The Hmong of China: Context, Agency, and the Imaginary

561 Pages·2002·25.05 MB·English

by  Nicholas Tapp

THE HMONG OF CHINA
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THE HMONG OF CHINA
Context, Agency, and the Imaginary
BY
NICHOLAS TAPP
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tapp, Nicholas.
The Hmong of China : context, agency, and the imaginary / by Nicholas
T~PP.
p. cm.
Originally published: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2001.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-391-04187-8
1. Hmong (Asian people)-China-History. 2. Hmong (Asian people)---
Kinship. 3. Hmong (Asian people)--Social life and customs. I. Title: Context,
agency, and the imaginary. 11. Title.
ISBN 0-391-04187-8
O Copyright 2001 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
For Jing
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It is CCzanne's genius that when the over-all composition of the
picture is seen globally, perspectival distortions are no longer
visible in their own right but rather contribute, as they do in
natural vision, to the impression of an emerging order, of an
object in the act of appearing, organizing itself before our eyes.
Merleau-Ponty; 'C6zanne's Doubt', Sense and Non-Sense, 1964
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CONTENTS
List of Diagrams. Figures. Illustrations and Tables ........................ xi
Acknowledgements ...................................................................... xv
Note on Orthography ....................................................................x vii
Foreword ....................................................................................... xix
..............
Part One: Contextualising the Hmong 1
Part Two: Walnut Village ...................... 63
Preamble .......................................................................................6. 5
Chapter One : The Village ......................................................... 73
Chapter Two : Some Identity Problems ..................................... 99
Chapter Three : Han Endogamy ................................................ 116
Chapter Four : Shamanism as HmongMan Practice ................ 146
Chapter Five : The Primacy of Death Rituals .......................... 169
Chapter Six : Ancestral Worship ............................................ 190
Chapter Seven : Lineage Composition of the Yang Village ....... 201
Chapter Eight : The Family of Yang Junming .......................... 229
........................................
Chapter Nine : Other Hmong Clans 252
Chapter Ten : The Wangwuzhai Weddings ............................ 268
Chapter Eleven : History and Conflict ......................................... 326
Part Three: Notions of Heroism and Agency ........ 355
Appendix I : Weixin Wedding Song ..................................... 433
Appendix I1 : How Rwg Ntxais Became a Tiger .................... 435
........
Appendix 111 : The Orphan and the Emperor's Daughter 439
Appendix IV : The Wooden Fish and the Hanging Drum ....... 444
Appendix V : The Orphan Who Carried Coal ........................ 447
Appendix VI : How the Orphan Killed the Tiger ..................... 451
Appendix VII : Kinship Terms ................................................. 454
..............
Appendix VIII : A Structural Analysis of the Legends 463
Appendix IX : A Note on Context ........................................... 469
Appendix X : List of Households ........................................ 473