Miao / Guojun Chen [and seven others].

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Chen, Guojun, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hmong (Asian people).

Civilization.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

New Haven, Conn. : Human Relations Area Files, 2009.

Summary:

This collection of ten documents, three translated from the Chinese, provide historical, economic and cultural information about the Miao, circa 1920-2000. Most are based on fieldwork with different Miao communities in China during the late 1930s and early 1940s at a time when many Miao farmers actively participated first in the liberation struggle against Japanese occupation and later on during the "Long March" with the victorious Red Army. The earliest and most basic sources in the collection are by Graham which, together, provide a variety of cultural information including language, mythology, subsistence, dwellings, family life, kinship, village government, arts, religion and ceremonials. His focus on the Miao of southern Szechwan is complimented by Rui who provides a brief description of a subgroup called Magpai Miao. Four documents focus on different Miao groups living in Kweichow, Hunan, and Yunnan and Guizhou provinces. Based on ethnographic data collected in the 1980s and early 1990s, when the Chinese government gradually opened rural communities to Western researchers and travelers, the two remaining works discuss the ways in which the cultures and identities of the Miao (and other minority ethnic groups) have been constructed and deployed since the 1949 and especially in the context of China's post-Mao economic reforms. The Miao are one of 56 non-Han Chinese people officially recognized by the government as minority nationalities. They are distinguished by language, dress, historical traditions, and cultural practice from neighboring ethnic groups and the dominant Han Chinese.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.