ISSN 1570-1344 ISBN 978 90 04 16775 9 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. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands GUO_f1_i-x.indd iv 3/26/2008 5:24:19 PM To Michael GUO_f1_i-x.indd v 3/26/2008 5:24:19 PM GUO_f1_i-x.indd vi 3/26/2008 5:24:19 PM CONTENTS List of Illustrations, Figures and Maps ...................................... ix Introduction ................................................................................ 1 Chapter One The Southwest Frontier .................................... 19 1.1 Imperial Rule ..................................................................... 20 1.2 Republican Nation Building .............................................. 31 1.3 Socialist Transformation .................................................... 41 Chapter Two Of Difference and Change ............................... 63 2.1 Varieties of Cultural Experience ....................................... 64 2.2 Kinship and Economy ....................................................... 81 2.3 Administered Development ............................................... 93 Chapter Three The Land of Women ..................................... 109 3.1 The People in Question .................................................... 110 3.2 Matrilineal Descent ............................................................ 123 3.3 Mosuo Livelihood .............................................................. 141 Chapter Four The Three-River Basin .................................... 161 4.1 Old Garrison Settlement ................................................... 162 4.2 Patrilineal Kinship ............................................................. 180 4.3 Rice Economy .................................................................... 197 Chapter Five Ethnicity and Government ............................... 215 5.1 Local Domination .............................................................. 216 5.2 State in Society .................................................................. 230 5.3 Preferential Policy at Work ................................................ 244 GUO_f1_i-x.indd vii 3/26/2008 5:24:19 PM viii contents Chapter Six Between the Interior and Frontier ...................... 265 6.1 Evolution of the Local State ............................................. 266 6.2 Rural Administration ......................................................... 279 6.3 Economic Imperative ......................................................... 296 Conclusion .................................................................................. 311 Bibliography ................................................................................ 321 Index ........................................................................................... 335 GUO_f1_i-x.indd viii 3/26/2008 5:24:19 PM LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS, FIGURES AND MAPS Illustrations On the cover: Lugu Lake (book cover in color) Plate 1: Mosuo residence (Chapter Three, p. 126) Plate 2: Kaiji River (Chapter Three, p. 143) Plate 3: Grazing cattle (Chapter Three, p. 148) Plate 4: The Three-River basin (Chapter 4, p. 163) Plate 5: Watchtower in Wengpeng village (Chapter 4, p. 167) Plate 6: Cuihu village (Chapter 4, p. 169) Plate 7: Han residence (Chapter 4, p. 186) Maps 1. Yunnan Province, (p. 16) 2. Ninglang County, (p. 17) 3. Yongsheng County, (p. 18) Figures 1. Basic Information of the Sites under Study (1992), (p. 11) 2. Yunnan Provincial Population by Nationality, (p. 50) 3. Divisions of the Solar Year in the Traditional Chinese Calendar, (p. 198) GUO_f1_i-x.indd ix 3/26/2008 5:24:20 PM GUO_f1_i-x.indd x 3/26/2008 5:24:20 PM INTRODUCTION If China as a realm and as a polity were analogous to an extended family, it would boast a long line of ancestry. Horizontally, its administra- tive divisions would equal the agnatic siblings that individually formed subordinate domestic units while sharing the commons with the rest of the extended family. In some generations the family expanded, while in others it contracted—depending on population growth, or decline, as affected by harvests, natural disasters, wars, epidemics, and other pre- dictable or unpredictable events. The incorporation of members from other descent groups through marriage (political alliance) or adoption (military conquest) not only impinged upon the life of those coming in but also of those receiving. Harmony was forever held as an ideal, perhaps only because the extended family as such was fraught with internal confl icts, and dis- integration remained a constant threat. In each generation (dynasty), the patriarch (the emperor) assumed the responsibility mandated by his ancestors for keeping the family estate (territory) intact. The parental authority (state machinery) played a key role in preventing, or at the very least postponing, the division of the family estate. Disputes were sometimes settled amicably through compromise (treaties), though at times coercive measures (suppression) were called for in order to maintain order. Eventually, the values of the traditional family clashed with modern concepts endorsing a simplifi ed domestic organization—each household assuming a separate identity—and ultimately decentralized property management. The structuring of the modern family, to take this analogy to its logical conclusion, corresponds to the construction of the nation state. But unlike the case of the transformation of human families, modern China as a nation state retains the form of the old empire: it is, metaphorically speaking, both a family and a ‘post-family.’ The tension inherent in this duality poses a major challenge to contemporary China’s political leaders as well as to those who study them and their policies, especially when concerned with the ethnically diverse peoples inhabiting the periphery of China. GUO_f2_1-18.indd 1 3/11/2008 9:03:50 PM 2 introduction Issues That Matter Dominating if not actually defi ning contemporary studies of China’s ethnic minorities are two recurring theses, both entrenched in the para- digm of the monolithic state: that of the Han and non-Han dichotomy, and that of cultural assimilation. The fi eld of anthropology seldom engages in in-depth analyses of local politics, much less of the operation of the Chinese state bureaucracy as a whole. Studies of the Chinese political economy, meanwhile, and quite predictably, marginalize the periphery. All too often, what we see is the product of a concept-driven approach to research that prefers to delimit rather than delineate. This present study of state and ethnicity seeks to merge the gap, with very different approaches to political integration. Emphasizing historically conditioned transformations, it explains the operation of the Chinese state on the national periphery and, simultaneously, the experience of this rule by local society as well as state agents. Pursuing change and continuity in social, political and economic circumstances where interac- tion between state and society occurs, this book illuminates variations in the state penetration of frontier societies, and the impact state and local society have on each other. Dichotomy of Han Versus Non-Han Early studies of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its policy towards ethnic minorities were fi xated more on the role of the trans- formative state than on ethnicity per se in relation to the nation (e.g. Dreyer 1976; Heberer 1989). The aftermath of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the ‘Eastern Bloc’ stimulated a greater awareness of ethnicity and growing academic interest in the subject. As a nation that is anything but ethnically uniform, China has since been viewed as increas- ingly in confl ict with the Western idea of the nation state. This confl ict or contradiction duly permeates studies of China’s ethnic minorities, with their focus