Inner Asian Studies

Joyce Toomre also attem pts to measure the im pact of this experiment in her innovative contribution, which uses oral interviews about cookin g methods to chart the transformations traditional Armenian culture has undergone since the early twentieth century. Although one wonders whether the recent revival of the old foodways are not super® cial, her approach could fruitfully be applied to many other cases to help assess the nature of ethnic identity and its ability to endure under stress.

Closely associated with China's growing prominence in international politics are discussions about how to understand Chinese history, and how such perspectives inform the way a stronger China may relate to the rest of the world. This article examines two narratives as cases, and considers how they fit against more careful historical scholarship. The first is the nationalist narrative dealing with Qing and Republican history, and the second is the narrative on the Chinese world order. Analyses of Chinese nationalism tend to see a more powerful China as being more assertive internationally, based in part on a belief in the need to address and overcome past wrongs. Studies of historical regional systems in Asia point to the role that a peaceful 'Confucian' ethos played in sustaining a stable Chinese-led order, and highlight the promise it holds for checking regional and international tensions. The two perspectives create an obvious tension when trying to understand China's rise, which can suggest that using historical viewpoints to understand contemporary developments may be doomed to incoherence. This article argues that difficulties in applying knowledge of the past to analyses of China's role in contemporary world politics indicate a relative inattentiveness to Chinese and Asian history. It illustrates how the nature of China's rise may be more contingent on the external environment that it faces than popular received wisdom may indicate. The article suggests that a more extensive engagement with historical research and historiography can augment and enrich attempts to appreciate the context surrounding China's rise.

The Sino-Tibetan frontier is typically portrayed as a large, complex, and diverse transitional region between Tibetan and Chinese cultural realms. The concept of Tibetanization is often deployed to classify the ethnically ambiguous ‘interstitial’ populations of this area. This article critically examines the concept of Tibetanization through a study of the Mongols of Henan County, Qinghai
Province, a population repeatedly described as Tibetanized. A survey of local folkways reveals that Henan Mongols do, indeed, share many cultural practices with neighboring Tibetans. However, an examination of the historical processes underlying these similarities fails to identify anything that could be described as Tibetanization. Based on this finding, I problematize some of Tibetanization’s unexamined theoretical assumptions relating to concepts of ethnicity and assimilation. I conclude by asking what a critical reading of Tibetanization and the Sino-Tibetan frontier tells us about contemporary ethnopolitics in China and the academic
practices that strive to represent them.

Analyzing the messages and the responses that Chinggis Khan sent to and received from Ong Khan and his allies after his defeat at the hands of the latter at the battle of Qalaqaljit Elet in the spring of 1203, and explicating the terms of cimar (chimar) and törü that appear in the messages, this article looks at the political order and culture where the Chinggisid state rose. The article argues that pre-modern Mongolian and Inner Asian politics was guided by the idea of törü, which resembles the Indo-Buddhist idea of dharma, the Chinese idea of dao, and the European idea of natural law. It also argues that the hereditary divisional system that the Inner Asian state builders regularly employed to govern their nomadic populations, the institutions of dynastic succession, and the hereditary rights of princes and the nobility for inheritance fundamentally structured Inner Asian politics. Hence, it questions the conventional wisdom that depicts pre-modern Inner Asian politics not only as pragmatic, fluid, and fractious but also dependent on the personal charisma of leadership, and the personal bond and loyalty between leaders and followers, as if it were lacking enduring social, political institutions and order.

