The Study Of Family Of Chieftain He Suonan In Hezhou

A large number of families of ethnic group in Hehuang region, who multiplied endlessly, stretched unbrokenly and well established and vigorously developed after experienced the changes of dynasties, have made a strong impact in history. However, when it comes to the exotic flowers of family history in China, it is pity that the academic field did incomprehensive research to pay more attention on historical investigation, instead of all-round, multi-angle and comprehensive research of the historical evolution, political contributions, economic base, cultural continuity, internal organization, management system, special family traditions, spiritual thoughts, religious belief. Actually, only by the way of comprehensive research, these families of ethnic group could become lifelike, vividly and stereoscopically. In this paper, the author attempted to take the famous family of He Suonan in Hehuang region for an example, used the research approach of organizing historical materials and investigating in field and combined the historical investigation with anthropological theory to analyze deeply from multi- perspectives of culture, family, religion and historical memory. In the process of analysis, the author used chronological order as the vertical axis, and family personages, family culture and religion as the horizontal axis, to display comprehensively and systematically the development of the family in several hundred years of history.The paper, which was divided into five chapters except the introduction, has described the contents of the general situation of the Hehuang area, the lineage of He Suonan and his family, the cultural changes, the patriarchal domination and the religion of He Suonan family.The first chapter mainly described the historical evolution of Hezhou, the establishment of Hezhou Guarding Post and the main chieftains in Hezhou. Hezhou was the area of the ancient Tibetan originally. In the period of the Eastern Jin Dynasty and Sixteen Kingdoms, the area was named firstly after six counties of Xingjin, Daxia, Yongjin, Wucheng, Jinchen and Wushi have been combined into Hezhou. In 4th year of Hongwu (1371). Zhu Yuanzhang, the emperor of Ming Dynasty, set up the Hezhou Guarding Post to administer military and civilian, which became the unique management of the official and the chieftain co-governing. But the chieftain was subordinated by the official. Later, the government continued to pursue the chieftain system, and conferred a large dozens of chieftains.The second chapter did textual research on the lineage of He Suonan family. In the end of Yuan Dynasty, He Suonan was the head of Tibetan in Gan Su and Qing Hai province. In the early of Ming Dynasty, he surrendered to the government. The hereditary position of the family, which was passed through 19 generations in about 560 years, was abrogated until the early of Republic of China. The family of He Suonan has occupied a very important position in the political history in the Northwest.The third chapter explained the cultural changes of He Suonan family from the Anthropology perspective. The author analyzed the identity crisis and cultural adaptation of the minority family at the edge of the ethnic group by approaching the causes of cultural change of He Suonan family and its influence.The fourth chapter discussed the patriarchal domination of He Suonan family. The systems of chieftain inheritance, the internal organization and management of family, the relationship between the chieftain and the subordinated people, ancestor worship, has become the cornerstone of maintaining the rule and order of the family.The final chapter discussed the religious system of pluralism in unity of He Suonan family. The religious beliefs of He Suonan family presented the distinctive characteristics of multiculturalism to take in everything because of locating in the meeting place of Confucian culture, Tibetan culture, and Islamic culture.In short, the author tried to combine the literature research with field survey, has done the comprehensive and systematic research on He Suonan family, a famous chieftain in Hezhou, from the perspective of historical anthropology, and examined closely the complex relationship from a brand new perspective among the nationalities and interaction between the families of ethnic group and the central dynasties, even the whole China in history.