Research On Families From Northern Minorities In Medieval China

The Medieval China (Wei,Jin,the South and North Dynasties, Sui and Tang)was featured as complicated ethnic relationships, early formation of the Chinese national community,and glory of ancient culture.The devlopment of those families from northern minorities (the Hufamilies)who had throughout this period left deep imprint on politics, military, religion, art, literature, etc, was a microhistory of ethnic and culture which is the starting point of our research.The introduction part in which the research range, review and purport is summarized emphasizes on the perspectives and structure of the paper.The mainbody of thepaper includes three parts and ten chapters. The research field of three parts concentratesd on the ethnic origin,region and culture,comes from the generalization of previous research on the Hufamilies and inner common point between those families,while literature study run through the three parts.The ethnic origin part is composed of three chapters.The first chapter is research on ethnic originnarration and ethnic identity about the Hufamilies. Ethnic originnarration on those familiesis often expressed with retrospection of ancestors,surnamemythology,pretexting of native place,lineageconstruction,and is widely recorded in the biography,epitaph,genealogy.Rooted in the ancient ethnic culture and realistic background,those narrative texts show some models in which the ethnic ancestors come to the boundary of ancient China for canonization, taking refuge or being officials.Also,originated from the classic narrative texts of ethnic relations, such narrative models are characterized by some structural features as annulus,branches and hierarchies.By quantitative study on the data distribution of narrative texts focused on the five ancient emperors, a considerable hypothesis can be made that in the Medieval TimesHuangdi(??)identity of Han (??) peoplein some sense may be forced by the Huangdi identity in the ethnic groups, which isa completely new viewpoint about ethnic identity in the Medieval Times.The second chapter is research on the lineageconstruction of the Hufamilies,including the type,transmission and reception ofsuch lineage texts,and its significance to ethnic identity between the Hu and Han.Two families from northern minorities,that is the Dou(??)and the Yu(??),are analyzed as cases in this chapter.The third chapter mainly discusses the articleOn Clan(?????)by Wei Shu (??)and Liu Fang(? ?)which is a famous text in genealogy study in ancient China,and a comprehensive work of clan theories.On the basis of previous studies, this chapter gives a new definition on the author of the article,reconsiders its historic materials and theoretical innovation,restores the original text.The second part researching on region is divided into two chapters among which chapter 4 is a overview on the localization of the Hufamilies in the Medieval Times.The first sectiont of this chapter discusses the development of Fang(?) and the divisions of native place among families from northern minorities. Localization of families from northern minorities have two approaches, the upper one is characterized by settlements in the cities while the lower shows living in the country and village. The second sectiont studies the residence distribution and evolution of the Hufamilies that lives in Chang'an(??)and Luoyang(??)in Tang Dynasty while the Dou(??)and the Yu(??)are as examples again. The third sectiont turns to investigation about the country life of the Hufamilies.As literary description has shown great concern on the localization of such minoritiy families,the fourth sectiont focuses on thepoeticdescription of "double family"and"life between two cities".With the deepening of localization, the Hufamilies and local Han familiesform a closer connection,a new local identitythuscomes into being,which is the subject of the fifth sectiont.Using thecorresponding principles in the research on localization of Hufamilies before,the fifth chapter carries out a case study on the Kuaiji Kang(????)family who came from the Sogdiana and were influential during the early and middle period of Tang Dynasty.The third part of culture research is made up of five chapters including an introduction and four cases.The sixth chapter discusses the cultural acquisition and related problem of Hufamilies whose ethnic origindetermines a speciallearning process different from Han people.Literature that has great significance in the cultural transformation of those families is introduced in detail in this chapter.For the expansiveextension of culture,four families that is HouMoChen Yan(????),Wang Gui (??),He Tuo(??)and Yu Ye(??)are chosen as cases to dicuss issues including religion, ethnic culture, Confucian classics and literature in the four chapters behind.While minority families are not the only subject focused on in this paper,national integration is replaced by community that the Hu and Han people are connected with intermarriage,political relations and regional interaction.