Khirigsuurs are communal ritual and mortuary monuments that featured prominently on Late Bronze Age pastoralist landscapes of the Mongolian steppe through the mid-late second millennium to early first millennium cal BC. Khirigsuurs sustained ceremonies that legitimized the relationship between the deceased and the participants, facilitated the formation of new alliances, and emphasized integration and cohesion between mobile pastoralist communities through monument building, ritual horse slaughter, and feasting. Horses played a prominent role in ceremonial activities conducted at khirigsuurs, their heads and hooves regularly deposited in small stone satellite mounds as part of publically visible ceremonies associated with mortuary celebrations that simultaneously integrated mobile pastoralist communities. Here, strontium and oxygen isotopic analyses of sequentially sampled teeth of horses from khirigsuurs located in the Khanuy Valley, a major center of monumental activity situated north of the Khangai mountains in Mongolia, indicate horses from distant locales were ceremonially placed in khirigsuur satellite mounds, while patterned seasonal variation in carbon isotopes suggests horses were fodder provisioned during the winter months. These isotopic data suggest horses were well cared for, reflecting their status as a prestige animal, and were key to facilitating regionally integrative ceremonial activities conducted at khirigsuurs that brought together people from geographically distant mobile communities.

There are many unanswered questions about the evolution of the ancient ‘Silk Roads’ across Asia. This is especially the case in their mountainous stretches, where harsh terrain is seen as an impediment to travel. Considering the ecology and mobility of inner Asian mountain pastoralists, we use ‘flow accumulation’ modelling to calculate the annual routes of nomadic societies (from 750 m to 4,000 m elevation). Aggregating 500 iterations of the model reveals a high-resolution flow network that simulates how centuries of seasonal nomadic herding could shape discrete routes of connectivity across the mountains of Asia. We then compare the locations of known high-elevation Silk Road sites with the geography of these optimized herding flows, and find a significant correspondence in mountainous regions. Thus, we argue that highland Silk Road networks (from 750 m to 4,000 m) emerged slowly in relation to long-established mobility patterns of nomadic herders in the mountains of inner Asia.

In Mongolia’s gold rush economy, money has become such an emphatically localized and contentious object that its cash value cannot be presumed. By drawing on Mongolian notions of ‘polluted money’, I argue that cash value is determined not only by its status as legal tender, but also local understandings of its materiality. Confronted with the intensified presence of pollution, shopkeepers change the face value of the money and effectively set higher prices in a region with increasing numbers of dependent customers. Rather than challenging or subverting money’s national indexicality, this redenomination of state currency reflects people’s critical position within a troubled economy of pollution. The article addresses broader questions of how currency, like any other object, is a social medium that is intimately tied to the physical and cosmological world.

Following Laura Bear et al.’s discussion of ‘generating capitalism’, this article presents an account of two historical periods in which certain Mongolian rulers made the deliberate decision to embrace Euro-American capitalism. They explain that this was done to help
Mongolia entice ‘third neighbours’ whose interests secure
Mongolia’s independence by preventing Mongolia from being occupied by China or Russia. This paper then recounts how, during each of these historical periods, the nation-state’s rulers prioritized the declaration and consolidation of de facto constitutive political independence. Building on this prioritization
of the political, this paper argues that the generation of capitalism in Mongolia is not for the sake of the economy itself, as Bear et al. suggest, but for the sake of independence. Reflecting on this, this article shows how global capitalism can be seen not as a threat to
the nation-state but as a help to balance dependences.

The transition from hunting to herding transformed the cold, arid steppes of Mongolia and Eastern Eurasia into a key social and economic center of the ancient world, but a fragmentary archaeological record limits our understanding of the subsistence base for early pastoral societies in this key region. Organic material preserved in high mountain ice provides rare snapshots into the use of alpine and high altitude zones, which played a central role in the emergence of East Asian pastoralism. Here, we present the results of the first archaeological survey of melting ice margins in the Altai Mountains of western Mongolia, revealing a near-continuous record of more than 3500 years of human activity. Osteology, radiocarbon dating, and collagen fingerprinting analysis of wooden projectiles, animal bone, and other artifacts indicate that big-game hunting and exploitation of alpine ice played a significant role during the emergence of mobile pastoralism in the Altai, and remained a core element of pastoral adaptation into the modern era. Extensive ice melting and loss of wildlife in the study area over recent decades, driven by a warming climate, poaching, and poorly regulated hunting, presents an urgent threat to the future viability of herding lifeways and the archaeological record of hunting in montane zones. Artifacts emerging from melting ice provide a rare archaeological dataset to understanding the emergence of pastoral economies in the frigid steppes of interior Eurasia. Across the globe, the survey of permanent patches of snow and ice has produced new insights into the prehistoric use of high-elevation or high latitude regions which suffer from poor representation in the archaeological record 1. Glaciers and ice sheets serve as important travel corridors across high mountains 2,3 , and in summer, the melting ice from both glaciers and "ice patches" (nonglacial snow and ice accumulations which in the Northern Hemisphere often occur on protected north-facing slopes) provides an important source of freshwater used by animals, plants, and humans. In many areas of the

