From The Customary Law To Villagers' Autonomy

The Customary Law, which is the legal institution and social organization with the characters of self-defence and self-government, was drawn up to seek the existent development and social stability of the Yao people in Dayao Mountain. The Customary Law of Hualan Yao is also a tool for regulating local order, a type of norms of behavior and a dynamic local laws and regulations. It is compatible with the Hualan Yao's cultures in her long history. It is shaped not in an overnight, but through a long historical process. Meanwhile its formation and development derived from many reasons, such as the Hualan Yao's painful history, the scarcity of land resources, adverse living environments, the relatively low living level, the systems of Hualan Yao's life, marriage and production and so on. In the course of their history it has played important functions, such as an inter-generational transferring and the effective extension of family, implication and heritage of culture, maintaining unity and stability in the community. Nowadays, it also have played a proper role in the building a harmonious socialist new rural area. The Customary Law has a unique position and special meaning in their development history.After the reform and opening in China, the Customary Law of Hualan Yao in Liuxiang village has take some big changes owing to these multiple causes, such as the impact of different ethnic cultures, the wishes of economic development, the influence of urban civilization, the updating of the younger generation's concept and so on. Meanwhile this article tries to expect the trend of its changes in the future. In the process of building the ethnic group's legal system, as a"small tradition", Hualan Yao's Customary Law should play an active role in the local legal resources. And it should develop a certain interaction with the national laws; make a proper contribution to construction of the new countryside.The main characteristics of this article, it has put forward some newer viewpoints through the analysis on the Customary Law's emergence, development and the process of transmutation. These viewpoints, the emergence of new Customary Law is to inherit the old Customary Law, which has finished its own historical mission in a new historical period; the transmutation of the Customary Law is the inevitable result of the social development, its transmutation reflected the union of the Chinese nation; its transmutation has been affording the minority areas some good experiences to carry out the autonomy; and also supplying the minorities some significance for the construction of the legal system.