摘要
The purpose of this article is to examine the ethnicity theories of social anthropology in the case of the Ch'iang people, and, taking these theories into account, to examine the authenticity of assertions about ethnic units underlying most ethnohistoric study of the Ch'iang. The ethnography of the Ch'iang demonstrates that the ethnic boundaries of the Ch'iang cannot be delineated by objectively cultural traits as well as subjective believes in common origin and ethnonym. Actually, when interacting with the Han Chinese, the Ch'iang declare dualistic ethnonyms and ethnogenesises. For thousands of years, the history of the Ch'iang was written and rewritten by Chinese historians. In doing so, the problem of "who were the Ch'iang", how to define an ethnic unit, and the distinction between autonym and exonym were generally ignored. Therefore, while Chinese historians were describing the Ch'iang as other people, they were actually delineating their own ethnic boundaries.
The case of the Ch'iang also demonstrates the complexity of the ethnic phenomenon among people who have lived in or near by literate civilizations.
Ethnicity among them seems to be a discourse between history and reality. Emic ethnogenesis is a kind of selectively collective memory, or pseudo-history, by which people cohere into an ethnic group. Etic ethnogenises is the interpretation of a people's origins by others as an ideological tool for justifying ethnic relations. Thus, in the changing context of resource competition, people stress, modify and forget their emic ethnogenesis, or accept an etic ethnogenesis to maintain or to adjust their ethnic boundaries.