Description
Book SynopsisThis 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.
Trade Review"Koen Wellens' deeply serious book on the Premi clearly is a marvelous contribution to the study of precisely these wider issues of how people on the margins of civilizations negotiate their forced incorporation into imposing state machineries . . ."
-- Magnus Fiskesjo * Anthropos *
"This is the work that anthropologists of southwest China have been looking forward to. . . . [It] fills in the ethnogaphic gap of English -speaking anthropology on the Tibetan-Yi corridor . . . is full of insightful observations that only intensive fieldwork can render."
-- Liang Yongjia * Asian Ethnology *
"Wellens is to be commended for the detailed and grounded manner in which he reveals the complexities of the historical, linguistic, and ethnic makeup of the Tibetan borderlands and the care with which he documents Premi culture."
-- Gerald Roche * China Review International *
"The author . . . convincingly reminds readers that Muli's ordinary people have successfully adapted external religious doctrines to their own syncretic practices and rituals, despite the state's hegemonic classifications in an invincible worldly system."
-- Shao-Hua Liu * Pacific Affairs *
". . . a fine ethnographic example of 'thick description' . . . [T]his balanced and thoughtful piece of scholarship . . . gives fascinating insights into the role of certain social actors in several Premi villages and of the social complexities in play between ritual, religion, ethnicity and the power of China's nationality politics."
-- Mona Schrempf * Journal of Asian Studies *
Table of ContentsForeword by Stevan Harrell
Preface
Acknowledgments
On Language and Orthography
Map of Research Area in Southwest China
Map of Bustling Township
Introduction
1. Muli: The Political Integration of a Lama Kingdom
2. Bustling Township: A Muli Township in the Post-Mao Era
3. The Premi House: Ritual and Relatedness
4. Premi Cosmology: Ritual and the State
5. Modernity in Yunnan: Religion and the Pumizu
Conclusion
Epilogue
Glossary
Notes
Bibliography
Index