Yenisei inscriptions are inscriptions along the Yenisei River having a total number of 200. Among these inscriptions, although the first discovered one was Uybat III (E 32) Inscription, not much had been known about the characteristics of the alphabet and who they belonged to until the inscriptions remained from the 2nd Turkish Khanate was found in 1889 by N. Yadrintsev. After the decipherment of the letters in this alphabet by Thomsen, researches mostly focused on the Mongolian area, and attempts were also made to read these inscriptions.

Addressing the intersections of economic opportunities and scriptural interpretation, this article examines how Buddhist monks involved in the Mongolian gold rush view the ethics of mining. Commonly regarded an act of theft and violence within Mahāyāna Buddhism, mining is locally subject to strong ethical denunciations. Drawing on historical connections and transnational devotional practices, the mining monks engage creatively with a method of meditation known as ‘breaking the mind’, which offers a competing way of knowing the world. Focusing on the universe within which they conceptualize action, they present a radical reinterpretation of ethical human life. I argue that the mining monks’ own conceptual framework highlights the analytical importance of attending to not only visible bodily action, but also people’s self-reflection in our attempts to understand the place of the ethical in human life.

Key words: Ethics, Buddhism, gold mining, epistemology, Mongolia.

This paper examines hippophagy among Tyvan pastoralists. Horse-meat eating practice is defined by herder-horse relationships, the horse’s not-quite-livestock position and its instrumental and symbolic values. Complexity of influencing factors engenders a ritual which regulates slaughtering and eating meat of the most appreciated horses. As a result of this, ritual transformation of animals into meat does not turn them into the absent referent; rather, as I show in this article, the reference is always present.

This article traced the construction of the Mongolian term and concept böö mörgöl, which denotes ‘shamanism’, later developed to böögiin shashin meaning ‘shamanic religion’. Although the term bö’e (alternatively böge or böö), referring to spiritual practitioners such as shamans, appears early in the literature from the thirteenth century onward, the combination böö mörgöl and khara shajin meaning ‘black religion’ is fairly recent and first appeared in sources from the nineteenth century. Its latest
version, böögiin shashin, has an even shorter history dating as recently to 1980s, and has spread rapidly over the last two decades. I argue that ‘shamanism’ in Mongolia has been constructed in scholarly works mostly by public involvement and shamans themselves. More precisely, academic discourses have played a key role in institutionalising individual spiritual practitioners in two fields, first by creating a history for
‘Mongolian shamanism’ and second by creating archetypes for miscellaneous spiritual practices and practitioners. The concept böö mörgöl have been used in translating and importing the Western construction of ‘shamanism’ while in the next step of development, böögiin shashin was important in institutionalizing a national religion of shamanism versus world religions. As a result, Mongols have an original religion which has been the main building block in constructing Mongolian ‘nomadic civilization’.

Keywords: Mongolia; shamanism; shamanic religion; institutionalization; academic knowledge production

Two recent studies, Johan Elverskog's Our Great Qing (2006) and David Sneath's The Headless State , have made bold and fascinating contributions to overcoming the lingering legacy of representing and framing the pre-modern Inner Asian social and political order in terms of evolutionist, nationalist or nation-statist logics. Joining the cause and building on these works, yet critically examining them, this article argues that the late sixteenth and early seventeenth-century Mongolian political order was akin to that of the Holy Roman Empire and the 1640 Great Code was an Inner Asian parallel to the Treaty of Westphalia.

