History Mirroring The Sala Er ",

This Paper is the historical ethnography as the theme of research of the Salars creating their cultural tradition. The Slars is the small ethnic groups who they have lived in the passageway connected with the Hans and the Tibetans in the upper reaches of the Yellow River for nearly eight hundred years. On the basis of five months of fieldwork and all sorts of materials such as local historical literature,travel notes on North-West region and oral histories, it describes how the Salars have become one of ten Muslim nationalities today from the military immigrants lived in Central Asia in Mongolia-Yuan Era.By investigation the three different cultural systems (Amdo Tibetan culture on the edge of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, State power characterized by Confucian and Islamic culture) that strongly affected Salar, I tried to show that the issues seemed closely related to modernity such as" inventing culture" is not new in nationalism era. Actually, owing to strive for political position and subsistence resources, the invention of tradition by the local elites also represents the complicated relations in the different stage, but it don't act in accordance with the cultural policy from above and neither do the real life in the past and present. So the invention of tradition don't grasp the mixed essence of living. Under the simplistic culture view, it plays an important part in the everyday life.In this thesis, I sorted the cultural changes experienced by Salar in the long history from late Yuan to early Ming into three stages:the Tibetanization in Chieftain period from late Yuan and early Ming to early Qing; the Huihui ethnic group from the middle Qing to the Republic; an independent ethnic group gradually breaking away from Huihui since1950s. During the process of changes from Semu people to Fan, from Fan to Hui and from Hui to Salar, Local strategy of military and allied marriage,the shift of secular state and return of Islamic orthodoxy played important role. The complicated interactions between them shaped the creation of Salar history and cultural.Under above-mentioned social structural backgrounds, I probed into "White Camel", an important symbol in Salar history, and the complex symbolic system derived from it to suggest that it is Salar's own comprehensive expression of their Islamized and Salarized identity. In addition, I focus on Salar's clothing, residential building and language and writing to indicate Salar's invention of tradition by tracing their historical changes and analyzing them. Besides, But nowadays, all of above has been taken out of the hybrid lives in the cultural reconstruction that emphasizing Islamization and Salarization and was made a singular sign without historical perspectives. To a certain degree, they have been used as cultural chips and labels by local government to enhance it's political and economic competition.In various historical periods, most cultural inventions are led by the State and applied from top to bottom by local elites under the requirements Of political transformation and religious orthodoxy. Under such background of Salar society experiencing "emperor-local despot-nation", The local elites also changed from traditional local protectionism to Utility rationalism with the characteristic of national and institutionalism. However, the local elites had not been abiding by the State's cultural framework passively in reality; on the contrary, they intentionally make their own choices among all kinds of inventory plans within the frameworks based on local interests.This action of "destroying the old and establishing the new" or "creative destruction" really results in a kind of economic benefits and local prestige while it also reinforces the sense of distinction among people for the reason of resources competition. More importantly, the long-lasting "breaking and building","demolition and construction" will shorten and weaken the vitality exists in material's cultural forms.Finally, I explain the issue of inventing tradition guided by nationalism with cultural practices. Taking Salars' cultural perceptions for example, sort its history in view of time structure and Ideal Meanings, and then reflex the emotion and attitudes towards "tradition" and "past" that contain in Chinese history.