Architecture / Ethnic (CN)

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Ethnic Achang

More than 90 per cent of the 33,936 Achangs live in Longchuan, Lianghe and Luxi counties in the Dehong Dai-Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture in southwestern Yunnan Province. The rest live in Longling County in the neighboring Baoshan Prefecture.

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These areas are on the southern tip of the Gaoligong Mountains. The climate is warm; the land fertile, crisscrossed by the Daying and Longchuan rivers and their numerous tributaries. The river valleys contain many plains, the Fusa and Lasa being the largest of them. Dense forests populated by deer, musk deer and bears cover the mountain slopes. Natural resources, such as coal, iron, copper, lead, mica and graphite, abound.
Achangs speak a language belonging to the Tibetan-Myanmese language family of the Chinese-Tibetan system. Most Achangs also can speak Chinese and the language of Dais. Their written language is Chinese.

Ethnic Bai

Archaeological finds from Canger and Haimenkou show that the Erhai area was inhabited as early as the Neolithic Age, and artifacts of that period indicate that the people of the region used stone tools, engaged in farming, livestock rearing, fishing and hunting, and dwelt in caves. Possibly, they began to use bronze knives and swords and other metal tools about 2,000 years ago.

The people in the Erhai area developed closer ties with the Han majority in inland provinces in the Qin (221-207 B.C.) and Han (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) dynasties. In 109 B.C. the Western Han Dynasty set up county administrations and moved a large number of Han people to this border area. These people brought more advanced production techniques and iron tools, contributing to the economic development of the area. During the Sui (581-618) and Tang (618-907) dynasties, the farming there had reached a level close to that of the central plains.

Bai aristocrats backed by the Tang court unified the people of the Erhai area and established the Nanzhao regime of Yis and Bais. Its first chief, Piluoge, was granted the title of King of Yunnan by a Tang emperor.

Slaves were used to do heavy labor, while “free” peasants were subject to heavy taxation and forced to render various services including conscription into the army. Some of them, who lost their land, were made slaves.

Ethnic Bonan

The Bonan is one of China’s smallest ethnic minorities, with only 16,505 people. Its language belongs to the Mongolian branch of the Altaic language family and is close to that of the Tu and Dongxiang ethnic minorities. Due to long years of contacts and exchanges with the neighboring Han and Hui people, the Bonan people have borrowed quite a number of words from the Han language. The Han language is accepted as the common written language among the Bonans.

Judging from their legends, language features and customs, many of which were identical with those of the Mongolians, the Bonan minority seems to have taken shape after many years of interchanges during the Yuan and Ming (1271-1644) periods between Islamic Mongolians who settled down as garrison troops in Qinghai’s Tongren County, and the neighboring Hui, Han, Tibetan and Tu people. The Bonans used to live in three major villages in the Baoan region, situated along the banks of the Longwu River within the boundaries of Tongren County. During the early years of the reign of Qing Emperor Tongzhi (1862-1874), they fled from the oppression of the feudal serf owners of the local Lamaist Longwu Monastery. After staying for a few years in Xunhua, they moved on into Gansu Province and finally settled down at the foot of Jishi Mountain in Dahejia and Liuji, Linxia County. Incidentally, they again formed themselves into three villages — Dadun, Ganmei and Gaoli — which they referred to as the “tripartite village of Baoan” in remembrance of their roots.

Ethnic Blang

The Blang people, numbering 91,882, live mainly in Mt. Blang, Xiding and Bada areas of Menghai County in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in southwestern Yunnan Province. There are also scattered Blang communities in the neighboring Lincang and Simao prefectures. All the Blangs inhabit mountainous areas 1,500-2,000 meters above sea level. The Blangs in Xishuangbanna have always lived harmoniously with their neighbors of both the other minority nationalities and the majority Han.

