Abstract
By investigating the transformation of social institutions in northwest Guizhou during the Ming-Qing period, this paper attempts to explore how a non-Han society, which had its own indigenous script, rituals, institutions and culture, might have integrated with the Chinese state.
Prior to the establishment of the chieftaincy (tusi), the Yi people in northwest Guizhou already had their own script and had also established a unique form of leadership called “gou.” The Yuan and the Ming governments made every effort to expand to the southwest and thus established the imperial native chieftain system in northwest Guizhou. The gou system continued to exist, but the presence of the tusi had profoundly changed many aspects of this form of leadership. The establishment of primogeniture as the rule of inheritance, the appointment of Han people to the gou authority, and imperial intervention in the inheritance practices among various gou rulers are all illustrative of the changes in the gou system in northeast Yunan and northwest Guizhou.
By the Kangxi period (1662-1722), the gou authority had fallen apart after a series of military campaigns. The Qing government abolished the native chieftainship and brought the indigenous population under state control by imposing the imperial lijia (household registration) system on the zexi (the unit of territories under the gou system). Under the Qing local administrative hierarchy, northwest Guizhou became the “New Territory” of the imperial empire. Although the Qing government could exercise more control over local affairs than its Ming predecessor, the established tumu (local chiefs) still played an important role in local society and assisted imperial officials considerably in handling taxation and judicial affairs. To some extent, the presence of the tumu affirms the continued existence of Yi institutions within the new political and cultural environment. Nonetheless, the decline in bumo status (priests who performed important administrative duties within the gou authority), and the power struggle between the tumu, imperial officials, the rising gentry, and the indigenous population, also reflect the challenge presented to Yi institutions by the newly imposed political institutions and ideologies. Gradually, northwest Guizhou came to be considered “old territory”. By the 1950s, the Yi system completely gave way to the central administrative hierarchy, however the system still left a mark on the historical memory of the indigenous people, and traces of it are still discernible in their lives today.
Keywords
Yi people, Guizhou, tusi (native chieftain), gaitu guiliu (replacing native chieftain with imperial officials), Ming-Qing
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