Yunnan Nujiang Lisu Christian Cultural Studies

The research background of my dissertation is the community of Lisu minority in the Grand Canyon of Nujiang River in the Sino-Burman frontier area of Yunnan Province, and the subject of study is the Christianity culture in Luda village, one of the villages of Lisu community with a long history and a colorful culture. The research demonstrates the evolution of the Christianity culture in Lisu community during the past 80 years.In the recent 20 years, the rapid rise of Christianity in China has received the widespread attention. Some scholars even use the word "blowout" to describe its quick development. As a result, religious research has become a heated phenomenon. However, most of the traditional researches on Christianity were conducted from the perspective of religion, sociology or history, while few of them studied from the angle of ethnology or anthropology. And even if they did, the focus was mainly on phenomenon without penetration under the surface to the underlying cause. In this dissertation, the author focuses on some historical events related to Christianity and tries to study the evolution of Christian culture against the background of the establishment of a nation-state through lateral and longitudinal analysis, and demonstrates the dynamic relation among Lisu minority culture, the Christianity culture and the Chinese culture. This article discovers the phenomenon of Lisu minority Christianity culture and discusses the underlying causes of the phenomena in order to acquire an in-depth comprehension about Lisu minority culture.Luda Village is located on the east hillside of Gaoligong Mountain, with Nujiang flowing rapidly day and night in canyon below. In front of it lies the beautiful snow mountain named Biluo. It is a Lisu community with a population of more than 700, and 80% of them are Christians. In 1912, there was a hard conflict between the boarder army and the local people. Twenty-three of the army men died and was buried there. A church was established in the village as early as in the 1920's. In 1934 the foreign missionaries also arrived here. They lived in the village for more than 12 years and translated the Bible and hymns. Three of them spent the rest of their lives there. Around 2007, the Fugong County State authority suggested that the tomb of the three army men died in the fight should be repaired, but the proposal was opposed hard by the local people of the Luda Village since their death was caused by their brutal deeds. The repairing of the tombs suggests justification of their cruel behavior. Soon, the local people proposed to renovate the grave for the missionaries. The government also firmly opposed at first, with the reason that Chinese's grave has not been repaired, how can they repair the graves for the people who came to China and made cultural invasion? After the proposal was rejected, the villagers discussed and decided to have the tomb repaired by the offspring of an orphan adopted a missionary. It is the responsibility of the descendant to repair the grave for the ancestors, and therefore the government had not any excuse to reject. In this way, the villagers integrated the missionaries into their local cultural structure, and turned official business into the private affair. A half year later, after several negotiations, an agreement was reached between the government and the local people on the repairing of the grave that Three-Self Committee participate in the repairing businesses. In this way, local actions had been changed into government actions. In April, 2008, a complement ceremony was held in Luda Village presided over by Three-Self Committee.As a subject research, this article narrates the history of the two tombs and their reconstruction, studied the construction of the tombs against its culture structure, demonstrates the Lisu history and the present situation by combing the national minority Christianity events happening during the 80 years in Luda Village, and explains the dialogue between the Lisu cultural system and other culture with the guidance of its own cultural schema.This paper includes the following parts: The introduction mainly introduces the research subject, the research method and the rationale of the topic. The first chapter introduces the background of the community. From the second chapter to the fifth chapter, the author introduces the original religious culture and the social life of the Lisu nationality, how they became Christians, and how they became sensible believers with the help of missionaries. This part focuses on analyzing the reasons for Lisu community to become Christians against the background of mainstream Chinese community. The sixth chapter describes the development of the Christian church Luda Village after China's liberation, and the re-emergence of certain indigenous religion cultural elements, such as rivalries among kinships, "chugu" (gathering harmful insects) and "tongling" (communication with spirits). This chapter mainly demonstrates that Lisu culture has its continuity in the evolution and that stability is one of the features of cultural structure. The seventh chapter demonstrates the Christian's present life of Luda Village, highlights the "the change" of Lisu national minority culture structure after adhering to Christianity, and explains that there could be dynamics in a relatively stable cultural structure. In the affair of repairing the tombs, the eighth chapter tries to find out how Lisu people carried out dialogues with the government by using their own cultural structure in their local autonomous space, and how the state carries out its own will. It shows the tension between them and their negotiation and reconciliation based on dialogues. The central government allows this minority community to live out its local value in their autonomous region while the local community acknowledges the presence of the central government and accepts the fact that they are one of the diversified elements under a centralized government. This pattern shows that apart from inevitable conflicts, there's room for them to conduct dialogues under a centralized government.This article is a historical chronicles about a village of Lisu minority. The author tries to show the 80 years of Christianity in Lisu community from different angles through an integrated research on both ethnology and history, and provide an overview of the research in the study of ethnology and anthropology.