Özet: Kazakistan Cumhuriyeti’nin eski başkenti Almatı’nın yaklaşık 160 km kuzeybatısında Tamgalı Vadisi’nde Orta Asya Türk Tarihi ve Sanatı açısından çok önemli kaya resimleri bulunmaktadır. Tamgalı Petroglifleri 2004 yılında UNESCO Dünya Mirası listesine kabul edilmiştir. Sayıları 5000’i bulan petrogliflerin yaklaşık 300 adeti Ortaçağ Dönemi’ne tarihlenmektedir. Ortaçağ petroglifleri arasında atlı ve bayraklı savaşçı figürleriyle dikkat çeken Göktürk Dönemi betimlemeleri bulunmaktadır. Göktürk Dönemi petroglifleri gerek konu gerekse teknik özellikleri nedeniyle diğer dönemlerden bazı farklılıklar göstermektedir. Bu döneme özgü teknik ve üsluptaki petroglifler Göktürk Devleti’nin yıkılması sonrasında da uygulanmaya devam edilmiştir. Çeşitli yayınlarda, Göktürk Dönemi petroglifleri 6. yüzyıl ile 10. yüzyıl arasına tarihlenmektedir. Bu tarihi çerçeve belirlenmesinde Tamgalı bölgesinin
10. yüzyılda İslamlaştığı ve İslam’la birlikte yörede tasvir yasağının ortaya çıktığı gibi gerçekçi olmayan varsayımlardan hareket edilmektedir. 2017 yılı ağustos ayında Tamgalı Vadisi’ne düzenlemiş olduğumuz araştırma ve inceleme gezisi sonucunda söz konusu tarihi çerçevenin yanlış olduğu görülmüştür. Her ne kadar yörenin İslamlaşması 10. yüzyılda tamamlanmış olsa da tasvir yasağı uygulamasının Tamgalı petrogliflerine bir etkisi gözlenmemektedir.  Bu makalede  Göktürk Dönemi’nde petrogliflerde ortaya çıkan yeni konu ve üslup  özelliklerinin
13. yüzyılın ilk çeyregine kadar yani Moğol İstilasına kadar sürdüğü görüşü doğrulanmaktadır.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Abstract: Tamgaly Valley located around 160 km northwest of Almaty, the old capital of the Republic of Kazakhstan, is significant rock art site in terms of Central Asian Turkic Art and History. Archaeological site and petrogliphs at Tamgaly were accepted to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2004. Tamgaly petroglyphs are approximately 5000 in number but only around 300 of them are dated to the Medieval Period. Within the petroglyphs of the medieval period there are images of equestrian warrior figures with flags and composite bows dated to Turkic Kaghanate period. Depictions of Turkic period differ from others by peculiar drawing techniques and themes. It was determined that the petroglyphs specific to the period in technique and style continued to be engraved even after the collapse of the Turkic Khaganate. Various studies date the petroglyphs of Turkic period at Tamgaly from 6th century to 10 century. However, determination of this historical framework, which is based on unrealistic assumptions that the Tamgaly region became Islamized in the 10th century and the prohibition of depiction appeared in the region with acceptance of Islam. Thus, the research and investigation trip to Tamgaly was conducted in August 2017 to examine the site. Despite the Islamization process of the region, which had completed in 10th century, there is no effect of the the prohibition of depiction at Tamgaly. In this article, it is suggested that the petroglyphs in Turkic style at Tamgaly lasted until the first quarter of the 13th century, namely the Mongolian Invasion.

The Huns have often been treated as primitive barbarians with no advanced political organisation. Their place of origin was the so-called 'backward steppe'. It has been argued that whatever political organisation they achieved they owed to the 'civilizing influence' of the Germanic peoples they encountered as they moved west. This book argues that the steppes of Inner Asia were far from 'backward' and that the image of the primitive Huns is vastly misleading. They already possessed a highly sophisticated political culture while still in Inner Asia and, far from being passive recipients of advanced culture from the West, they passed on important elements of Central Eurasian culture to early medieval Europe, which they helped create. Their expansion also marked the beginning of a millennium of virtual monopoly of world power by empires originating in the steppes of Inner Asia. The rise of the Hunnic Empire was truly a geopolitical revolution.

