Empire Periphery: Study On Native Chieftain System Of West Guangxi From A View Of Historical Anthropology

The panoramic imagination on world distinguished"center"and "border" territorially and culturally in the history of imperial China, which resulted in special non-Chinese polity i.e. jimi System, and later native chieftain system over those "uncivilized areas" in border provinces in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Exactly, West Guangxi is located in the "border"of border regions, which was also deeply affected by the exercises of native chieftain system during this period.Inevitably overwhelmed by the "Han-centralism" consciousness embedded in the whole country, the local practices of native chieftain system over border provinces was actually corresponded to the "center-border" dividing construction in central government's effort. Specifically, the native chieftaincies attempted to strengthen their regional sovereignty by means of acting as a Chinese franchise and a non-Chinese system, the authorities originated in central plains thus shared locally and incorporated by frontier societies systematically and symbolically. From this point of view, the process of peripheral elites' weaving local network culturally and powerfully reflected that of the "civilization" from central to border. In the dual processes, native chieftain system played an intermediate role between the "civilized" and the "uncivilized", further revealing its properties of outward authority-constructing and inward culture-assimilating. Through this system, empire could make its borders under control, on the basis of which west Guangxi frontier societies developed and the ethnic recognitions and cultural definition depended.This paper concerns the structuralization of native chieftain rule in west Guangxi in cultural perspective through specific case, in order to get some idea of who national discourse functioned in the formation of chieftain societies and of its subsequent impact. Most important go all, the demonstration of native chieftaincies promoted strong commitment to "Han-centered" culture and state, which greatly helped the formation of nation-culture identification and the melting of multi-cultures. Thus a specific history-scape of Chinese nation-state is reappeared by the native chieftain system exercised in empire frontier of hundred years ago.