The Association Between Clan,Religion And Ethnic Identity

Tangwang,Dongxiang autonomous county,Linxia,Gansu,This area is a multicultural community,most people who live here always hold a quite complicated ethnic identity.Many Clans has been converted to Islamic culture during the history.Hence formed a special group of muslim people,which called 'Benjia Muslim' by the locals.After the republic was founded,the government started the work of minority identification,the phenomenon split up:This Islamic identity separated into two parts,the Hui Muslim identity and the Dongxiang Muslim identity group.An interesting phenomenon shows,as the minority identity continues to be practiced,the residents also keep a fervent worship towards their ancestors.Hence the contact among these groups of people brings a lot patter which called 'frequently penetration' in academia.In Tangwang,the cultural contact pattern among minorities is appreciated by the government in its way,and it also draws attention of the researchers and has become an hot issue.Compared with the penetration through 'cultural boundaries' observed by researchers in the past,this survey reveals that in daily practice this boundary is not vague and easy to cross.Based on some particular social event,the locals have developed their collective consciousness.The more interesting thing is that the ethnicity expression is not well developed during contact,it is not tightly interwoven into the social relations.During the interaction among the groups,the genealogical relation was stressed,instead of the ethnic one.In another word,the express of ethnic identity is not complete.To stress the Clan relationship but neglect the Minzu identity is an usual way.Under the influence of clanism,Tangwang people has developed a clear identity of their community,and it is obviously differ from the others,whether from the insider perspective or the perspective of other nearby residents.Because all the local groups hold on the notion of their clan,this paper will set the breakthrough point on their notion towards clan continuity.This research retrospects the origination of "One clan,two faiths and three minzus ",includes the reason for its existence and the way of its being.And also discuss about the imperfection in ethnicity.This paper also will try to prove and explain two thing,the first is imperfection of the ethnicity expression,the second one is the ethnogenesis of Tangwang people,and try to reveal two phenomenons was both effected by the same reason.These observations will be the key point to understand their ethnic relation,clan,the relationship between government and local,as well as the complicated social interaction.First,during this research I finished an ethnography of Tangwang,and this ethnography will be the background and surroundings for the following research.After explain the Chinese definition of 'Minzu','Clan' and 'Religion',we start to retrieve the information through history,Include the central government' s attitudes toward Islamic people.By this we can clear up the process and the way how different identities rise up and develop in Tangwang,Which will be described as aforementioned "One clan,two faiths and three minzus”.This paper collected every ethnic's perspective and express about their clan identity,then made a whole comparison,we found out that the cultural boundary based on ethnic identity is not always so vague.Meanwhile,the clan notion was stressed continually.So the relationship between these two identities will be the answer to incomplete express of their ethnicity,also it will explain why they stress so much on their clan identity and frequently neglect the ethnic side.At the end,I will depict the formation of Tangwang identity,linked it with the incompleteness of ethnic identity,Hence,help to seek more understanding about the complicated interaction among the authority,the local society and different ethnic groups.This paper leads to a conclusion:Effected by clanism and their clan notion,the express of Tangwang people's ethnicity expression is incomplete.Which means the clan identity is much more important than the ethnic one.Also,the incomplete ethnic identity and the Tangwang identity work together will reveal the complicated interaction among the clan,the local society and the government.