Kayalik is one of the Medieval cities on Silk Road. It is located within administrative borders of Sarkand District of Almaty Province, Kazakhstan. The city is of great importance both for being a center of Zhetisu Province as well as capital of Karluk Yabghu State. Archaeological excavations conducted in Kayalik revealed the architectural texture of the city. The city obtained appearance of a medieval Islamic city starting from the second half of the 10th century with buildings such as caravanserai, bath (hamam), Great mosque, dervish lodge or khankah, palace, tomb, and mansion. Archaeological excavations which started in 1998 and continue nowadays enabled to achieve significant results specifically regarding the medieval urbanization and Islamization of Southeastern Kazakhstan. Previously the Islamization of the region was dated to the middle of the 14th century, however, discovery of the great mosque, khankah and tomb in Kayalik resulted in review of the dating. It was revealed that Islamization, which gained pace since the second half of the 10th century, established in Kayalik in the 12th century. Kayalık is one of the most important centers of Yeseviye Sufi Order according to the manuscript “Tarihname”, which is considered written in Kayalik in 1281 and contains the genealogy of the prominent Yesevî sheikhs. Khankah and two tombs dating to the 12th century which revealed during excavations confirms the supposition.

In modern Tibetan history, it is fairly well known that in 1913 the 13th Dalai Lama appointed Lungshar Dorje Tsegyal as chaperon for four Tibetan boys to travel to Britain for a modern education. Less well studied are the letters the 13th Dalai Lama wrote for the King, Queen and ministers in Britain, which he had Lungshar take with him to London and which asserted the 'rang btsan' of Tibet, which today translates to 'inde-pendence'. Through a comparative analysis of the original letters written in Tibetan and the letters that the 13th Dalai Lama sent to other countries, I will show how the Lungshar delegation was an important component of the overall diplomatic strategy designed by the 13th Dalai Lama after the demise of the Qing Dynasty. Based on comparative study between the Tibetan letters and the British translations, I will show that officials of British India, at the beginning of the 20th century, did not necessarily use 'independence' as the fixed parallel translation of 'rang btsan'. This first analysis of the original Tibetan language letters sheds new light on the conceptual discrepancies in modern terminologies between the Tibetan and English languages that could have influenced the negotiations that took place between Tibet and Britain. Keywords Tibet – 13th Dalai Lama – Lungshar – Britain – translation After the Xinhai revolution in 1911 and following the collapse of the Qing Empire, the Tibetan government tried to establish (in some cases re-establish) relationships with many countries, including Russia, Mongolia, Japan and Britain. They were attempting to gain international support amid rising tensions with the Republic of China over the political status of Tibet (Jampa

This essay offers a personal, quasi-lyrical portrait of Arif Dirlik as an organic world-crossing Marxist intellectual whose mentorship and leadership proved crucial to a cross-disciplinary array of scholars and writers, including the writer. A Benjaminian mode of "constellation" is activated to portray some of the historical contexts, outlets, sites, and works Dirlik was long connected to and helped to provoke into realization across his career.

The main theme and motivation of Mongolian historiographical works of the seventeenth century onwards was the perpetuation and glorification of the Chinggisid lineage. The Mongol chroniclers presented the Chinggisid lineage as sacred and everlasting, like the flow of the sacred Ganges. This paper examines the significance of this perpetuation of the Chinggisid lineage in the construction and reconstruction of the Mongolian identity by examining the historiographical works of the seventeenth through early twentieth centuries.

