A Study On Folk Social Support System And Its Concept Condition Of Nuosu Society In Yunnan Province

In Nuosu society, social support behaviors can be divided into two parts:the obligatory and reciprocal. The former has been carried out mainly within the lineages, and it is related with people's identity. The latter exists widely in all kinds of social relationships such as in-laws, neighborhoods, friends embeded in their cultural traditions, and influenced by the outside world. The obligatory social support behaviors follow the principle of customs and were carried out in a fixed way with strong symbolic meanings. And it is a reference frame for reciprocal support behaviors, holding central in Nuosu culture. The reciprocal social support behaviors happen more frequently and flexibly in reality, and that they have played a substantial role in people's every day life, being on an assistant cultural status. In this way, the social support system of Nuosu people presents a support-assistant model.The forming of this system is based on Nuosu people's awareness the limitations of human being. Acknowledge the limitation of man is also acknowledging the particularity of human being as well as the natural environment and the social conditions that they involve. Then, the existing of ascribed status differences among people turns reasonable. And it becomes understandable for the phenomenon of certain elements and principles hold a supporting status while others are on the assistant status. This idea is right the condition forming the support-assistant system in Nuosu culture.In the first chapter of this thesis I introduce the principles that Nuosu people follow in their social support activities and elaborate the structure of the support-assistant model. In the next three chapters, I describe the practices of obligatory social support behaviors and the reciprocal one according to the material I collected in my fieldworks. In chapter five, I describe the process that people transform some certain elements which belong to the assistant social support into the supporting one through lineage's meetings and other activities.In chapter six, I analyze the support-assistant model in other aspects of Nuosu culture. From there on, in the last chapter, I discuss the concept conditions that the social support system formed in Xiao Liangshan society. That is the accepting of the limitations in human nature.