The meaning and cultural functions of non-Chinese musics in the eighteenth century Manchu court

The banquet music used in the Manchu court of eighteenth-century Qing dynasty China reflects how the Manchus viewed themselves as rulers of a Chinese-majority society. In an effort to explain how and why the Manchus adopted the Chinese traditions of banquet music, the dissertation traces the history of banquet music in the Chinese court, especially the use of non-Chinese musics (including dance) as a ritual with political overtones. Since taking over China in 1644, the Manchus emperors never ceased to be concerned with preservation of their cultural heritage. Facing the ongoing decline in their ability to uphold their cultural identity, the Manchus tried to standardize and codify their own history and customs (including that of the Mongols) by large-scale publication projects and regular performances of the Manchu dance and Mongolian ensembles within their Inner Asian circle, inside and outside the imperial court. The political and cultural ties between the Manchus and the Mongols had been close in the early history of the Manchu conquest of China. By revealing what had been changed in the Mongolian songs, the cultural and historical symbols the Manchus wanted to transmit through these songs become conspicuous.; The central source for this dissertation is the 1746 Sequel houbian (XXX) to the music treatise Lu Lu Zheng Yi {dollar}langlelangle{dollar}XXXX{dollar}ranglerangle{dollar} (1714). Together with a general survey of other Qing documents related to music and the history of the Manchus and the Mongols, the writer tries to present a picture of how the Manchus adapted the music and ritual of the Chinese and the Mongols, with a clear goal of reshaping a music-ritual system suited to in their own socio-political needs.