Berel Kurgans are located in the Berel Valley on the western slope of the Altai Mountains, Eastern Kazakhstan Province of the Republic of Kazakhstan. Berel is the cemetery where kurgans of the mid İron Age Scythian/Saka communities of the Altay Mountains referred in archaeology as the Pazyryk culture had been identified. Archaeological findings obtained as a result of excavations which started in 1998 and continue nowadays attract particular attention of the scientific community. Therefore, Berel has been one of the greatest discoveries of Kazakh archeology after independence. The kurgans at Berel which considered belonging to ruling dynasty due to its architectural features and remarkable artifacts are of great importance. After the kurgans 1st, 2nd, 10th and 11th, kurgan 4 was also dated to Pazyryk culture. It is considered that 4th kurgan belongs to a person of high status in society due to similar architectural characteristics and its close positioning to 10th and 11th kurgans. It has been possible to reveal only small number of finding during excavations due to heavy damages and destruction by grave robbers. Nevertheless it still illustrates architectural characteristics of Pazyryk culture. The kurgan is unique with its domed superstructure which was formed by stone material over the burial chamber. Dome superstructure over the burial chamber was revealed only in two Berel kurgans. Significance of the 4th Kurgan is undoubtable in terms of pre-Islamic Turkish Art and architecture thanks to discovery of the dome application as the covering system. It also provides valuable information concerning grave pit’s pre-excavation condition.

The Medieval Mongol ulus was a category of government that was turned into a 'community of the realm' and as such it was assumed to be 'a natural, inherited community of tradition, custom, law and descent', a 'people' or irgen. according to Mongolian language sources of the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries, 'Mongol' was the only contemporary ulus and irgen while all the other contemporary categories such as Kitat, Tang'ut and so on were described only as irgen. analysing this usage convention, this paper reconstructs medieval Mongol concepts of ulus, irgen and yeke ulus. The idea of ulus congruent with the Chinggisid state of 1206 was well established in pre-Chinggisid Mongolia. Indeed, the Mongol ulus of 1206 was a realisation and an embodiment of that idea, and was built upon the Kereyid state and her sphere of hegemony. as such, the Mongol ulus of 1206 was different and distinct from the Yeke Mongqol Ulus, the Mongol Empire. This finding not only renders the idea of the tribal origin of the Chinggisid state untenable, but also suggests that we must look at the legacies of previous state formations for the origin of the Chinggisid state.

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This chapter considers how participation in changing postsocialist labour regimes in Mongolia relates to ideas about the land, its spirits and people. While the implementation of political reforms has attracted national and international mining investors, an unprecedented large-scale gold rush has recently emerged. As thousands of people have sought to the mines and uncovered immense wealth, rumours about angered spirits demanding human blood in return for the precious metal abound. Based on fieldwork with herders and miners in the district of Uyanga in Central Mongolia, this chapter provides an ethnographic perspective into people’s concerns about the cosmological implications of current human desires. By focusing on the multiple and conflictive understandings of the gold rush, it is suggested that attention to experienced doubt can provide useful methodological and epistemological insights for anthropology.

The literary interpretation of Herodotus in classical scholarship has arguably abandoned the fixation with the historical veracity of Herodotus’ account that characterised earlier Herodotean scholarship. The critical analyses of Detlev Fehling and François Hartog on the historian’s Scythian logos (singled out for criticism) in different ways acted as catalysts for this development which heralded a generation of more sophisticated critique of the text as essentially a work of literature rather than history. Such an approach has had some positive results, especially in identifying the various levels of literary colouring that characterise the historian’s work. However, this article argues that the historical element simply cannot be removed from its former position of centrality in literary interpretation. It calls for a greater appreciation of the historicity of the Scythian logos by challenging the arguments through which Hartog and Fehling triggered the movement away from ‘history’ to ‘literature’. The article shows that a more intensive application of comparative, Central Asian historical and archaeological material in literary analysis, reveals that the logos as a whole is far more deeply immersed in the world of steppe nomadism than is often thought possible in classical scholarship.