The Blang people inhabit an area with a warm climate, plentiful rainfall, fertile soil and rich natural resources. The main cash crops are cotton, sugar-cane and the world famous Pu’er tea. In the dense virgin forests grow various valuable trees, and valued medicinal herbs such as pseudoginseng, rauwolfia verticillata (used for lowering high blood pressure) and lemongrass, from which a high-grade fragrance can be extracted. The area abounds in copper, iron, sulfur and rock crystal.

The Blangs speak a language belonging to the South Asian language family. The language does not have a written form, but Blangs often know the Dai, Va and Han languages.

According to historical records, an ancient tribe called the “Pu” were the earliest inhabitants of the Lancang and Nujiang river valleys. These people may have been the ancestors of today’s Blangs.

Ethnic Bouyei

Studies of the language, names and geographical distribution of the Bouyeis indicate that they have a common ancestry with the Zhuangs. The ancient Yue people, who were widely distributed, were composed of such ethnic groups as the Xiou and Louyue in Guangdong and Guizhou provinces and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. The similarity between the modern Zhuang and Bouyei languages and the ancient Louyue tongue is a strong indication of the origin of the Bouyeis. In addition, many habits and customs of the Yues still prevail among the Bouyeis.

For several centuries before the Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618-907), both the Zhuang and Bouyei peoples were referred to as “the alien barbarians,” but long separation eventually led to development of different cultures and lifestyles. After A.D. 900, they became recognized as separate minority groups.

After the second century B.C., increasing contacts between the Bouyeis and the Hans boosted the former’s productivity, and feudal economic relationships were established.

By the Tang Dynasty, the central imperial court had established in the Bouyei region an administrative system, under which local feudal lords were appointed prefectural governors, and land became their hereditary property. The system lasted for more than 1,000 years, until the Qing court forced minority officials to surrender their powers. Under the rule of minority headmen, the Bouyei society had retained its feudal lord presence until 1911. Feudal lords and local officials owned all the land, but not literally the peasants or serfs within their territories. Lords still subjected peasants to cruel exploitation, but were no longer allowed to kill them at will. Each peasant household was given a piece of land to support itself, but was forbidden to purchase it. Peasants and serfs were thus bound to the land and made to work for the feudal lords for generations.

During the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the imperial court abolished the rule of minority headmen, and appointed officials with limited tenures. As a result, the feudal lord economy collapsed and a landlord economy took its place. As most land was owned by the rich few and exploitation of the peasants by landlords became even crueler, class conflicts intensified and led to many peasant uprisings, the biggest of which was the Nanlong Uprising in 1797.

Ethnic Tibetan

The Tibetans first settled along the middle reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River in Tibet. Evidence of the new and old stone age culture was found in archaeological excavations at Nyalam, Nagqu, Nyingchi and Qamdo. According to ancient historical documents, members of the earliest clans formed tribes known as “Bos” in the Shannan area. In the 6th century, the chief of the Yarlung tribe in the area became leader of the local tribal alliance and declared himself the “Zambo” (king). This marked the beginning of Tibetan slavery society and its direct contacts with the Han people and other ethnic groups and tribes in northwest China.

At the beginning of the 7th century, King Songzan Gambo began to rule the whole of Tibet and made “Losha” (today’s Lhasa) the capital. He designated official posts, defined military and administrative areas, created the Tibetan script, formulated laws and unified weights and measures, thus establishing the slavery kingdom known as “Bo,” which was called “Tubo” in Chinese historical documents.

After the Tubo regime was established, the Tibetans increased their political, economic and cultural exchanges with the Han and other ethnic groups in China. The Kingdom of Tibet began to have frequent contacts with the Tang Dynasty (618-907) and the Tibetan and Han peoples got on well with each other. In 641, King Songzan Gambo married Princess Wen Cheng of the Tang Dynasty. In 710, King Chide Zuzain married another Tang princess, Jin Cheng. The two princesses brought with them the culture and advanced production techniques of Central China to Tibet. From that time on, emissaries traveled frequently between the Tang Dynasty and Tibet. The Tibetans sent students to Changan, capital of the Tang Dynasty, and invited Tang scholars and craftsmen to Tibet. These exchanges helped promote relations between the Tibetans and other ethnic groupss in China and stimulated social development in Tibet.

