Chieftains into Ancestors: Imperial Expansion and Indigenous Society in Southwest China
David Faure (Ed.)
Chinese history has always been written from a centrist viewpoint, largely ignoring the local histories that were preserved for generations in the form of oral tradition through myths, legends, and religious ritual.
Chieftains into Ancestors describes the intersection of imperial administration and chieftain-dominated local culture. Observing local rituals against the backdrop of extant written records, it focuses on examples from the southwestern Hunan, Guangxi, Yunnan, and southwestern Guangdong provinces. The authors contemplate the crucial question of how one can begin to write the history of a conquered people whose past has been largely wiped out. Combining anthropological fieldwork with historical textual ... Read more
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About David Faure (Ed.)
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