This thesis examines "anti" attitudes in general and anti-Chinese attitudes in Mongolia in particular, to answer the puzzle: Why do anti-Chinese attitudes in Mongolia still persist after both nations have enjoyed friendly, neighborly state-to-state relations for more than two decades? The argument is made that anti-Chinese attitudes in Mongolia are persistent because of lingering impacts of artificially-consolidated negative schemas about China, Chinese people, and their culture from the 1960s-1980s. Mongolian political elites at that time institutionalized anti-Chinese attitudes, introducing only negative schemas, while blocking all other sources for positive or neutral schemas about China. Nevertheless, Mongolian political elites" attitudes toward China became noticeably positive since mid-2000 due to increased interactions, information, and the changing economic reality despite of the fact that unfavorable views of China and the anti-Chinese attitudes have still dominated the media, blogosphere, and public discourses. The main reason for the gap between attitudes of the political elites and the public can be explained by a reluctance of the political elites and intellectuals to de-construct the past schemas because of its diacritic purpose to differentiate Mongolian identity in addition to material realities. This thesis also contends that anti-Chinese attitudes in Mongolia are a variant of a global anti-Chinese phenomenon. The "anti" attitudes are explained by three main reasons: a power imbalance, a backlash against economic activities, and conflicting identities. In this regard, the Mongolian case study is an excellent entry point to understand the causes and consequences of anti-Chinese attitudes in the small, developing, democratic Chinese neighbors.

In this paper I discuss the attested names of the so-called "Xiōngnú" in the context of Inner Asian naming practices. I conclude that the term "Xiōngnú" is almost certainly not a pre-existing ethnic term (Inner Asian dynastonyms almost never are). Instead I argue that Qai (which is also the origin of Chinese Hú) is likely the ethnonym of the bulk of the Xiōngnú people, particularly those from Inner Mongolia. The term Xiōngnú, however, is likely a purely political term derived from the ancient form of the name of the Ongi River in Mongolia. Finally I argue that "People (or realm) that draws the bow”
(yingongzhi min [or guo] 引弓之民 or 國) is a translation of the term that in Iranian became "Skythian," showing the linkage of the Xiōngnú to the Central Eurasian nomadic tradition.

This thesis examines cultural variation and the processes of cultural change that form it through a case-study of variation and invariance in the performance of Nadun, a ritual performed in fifty-three communities in the Sanchuan region of northwest China primarily by Mangghuer (Tu) but also Tiebie (Tibetan) and Qidai (Han Chinese) communities.
    The text begins by placing the study in its regional context and situating the research topic within the reemergence of area studies and recent discussion on Zomia and the nature of regional formation in Asian borderlands. The introductory chapter also provides details on Nadun (including a review of relevant literature), and background on the theory and method employed in the study.
    The second chapter of the thesis deals with the ontological foundations of Nadun – beliefs and practices centered on an opposition between malevolent ghosts and benevolent deities that can both manipulate human fortunes. This chapter also examines the impact of Dge lugs pa Buddhism on these beliefs and practices.
    The third chapter examines the social patterning of Nadun according to local ideologies of age, gender, kin, and territory. Local idioms of hospitality, etiquette, and festive atmosphere which pattern dyadic social relationships are also discussed.
    Chapter Four deals with the impact of the state upon patterns of cultural diversity and unity in China. In particular, it seeks to establish that significant elements of Nadun represent an attempt by the Qing state to render Mangghuer populations legible, conscriptable, and favorably disposed towards the state.
    Chapter Five examines the impact of contemporary cultural trends – modernism, globalism, and consumerism – in Sanchuan and on Nadun. This chapter in particular examines the way in which global ideologies are co-opted by locally hegemonic ideologies.
    This final chapter of this thesis generalizes the findings of the previous chapters into three broadly applicable conclusions. It is first suggested that cultural diversity is most accurately envisioned as noospheric diversity – diversity of ideologies or paradigms – rather than as diversity of cultural groups, an approach which dominates contemporary discourse on cultural diversity. It is secondly suggested that a further element of cultural diversity is areal diversity – diversity in the number and nature of regions created by meshworks of social processes within which ideologies circulate. The final generalizable conclusion of this thesis is that future attention should be paid to the role of certain individuals in generating cultural diversity by creating regional variations and combinations of translocal ideologies.

https://www120.secure.griffith.edu.au/rch/items/913bc3e4-3b57-1374-02d9-a4c46422f8f6/1/