Ethnic Korean

The largest concentration of Koreans is in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in eastern Jilin Province. Under its jurisdiction are the cities of Yanji and Tumen, and the counties of Yanji, Helong, Antu, Huichun, Wangqing and Dunhua, covering a total area of 41,500 sq. km.

The Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture is a beautiful, majestic land of high mountains and deep valleys. The land rises to 2,744 meters above sea level to the highest peak of the Changbai Mountains — White Head Summit. This is an extinct volcano, from the crater lake of which spring the Yalu and Tumen rivers, flowing south and north respectively, and forming the boundary with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to the east.

The area is accessible nowadays by both road and rail, except for the mountain-locked Hunchun District. The prefecture has 1,600 km of railways and 3,700 km of highways and branch roads.

Another community of Koreans lives in the Changbai Korean Autonomous County in southeastern Jilin.

The area is one of China’s major sources of timber and forest products, including ginseng, marten pelts and deer antlers. It is also a habitat for many wild animals, including tigers.

Ethnic Dai

The history of contact between the Dai and Han peoples dates back to 109 B.C., when Emperor Wu Di of the Han Dynasty set up Yizhou Prefecture in southwestern Yi (the name used to signify the minority areas of what are now Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces). The Dais in subsequent years sent tribute to the Han court in Luoyang, and among the emissaries were musicians and acrobats. The Han court gave gold seals to the Dai ambassadors and their chieftain was given the title “Great Captain.”

According to Chinese documents of the ninth century, the Dais had a fairly well developed agriculture. They used oxen and elephants to till the land, grew large quantities of rice and had built an extensive irrigation system. They used kapok for weaving, panned salt and made weapons of metal. They plated their teeth with gold and silver.

In the 12th century, a Dai chieftain named Bazhen unified all the tribes and established the Mengle local regime with Jinghong as the capital, and called it the “Jinglong Golden Hall Kingdom.” According to local records, the kingdom had a population of more than one million, and was famous for white elephants and fine-breed horses. It recognized the Chinese imperial court as its sovereign. When Bazhen ascended the throne, he was given a “tiger-head gold seal” by the Emperor, and the title “Lord of the Region.” Previously, the Dais in the Dehong region had established the Mengmao Kingdom, with Ruilijiang as the capital.

Ethnic Daur

The Daur people are thought to be descended, along with the Ewenkis and Oroqens, from the Khitan nomads, who founded the Liao Dynasty (916-1125). They originally inhabited the lower reaches of the Heilong River.

In the early Qing Dynasty, the Daurs had a diversified economy which comprised fishing, hunting, farming and stock raising. They traded hides for metal implements, cloth and other articles from the more economically advanced Hans.

During the reign of Emperor Shun Zhi (1644-1662), the Daurs moved south and settled on the banks of the Nenjiang River, from where they were constantly conscripted to serve in the armies of the Qing emperors and in garrisons all over the Chinese empire. The Daurs helped to repel Cossack invaders from Tsarist Russia in 1643 and 1651. When the Japanese invaded Chinaโ€™s Northeast in 1931, the Daurs opposed them and helped the resistance forces until liberation in 1945.

Ethnic De’ang

De’ang was a name given to this ethnic group in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Before that time the De’angs along with the Blang and Va ethnic minorities speaking a south Asian language inside Yunnan Province were called “Pu people,” according to historical records. In those bygone times the “Pu people” were distributed mainly in the southwestern part of Yunnan Province, which was called Yongchang Prefecture in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220). Their forefathers settled on the banks of the Nujiang River (upper reaches of the Salween that flows across Burma) long before the arrival of the Achang and Jingpo ethnic minorities.

