| Qin and Han dynasties were periods of times in which China established a unified multi-ethnic centralized dynasty for the first time in history.Breaking through its previous geographical Boundaries,China extended its influence to the vast southern region of the Yangtze River basin and even the Pearl River basin.Accordingly,the cognition of Hua Xia,Chinese central dynasty,on southern ethnic groups experienced a process of different levels of understanding from abstract to concrete and from imagination to reality,which became an important component of the knowledge reserves of south China for the Empire in its early times and influenced the policies laid out on south China for Qin and Han states.Through the historical anthropological investigation of the “image of Southern ethnic groups in Qin and Han Dynasties”,the image changes of the Chinese nation and society’s cognitive details and knowledge system of southern ethnic groups is analyzed in this paper,and its generation mechanism is also explained.In terms of the issues to be discussed in this paper,it includes the dual construction of “Huaxia-Southern ethnic group ” narrative,the difference between “ Southern ethnic group ” and “ Southern ethnic group image ”,and the special expression of“Southern ethnic group” in comparison with “four Yi” images.The issues above are discussed through micro and macro levels.At a micro level,the names,origins,morphology and local images of southern ethnic groups of Qin and Han people are analyzed.The appellation of ethnic groups in the south can be regarded as a symbolic image presentation.Under the general naming mechanism and circle construction,the classification of “ Yue(越)”,“Yi(夷)” and “Man(蛮)” and the appellation changes on this basis,a general definition of the southern ethnic groups given by China central dynasty was formed.The ancestral origin of southern ethnic groups can be regarded as an expression of narrative image.Through the historical ancestral writing of Chu(楚),Dian(滇),Wu(吴),Yue(越)and Ba(巴),the people of Qin and Han dynasties corresponded to the four genealogical types of China-aborigines relationship(华夷关系),and expressed the Huaxification process of their totemic characteristics through the mythic ancestral narrative of Chu-yue(楚越),Southern Man(南蛮)and Southern Yi(南夷)ethnic groups,which conveyed the internal correlation between ancestral memory and ethnic identity.The appearance of the southern ethnic groups and their local terroir show a more daily symbolic image.Morphology mainly includes hair style,clothing and speech,and through the combination and collocation of the elements above and other elements,a new compound image is generated,which constitutes the identity correspondence of the “center-edge” narrative dominated by China in the level of ritual.The “witch” tradition of the southern ethnic group is interrelated with the image perception of the living environment,which reflects the narrative tendency based on cultural imagination rather than facts.During the Qin and Han Dynasties,the Chinese world’s cognition of the southern ethnic groups showed the characteristics of generalization from multiple micro-dimensions,corresponding to the break and integration of the Chinese “major tradition” to the southern “minor tradition”.At a macro level,the image of southern ethnic groups in the Qin and Han dynasties acted on the interactive relationship between the state and the southern ethnic groups(regime),which was usually constructed in the form of institutions and conveyed the perspective of “center-edge”.The essence of this “marginalized”image of the southern ethnic group is the “rationalization” imagination shaped by creators of the Chinese central dynasty standing in the dominant position of culture based on the image of reality,endowing the southern ethnic groups multiple expressions of their identities such as “the ruled”,“rebels” and “aliens from a faraway country” The definition of “China”is formed through the exploration of ethnic marginality. |
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