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The Naxi and the Mosuo (who are officially considered a part of the Naxi) are peoples living in northwestern Yunnan Province of China. Anthropologist Mathieu investigates the histories of these groups through a reading of textual sources, local and imperial historiography, oral tradition, and religious ceremonial texts. Her major objective is to describe the process by which the tribes oriented towards Tibet were transformed into vassal subjects of the Chinese empire. She also seeks to elucidate the ethnic relationship between the Naxi and Mosuo. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).
The present volume offers a dozen studies of manuscripts of the Tibetan Bon and Naxi Dongba traditions across time and space. While some of the contributions focus on particular features of manuscripts from either tradition, others explicitly bridge the two by considering common codicological and material aspects of selected examples or common themes in the content of the texts. This is the first primarily object-based study to deal with the cultural history and technology of books from the two traditions. It discusses collections of Bon and Naxi manuscripts, the concepts and history of both traditions, the science and technology of book studies as it relates to these collections, the relationship between text and image, writing materials, and the historical and archaeological context of the manuscripts' places of origin. The authors are specialists in different fields including philology, anthropology, art history, codicology and archaeometry. The contributions shed light on trade routes, materials and technologies as well as on reading practices and ritual usage of Bon and Naxi manuscripts.
Revival of religious practices of all sorts in China, after decades of systematic government suppression, is a topic of considerable interest to scholars in disciplines ranging from religious studies to anthropology to political science. This book examines contemporary religious practices among the Premi people of the Sichuan-Yunnan-Tibet area, a group of about 60,000 who speak a language belonging to the Qiang branch of Tibeto-Burman. Koen Wellens's ethnographic research in two Premi communities on opposite sides of the border, and his analysis of available historical documents, find multiple advocates and rationales for the revival of both formal Tibetan Buddhism and the indigenous Premi practices centered on ritual specialists called anji. Wellens argues that the variety in the shape the revitalization process takes--as it affects Premi on the Sichuan side of the border and their counterparts on the Yunnan side--can only be understood in a local cultural context. This full-length study of the Premi, the first in a language other than Chinese, makes a valuable contribution to our ethnographic knowledge of Southwest China, as well as to our understanding of contemporary Chinese religious and cultural politics.
This exhilarating book interweaves the stories of two early twentieth-century botanists to explore the collaborative relationships each formed with Yunnan villagers in gathering botanical specimens from the borderlands between China, Tibet, and Burma. Erik Mueggler introduces Scottish botanist George Forrest, who employed Naxi adventurers in his fieldwork from 1906 until his death in 1932. We also meet American Joseph Francis Charles Rock, who, in 1924, undertook a dangerous expedition to Gansu and Tibet with the sons and nephews of Forrest’s workers. Mueggler describes how the Naxi workers and their Western employers rendered the earth into specimens, notes, maps, diaries, letters, books, photographs, and ritual manuscripts. Drawing on an ancient metaphor of the earth as a book, Mueggler provides a sustained meditation on what can be copied, translated, and revised and what can be folded back into the earth.
While official Chinese history has always been written from a centrist viewpoint, Chieftains into Ancestors describes the intersection of imperial administration and chieftain-dominated local culture in the culturally diverse southwestern region of China. Contemplating the rhetorical question of how one can begin to rewrite the story of a conquered people whose past was never transcribed in the first place, the authors combine anthropological fieldwork with historical textual analysis to build a new regional history – one that recognizes the ethnic, religious, and gendered transformations that took place in China’s nation-building process.
Reconstructs a theoretic parent cosmology that underlies ancient religion • Shows how this parent cosmology provided the conceptual origins of written language • Uses techniques of comparative cosmology to synchronize the creation traditions of the Dogon, ancient Egyptians, and ancient Buddhists • Applies the signature elements of this parent cosmology to explore and interpret the creation tradition of a present-day Tibetan/Chinese tribe called the Na-Khi--the keepers of the world’s last surviving hieroglyphic language Great thinkers and researchers such as Carl Jung have acknowledged the many broad similarities that exist between the myths and symbols of ancient cultures. One largely unexplored explanation for these similarities lies in the possibility that these systems of myth all descended from one common cosmological plan. Outlining the most significant aspects of cosmology found among the Dogon, ancient Egyptians, and ancient Buddhists, including the striking physical and cosmological parallels between the Dogon granary and the Buddhist stupa, Laird Scranton identifies the signature attributes of a theoretic ancient parent cosmology--a planned instructional system that may well have spawned these great ancient creation traditions. Examining the esoteric nature of cosmology itself, Scranton shows how this parent cosmology encompassed both a plan for the civilized instruction of humanity as well as the conceptual origins of language. The recurring shapes in all ancient religions were key elements of this plan, designed to give physical manifestation to the sacred and provide the means to conceptualize and compare earthly dimensions with those of the heavens. As a practical application of the plan, Scranton explores the myths and language of an obscure Chinese priestly tribe known as the Na-Khi--the keepers of the world’s last surviving hieroglyphic language. Suggesting that cosmology may have engendered civilization and not the other way around, Scranton reveals how this plan of cosmology provides the missing link between our macroscopic universe and the microscopic world of atoms.