Development of De’ang society has been uneven. Since the De’angs have lived in widely scattered localities together with the Han, Dai, Jingpo, Va and other nationalities, who are at different stages of development, they have been influenced by these ethnic groups politically, economically and culturally. Dai influence is particularly strong since the De’angs had for a long period lived in servitude under Dai headmen in feudal times. However, some traces of the ancient clan and village commune of the De’ang ethnic minority are still to be found in the Zhenkang area.

The production unit of the De’ang ethnic group is the family, and there is marked division of labor according to sex and age. The farm tools used are bought from Han and Dai regions. Generally speaking, the De’angs practice intensive farming on flatland and on farms near the Han and Dai regions or in paddy fields. Dry land is not cultivated meticulously.

In De’ang villages in the Dehong area, the cultivated land used to be communally owned. The wasteland around each village was also communally owned, but people could freely open up the land for cultivating crops. If the land was left uncultivated, it automatically reverted to communal ownership again. In later times, the selling or mortgaging of paddy fields and gardens led to the emergence of private ownership. As a result, most of the paddy fields came into the possession of Han landlords, rich peasants and Dai headmen.

Ethnic Dongxiang

Historians are divided in their views about the origin of the Dongxiang ethnic minority. Some hold that they are descendants of Mongolian troops posted in the Hezhou area by Genghis Khan (1162-1227) during his march to the west. Other historians say they are a mixture of many races — Hui, Mongolian, Han and Tibetan groups.

However, according to legends and historical data, the Dongxiangs probably originated from the Mongolians. As far back as the 13th century, Mongolian garrison units were stationed in the Dongxiang area. In these units were Mongols and military scouts and artisans Genghis Khan brought from West Asia. In time of war, the military scouts would fight as soldiers on the battlefield. And they farmed and raised cattle and sheep in time of peace. These garrison troops later took local women as wives, and their offspring at the beginning were called “military households” which became “civilian households” with the passage of time.

During the early years of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), they were offered amnesty by the Ming rulers, and they settled down permanently in the Dongxiang area.

The Dongxiang people had been groaning under national and class oppression throughout the ages. This had driven them to take up arms against their oppressors many times.

For several decades before the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, the Dongxiang people were suffering under the oppressive rule of the feudal Hui warlords, Ma Anliang, Ma Qi and Ma Bufang, and Kuomintang warlord Liu Yufen.

What infuriated the Dongxiangs most was the pressganging of their young men into the armed forces by the Kuomintang and Hui warlords. At one swoop in 1948, the pressgangs rounded up a total of more than 3,000 young men. Even the ahungs in some mosques were not spared. They were thrown into the army after their beards were shaved. Pressganging operations that were carried out time and again had made the Dongxiang villages and towns devoid of young men.

Ethnic Dong

At the time of the Qin and Han dynasties (221 B.C.-A.D. 220) there lived many tribes in what is present-day Guangdong and Guangxi. The Dong people, descendants of one of these tribes, lived in a slave society at that time. Slavery gradually gave way to a feudal society in the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

Agriculture developed rapidly during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) in the Dong areas in southeast Guizhou and southwest Hunan provinces. Rice production went up with improved irrigation facilities. And self-employed artisans made their appearance in Dong towns. Markets came into existence in some bigger towns or county seats, and many big feudal landowners also began to do business. After the Opium War of 1840-42, the Dong people were further impoverished due to exploitation by imperialists, Qing officials, landlords and usurers.

The Dongs, who had all along fought against their oppressors, started to struggle more actively for their own emancipation after the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. They served as guides and supplied grain to the Chinese Red Army when it marched through the area during its Long March in the mid-1930s. In 1949, guerilla units organized by the Dong, Miao, Han, Zhuang and Yao nationalities fought shoulder to shoulder with regular People’s Liberation Army forces to liberate the county seat of Longsheng.

Ethnic Derung

The Drungs, numbering about 7,426, live mainly in the Dulong River valley of the Gongshan Drung and Nu Autonomous County in northwestern Yunnan Province. Their language belongs to the Tibetan-Myanmese group of the Chinese-Tibetan language family. Similar to the language of the Nu people, their neighbors, it does not have a written form and, traditionally, records were made and messages transmitted by engraving notches in wood and tying knots.

