Contesting the yellow dragon : ethnicity, religion, and the state in the Sino-Tibetan borderland

Bibliographic Information

Contesting the yellow dragon : ethnicity, religion, and the state in the Sino-Tibetan borderland

by Xiaofei Kang and Donald S. Sutton

Brill, 2018

  • : paperback

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Note

Includes bibliographical references (p. [425]-456) and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

This book is the first long-term study of the cultural politics of the Sino-Tibetan frontier. Combining historical research and fieldwork, Xiaofei Kang and Donald Sutton examine northern Sichuan from early Ming through Communist revolution to the age of global tourism, tracing relationships and mutual influence among Tibetans, Chinese, Hui Muslims, Qiang and others over some 600 years. Their focus is on the old Chinese garrison city of Songpan and the nearby pilgrimage center of Huanglong, or Yellow Dragon. Declining to isolate religious from other social and political expressions, they demonstrate that in its many forms-popular and official, scriptural and unwritten, monastic, priestly and shamanic, personal and informal-religion has long been crucial in imagining, constructing and manipulating local social relations on this frontier. Bon and Buddhist sects sustained communities among Tibetan or proto-Tibetan populations; and Daoism and Chinese Buddhism (and for some, Islam) helped to establish frontier identities in a diverse population of migrants and soldiers. The Chinese state has contended with, exploited and at times tried to extinguish the soft power of religion in its long effort to dominate this region and (more recently) push it towards modernity. A Choice Outstanding Academic Title Winner for 2016 in the anthropology category

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii List of Figures and Photographs x Abbreviations xi Note on Ming shilu and Qing shilu xii Note on Tibetan Terms xiii Introduction 1 1 Garrison City in the Ming: Indigenes and the State in Greater Songpan 16 2 Qing Songpan: Recovery, Over-extension and Disaster 69 3 Guns, Gold, Gown, and Poppy: Ethnic Frontier in a Failing Republic 123 4 Sharing a Sacred Center: Conch Mountain of the East, Yellow Dragon, and Chinese and Tibetan Culture 171 5 Songpan, the State and Social Revolution, 1950-78 223 6 Opening Up the Borderland I: The Politics of Tourist Development and Environmental Protection 277 7 Opening Up the Borderland II: Ethnicity for Tourists 311 8 Contesting the Yellow Dragon in the Age of Reform: Local Initiatives and Responses 334 9 Ethnoreligion, Ethnic Identity and Regional Consciousness at Songpan 375 Conclusion 410 Bibliography 425 Appendix: Religious Activities in the Songpan Region 457 Tibetan Glossary 468 Index 471

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