Perspectives on the Yi of Southwest China (Studies on China)

Rating:
Summary: If you're interested in the Yi of SW China, read this book
Review: Harrell is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington and Acting Curator of Asian Ethnology at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. He is author of Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China (forthcoming) and Human Families (1997).

The government classifies all minorities into one of 56 minzu ("ethnic group"). Nearly seven million Yi people live in Yunnan (the majority), Sichuan, and Guizhou Provinces, with a few in Guangxi Province and Vietnam. That's more people than Danes, Israelis, or Cambodians. The Central and Western dialects of Yi are more closely related to Lisu and Lahu (languages of a separate minzu) than they are to the Northern, Eastern, Southeastern, and Southern branches of Yi. Although a large body of written material exists, there has been little produced that would hold up to the standards of Western scholarship.

In order to introduce the world to the Yi, Harrell convened a conference in 1995 made up of Chinese, Americans, French, and German scholars who attempted to understand each others' "discourse" about the Yi. In the (very) recent past, Westerners could hardly believe that the Chinese could be so dense in insisting upon the history for this category they call "Yi"; Chinese scholars couldn't believe that the Westerners could be so arrogant in ignoring the local knowledge they possessed of the area. The conference certainly did not minimize these differences, but it allowed both sides to begin to listen to each other. The book is definitely a hybrid (the two discourses do not reach a consensus and are confusing if the reader does not understand where the authors are coming from) and should be read remembering these two widely divergent discourses.

The chapters in section one draw primarily from Yi-language documentation to understand social and cultural history. Section two focuses on the Yi of Liangshan (a region that includes areas of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Panzhihua Municipality, and adjacent parts of Leshan and Ya'an Prefectures, as well as Ganze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan; and in adjacent parts of Yunnan, most particularly Ninglang Yi Autonomous County in Lijiang Prefecture). Almost all of these Yi belong to the Northern Dialect Group; they call themselves Nuosu. In fact, when one encounters material written about the Yi, it usually refers to the Nuosu. Section three covers Yi societies in Yunnan and Guizhou. Section four covers the Yi today and the unique problems that face them.

There are a number of really good articles in this book, particularly chapters 3, 4, 10, 12, 14, and 16. It seems that the Western authors try to speak the same language as the Chinese, refering to specific groups (such as the Lolopo, Nisu, or Nuosu) as Yi. Read carefully to understand that they do not view the Yi culture, language, and history as a monolith. I wish that this book contained more information about other Yi groups rather than focusing so much on the Nuosu but there probably hasn't been a huge amount of research done amongst the other 100 or so ethno-linguistic groups that make up what the government terms "Yi".