During the Tang Dynasty (618-907), the places where the Drungs lived were under the jurisdiction of the Nanzhao and Dali principalities. From the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) to the end of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), the Drungs were ruled by court-appointed Naxi headmen. In modern times, the ethnic minority distinguished itself by repulsing a British military expedition in 1913.

Ethnic Oroqen

For generations the Oroqens had lived a life of hunting and fishing in the forests. They went on hunting expeditions in groups, and the game bagged was distributed equally not only to those taking part in the hunt, but also to the aged and infirm. The heads, entrails and bones of the animals killed were not distributed but were cooked and eaten by all. Later, deer antlers, which fetched a good price, were not distributed but went to the hunters who killed the animals.

On the eve of the founding of the PRC in 1949, polarization was quite marked in some localities where horses, on which Oroqens rode on hunting trips, belonged to individuals. The rich owned a large number of horses and the poor owned a few. Horses were hired out to those hunters who needed them, and payment took the form of game sent to horse owners. Such a practice gradually developed into rent and exploitation of man by man.

The Oroqens are an honest and friendly people who always treat their guests well. People who lodge in an Oroqen home would often hear the housewife say to the husband early in the morning: “I’m going to hunt some breakfast for our guests and you go to fetch water.” When the guests have washed, the woman with gun slung over her shoulders would return with a roe back. The Oroqens are expert hunters. Both the males and females are sharp shooters on horseback. Boys usually start to go out on hunting trips with their parents or brothers at the age of seven or eight. And they would be stalking wild beasts in the deep forest all on their own at 17. A good hunter is respected by all and young maidens like to marry him.

Ethnic Ewenki

The forefathers of the Ewenkis had originally been a people who earned their living by fishing, hunting and breeding reindeer in the forests northeast of Lake Baikal and along the Shileke River (upper reaches of the Heilong River), tracing their ancestry to the “Shiweis”, particularly the “Northern Shiweis” and “Bo Shiweis” living at the time of Northern Wei (386-534) on the upper reaches of the Heilong River, and the “Ju” tribes that bred deer at the time of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) in the forests of Taiyuan to the northeast of Lake Baikal. Later, they moved east, with one section coming to live on the middle reaches of the Heilong River. In history, the Ewenkis and the Oroqens and Mongolians living in forests to the east of Lake Baikal and the Heilong River Valley in the Yuan Dynasty (1280-1368) were known as a “forest people,” and a people “moving on deer’s backs” by the time of the Ming (1368-1644). When it came to the Qing period (1644-1911) they were called the “Sulongs” or “Kemunikans” (another tribal people different from the Sulongs at the time) who knew how to use deer.

In 1635, the Kemunikans came under the domination of Manchu rulers after their conquest of the Lake Baikal area, to be followed around the years from 1639 to 1640 by their control of the Sulongs living to the east of Lake Baikal. From the mid-17th century onwards, aggression by Tsarist Russia had led the Qing government to remove the Ewenkis to the area along the Ganhe, Nuomin, Ahlun, Jiqin, Yalu and Namoer — tributaries of the Nenjiang River. In 1732, 1,600 Ewenkis were called up in the Buteha area and ordered together with their family dependents to perform garrison duties as frontier guards on the Hulunbuir Grassland. Their descendants are now the inhabitants of the Ewenki Autonomous Banner.

Ethnic Gelao

Over the last 2,000 years or more, Gelos have lived in many places in China. Bridges, graves, wells, and even villages in Guizhou Province still bear Gelo names, even where no Gelo still lives. The group’s name dates back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Before then, they were called the “Liaos.” Descended from the Yelang, the strongest tribe in the Han Dynasty’s Zangke Prefecture, the Liaos moved out of Zangke to Sichuan, where they became subject to the feudal regime, between the third and fifth centuries.