The Brag 'go Wolf Begging Ritual (Spyang sprang) (007-22) Mgon po tshe ring Local History in A mdo: The Tsong kha Range (Ri rgyud) (023-97) Tuttle, Gray Stag rig Tibetan Village: Hair Changing and Marriage (151-217) 'brug mo skyid, Charles Kevin Stuart, Alexandru Anton-Luca, and Steve Frediani Sustainable Development of Monastic Tourism in Tibetan Areas (219-250) Pad ma 'tsho Matrilineal Marriage in Tibetan Areas in Western Sìchuān Province (251-280) Mǐn, Féng Collecting Water From the Yellow River (281-296) Ring mtsho and Tshe-ring-bsam-grub Review-Hartley, L and P Schiaffini-Vedani (eds). 2008. Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change. (297-301) Thurston, Timothy Review-Wu Yazhi 吴雅芝. 2006. Zui hou de chuanshuo: elunchun zu wenhua yanjiu 最后的传说：鄂伦春族文化研 (The Final Legend: Research on Oroqen Culture). (303-306) Henochowicz, Anne Story-A Bleeding Watermelon (307-311) Nor bzang Folktale-The King of Seven Seeds (313-320) Bsod nams rgyal mtshan A New Investigation of the Geographic Position of the Báilán Capital of the Tŭyùhún (99-150) Shìkuí, Zhū, and Chéng Qĭjùn
Hidden in the tropical mountains of China’s southern border lives one of the most interesting Chinese minorities: The Jino nationality. With a population of only 21,000 people they are one of the less known ethnic groups in China, who in the past were often confused with the surrounding minorities. The study of their culture started only in the last decades of the 20th century and showed the world an ethnic group characterized for the strength with which they preserved their matriarchal tendencies and their surprising adaptability to their tropical environment. The shadow of their former matriarchy, and of their goddesses, was found everywhere in the Jino life and culture, as a giant umbrella that covered their main activities, especially prominent in their myths and legends, as well as in the spiritual life that directed their everyday activities: farming and hunting, house building, village ceremonies and rituals performed by their main religious specialists. The apparent simplicity of this original society slowly revealed a complex technology developed by hundreds of years of adaptation to their particular environment, a technology that allowed them to continuously inhabit lands that otherwise would have been fit for habitation only for a short time. At the heart of this technology was a reverential respect for the mother earth, embodied especially as the Goddess of the Fields and the Lady of the Beasts, and a common exhaustive knowledge of the different kinds of soils, their responses to the changing climatic conditions, to the seasonal weather oscillations, and to different rice varieties. Their ideas about the characteristics of their soils basically correspond with modern geological classifications; their calendar of 11 months (designed to remember the main steps in the creation process of the goddess Amoyaobai) fits perfectly with their agricultural activities; their knowledge of more than 100 varieties of rice allowed them to optimally use every natural resource.
Asian Horizons is published in honour of the great scholar of Asia, Professor Giuseppe Tucci (1894–1984). Through the work of present-day scholars, both senior and emerging, this volume represents their efforts to maintain the impetus of the profound legacy Tucci left. Renowned to this day as a founding scholar in an extraordinarily wide variety of disciplines, as well as being an explorer of hitherto largely unknown lands, such as Tibet, Tucci gained a deep knowledge of Asia through a familiarity with its people, places and literature. His contribution to modern scholarship is nothing less than remarkable. The volume reflects the broad variety of topics in which Tucci himself displayed deep interest and serves as an homage to his work.
Are there 10,000-year-old secret societies that still exist today? Was there a race of giants that once inhabited the Americas? Did ancient Egypt and ancient China have heretofore undiscovered ties? Lost Secrets of the Gods delves into these ancient mysteries and many more in articles by some of the world’s most intrepid and knowledgeable researchers. The old paradigms of history are being radically transformed as we discover more evidence of little-known cultures and what they achieved. Many ancient cultures spoke and wrote of visitors that gave them knowledge and helped shape their societies. Who were they, and where did they come from? We now know that many ancient cultures had advanced knowledge of science, agriculture, and astronomy, only some of which has been rediscovered in the last 100 years. Were The Iliad and The Odyssey really about an epic struggle in pre-Celtic Europe? What happened to the Persian army that completely disappeared from Egypt 2,500 years ago? Did the ancients know how to create psychic guard dogs to protect sacred sites? There is much more to history than what has officially been recorded. Lost Secrets of the Gods reveals startling truths and asks fascinating questions traditional historians have long ignored.