In The Civilization And The Wilds

Tunpu(garrison towns),as they've been called today,are the result of the historical process of imperial administration in Guizhou in the Ming Dynasty.The inhabitants in this special community were once frontier warriors who,along with their families,migrated from the eastern and central part of the Ming Empire to defend the corridor to Yunnan. Since territories of Guizhou were mostly occupied by minority people in the Ming Dynasty, most neighbors of the Tunpu frontier towns are minority villages in close contact with the Tunpu settlements.This interactive process epitomizes the imperial civilization project performed in China's southwestern frontiers.And with the social and cultural transformation from Empire to nation-state,Tunpu ceased to be a constituent agency of the "empire",yet,until today,the inhabitants still retain part of the legacy formed in the constant interaction with imperial civilization projects.This dissertation offers an in-depth case study of the civilization process at Jiuxi,a Tunpu village community located in central Guizhou.It explores how this village imitated, reassigned and recreated a set of symbols and ideas from the cultural-political repertoire of "empire",and how distinctive ideas of civilization were historically and morally constituted at this local setting.Since the custom("su") of Tunpu communities is not a "primary" or spontaneous one,I propose a concept of "lisu"-custom("su") imbued with li(i.e., "Civilization",or "rites" in A.R.Radcliffe-Brown's sense).Following this concept,this dissertation intends to accomplish the following three analytical tasks:(1) By tracing the interactions in the Tunpu people's life and production,and order, ethics and morality embedded in the process,I intend to highlight inside and outside exchanges,and social life constituted by successive generations in Tunpu.I propose that morality and specific historicity of the social life of Tunpu people is imbued with "vitality".(2) By revealing the temporality and the sense of space of the Tunpu people,I try to explore how various temples and rituals/ceremonies formed special-temporal order and moral models,and what these order and models are.In addition,I investigate how Tunpu people understand and practice their cultural schema which on one hand emphasize the divisions such as inside and outside,high and low status etc.,and on the other hand peruse the integration of the division.(3) Aiming at the local knowledge and history of the Tunpu village,I further analyze the personhood,social consciousness,history/memory and moral cosmology at the local setting.By analyzing historically the pedigree of spirit,temple,myths,legends,and ritual opera,I explore the local process and its historicity in the rituals/ceremonies of Tunpu,as well as how the rituals/ceremonies constructed social nexus beyond individuals and villages.Focusing on these three issues,this dissertation addresses that the local lisu life contained a history of enlightenment and civilization.And with the hierarchy of inside/outside,high/low,male/female,civilized/savage etc,and the exchange relationship performed in the practice of li,this dissertation also makes an effort in understanding that the social and historical meaning of li,and believe the meaning is that in the Chinese social life,it is the practice and process of keeping between civilization and barbarism that integrate the society and even the whole world.And this case study is also a profitable attempt to the ethnographic research on large-scale civilized societies.