By the fifth century, the Liaos had developed metal spears, shields and fishing tools and copper cooking vessels. They could weave fine linen. At this time, the Liao people elected their kings, who later became hereditary rulers. As with other south-central minorities, the Gelos were ruled in the Yuan and Ming periods (1271-1644) by appointed chiefs, who lost their authority to the central court when the Qing Dynasty came to power.

Until 1949, most Gelos were farmers. They grew rice, maize, wheat, sweet potatoes, and millet. Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, Gelo farmers had no irrigation or ways of storing water. As a result, their maize output was only about 675 kg per hectare. Droughts inevitably brought about devastating consequences. Side businesses, especially cork production, bamboo weaving and making straw sandals were essential to the Gelos for survival.

Before 1949, land mainly belonged to landlords of other ethnic groups. In Pingzheng village of Zunyi County, for example, landlords and rich peasants owned 50 per cent of the land, even though they constituted only nine per cent of the population. Rent was usually paid in kind and every year over half of the harvest went for rent. Gelo farmers also had to pay additional tributes as high as 200 per cent of a year’s rent. In western Guizhou, farmers not only paid in maize, opium, soybeans and peppers, but they also had to work — unpaid — for 50-80 days a year.

Ethnic Hezhen

The Hezhes are one of the smallest ethnic minority groups in China. In fact, poverty and oppression had reduced their numbers to a mere 300 at the time of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Since then, however, they have made speedy advances in their economic life and health care, so that by 1990 the population had grown to 4,640.

They are a nomadic people who live mainly by hunting and fishing in the plain formed by the Heilong, Songhua and Wusuli rivers in Tongjiang, Fuyuan and Raohe counties in northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province. Their language, which belongs to the Manchu-Tungusic group of the Altaic family, has no written form. For communication with outsiders they use the spoken and written Chinese language.

In winter they travel by sled and hunt on skis. They are also skilled at carpentry, tanning and iron smelting; but these are still cottage industries.

Ethnic Kazak

There are many records on the origin of the Kazak ethnic minority in Chinese history. In the more than 500 years since Zhang Qian of the Western Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 25) went as a special envoy to Wusun in 119 B.C., the inhabitants of the Ili River valley and round the Issyk Kul were mainly Wusun people and part of the Saizhong and Yueshi ethnic people, the forefathers of the Kazaks. As early as the reign of Emperor Wu Di (140-88 B.C.) of the Western Han Dynasty, Wusun established tributary relations of alliance with the Han court through the marriage of Xijun and Xieyou princesses and woman official Feng Liao with the Wusun King of Kunmo and senior generals. In the mid-sixth century, the Turkomans founded a Turkic khanate in the Altay Mountains. As a result, they mixed with the Wusun people, and the forefathers of the Kazaks later mixed with the nomadic or semi-nomadic Uighurs, Geluolus, Qidans (Khitans), Kelies, Naimans and Mongols of the Kipchak and Jagatai khanates. The fact that some of the Kazak tribes still retained the names of Wusun, Kelie and Naiman into later centuries sufficiently proves that the Kazak ethnic minority is an old ethnic group in China.

In the early 13th century, as Genghis Khan marched westward, the Wusun, Kelie and Naiman tribes had to move likewise. Part of the Kipchak, Jagatai and Wuokuotai khanates of the Mongol Empire were Kazak pastures. In the 1460s, some of the herdsmen in the lower reaches of the Syr-Darya, under the leadership of Jilai and Zanibek, returned to the Chuhe River valley south of Lake Balkhash. As they went eastward to escape the rule of the Ozbek Khanate, they were named “Kazak,” meaning “refugees” or “runaways.” They then mixed with southward-moving Ozbeks and the settled Mongols of the Jagatai Khanate. As the population grew, they extended their pastures to northwest of Lake Balkhash, the Chu River valley and to Tashkent, Andizan and Samarkand in Central Asia, gradually evolving into the Kazak ethnic group.

http://cnto.org.uk/the-people-2/ethnic-architecture.html

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