Author: Craig Mishler
Publisher: Fairbanks : University of Alaska Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352
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Book Description
The upper Yukon River basin is one of the wildest, most beautiful, and coldest places on earth. The indigenous Han Indians, whose homeland straddles the U.S.-Canadian border, traveled this country as hunters and gatherers and found a way to survive in it that exemplifies their intelligence and tenacity. For Craig Mishler and Bill Simeone, the Han are not only an ethnic and linguistic group but a living community of individuals, and the authors write about them as people who spoke to them and touched them in a special way. The history of the upper Yukon valley from the earliest Western contact with the Han in the 1840s has been one of continuous change. As a result of the gold rush, the Han suddenly became homeless in their own homeland. This book tells the story of the displacement and of current efforts by the Han to reclaim their lands and restore a vibrant way of life. In-depth profiles of Chief Isaac, Chief Charley, and others illustrate the critical importance of traditional leadership instressful times. Mishler and Simeone have carefully researched and compiled new information from historic records, adding their own, firsthand field observations and oral interviews with elders during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. They present detailed historical data on the fur trade, missionization, and the gold rush, as well as an analysis of Han social structure, settlement patterns, religion, subsistence, and expressive culture. The final chapter illustrates contemporary life in Eagle Village with two vivid "ethnographic snapshots"--a Christmas eve dance in 1972 and a long summer day in 1997. Appendices include a methodological essay, a historic chronology, rules for Han card games, andgenealogies for many Han families. As a model of innovative ethnographic and ethnohistorical w
Author: Chunming Wu
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811640793
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 275
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Book Description
This open access book presents multidisciplinary research on the cultural history, ethnic connectivity, and oceanic transportation of the ancient Indigenous Bai Yue (百越) in the prehistoric maritime region of southeast China and southeast Asia. In this maritime Frontier of China, historical documents demonstrate the development of the “barbarian” Bai Yue and Island Yi (岛夷) and their cultural interaction with the northern Huaxia (华夏) in early Chinese civilization within the geopolitical order of the “Central State-Four Peripheries Barbarians-Four Seas”. Archaeological typologies of the prehistoric remains reveal a unique cultural tradition dominantly originating from the local Paleolithic age and continuing to early Neolithization across this border region. Further analysis of material culture from the Neolithic to the Early Iron Age proves the stability and resilience of the indigenous cultures even with the migratory expansion of Huaxia and Han (汉) from north to south. Ethnographical investigations of aboriginal heritage highlight their native cultural context, seafaring technology and navigation techniques, and their interaction with Austronesian and other foreign maritime ethnicities. In a word, this manuscript presents a new perspective on the unique cultural landscape of indigenous ethnicities in southeast China with thousands of years’ stable tradition, a remarkable maritime orientation and overseas cultural hybridization in the coastal region of southeast China.
Author: Catherine Churchman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442258616
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267
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Book Description
This fundamental study provides the first comprehensive history in any language of the lands between the Red and Pearl Rivers in southern China and the people who resided there over a span of a thousand years. Bringing to life the mysterious early people known as Li and Lao who inhabited the area, Catherine Churchman explores their custom of casting large bronze kettledrums. As the symbols of political authority and legitimacy for the Li and Lao rulers, the abundance of drums found in the archaeological record is an indication not only of the great number of such rulers, but also of their great wealth and power, which increased significantly from the third century CE even as the Chinese Empires tightened their control over surrounding districts. Drawing on a combination of Classical Chinese sources and scholarship in archaeology, anthropology, and historical linguistics, the author explains the political and economic factors behind the rise to power and subsequent disappearance of the indigenous leadership and its drum culture. She fills significant gaps in our understanding of the early interactions between China and northern Southeast Asia, challenging many widely held assumptions about the history of Chinese settlement and ethnic relations in the region, including those concerning the relationship between the Chinese Empires and the lands that would form the heart of a future Vietnamese state. A crucial work for understanding historical developments in the highland regions south of the Yangtze valley, it examines the first steps in the Sinic penetration of this highland world, one that has continued to the present. Bringing unprecedented attention to the historical identity of a previously overlooked region and a people, this book creates a new category in East Asian history.
Author: Jianxiong Ge
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9813344814
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 251
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Book Description
This book explores the relationship between rivers and ethics in China, with a particular focus on the health of the Yellow River and China’s sustainable development. Though the book falls into the category of East Asian History, it is an interdisciplinary academic work that addresses not only history, but also culture, human geography and physical geography. It traces the changes in the Yellow River over time and examines the origin and developmental course of Chinese civilization, which has always been closely intertwined with the Yellow River. It also draws comparisons between the Yellow River and the Yangtze, Nile, Tigris, Euphrates and Indus rivers to provide insights into how they have contributed to civilizations. At the same time, it discusses the lessons learned from people’s taming the Yellow River. Most significantly, the book explores the relationship between humans and the environment from an ethical standpoint, making it an urgent reminder of the crucial role that human activities play in environmental issues concerning the Yellow River so as to achieve a sustainable development for China’s “mother river.” The intended audience includes academic readers researching East Asian and Chinese history & culture, geography, human geography, historical geography, the environment, river civilizations, etc., as well as history and geography lovers and members of the general public who are interested in the Yellow River and the civilization that has evolved around it.
Author: Bill Porter
Publisher: Catapult
ISBN: 1619028840
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 184
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Book Description
Chinese civilization first developed 5,000 years ago in North China along the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River. And the Yellow River remained the center of Chinese civilization for the next 4,000 years. Then a thousand years ago, this changed. A thousand years ago, the center of Chinese civilization moved to the Yangtze. And the Yangtze, not the Yellow River, has remained the center of its civilization. A thousand years ago, the Chinese came up with a name for this new center of its civilization. They called it Chiangnan, meaning "South of the River," the river in question, of course, being the Yangtze. The Chinese still call this region Chiangnan. Nowadays it includes the northern parts of Chekiang and Kiangsi provinces and the southern parts of Anhui and Kiangsu. And some would even add the northern part of Hunan. But it's not just a region on the map. It's a region in the Chinese spirit. It's hard to put it into words. Ask a dozen Chinese what "Chiangnan" means, and they'll give you a dozen different answers. For some the word conjures forests of pine and bamboo. For others, they envision hillsides of tea, or terraces of rice, or lakes of lotuses and fish. Or they might imagine Zen monasteries, or Taoist temples, or artfully–constructed gardens, or mist–shrouded peaks. Oddly enough, no one ever mentions the region's cities, which include some of the largest in the world. Somehow, whatever else it might mean to people, Chiangnan means a landscape, a landscape and a culture defined by mist, a landscape and a culture that lacks the harder edges of the arid North. In the Fall of 1991, Bill Porter decided to travel through this vaporous land, following the old post roads that still connected its administrative centers and scenic wonders, its most famous hometowns and graves, its factories and breweries, its dreamlike memories and its mist, and he was joined on this journey by his poet and photographer friends, Finn Wilcox and Steve Johnson. South of the Yangtze is a record in words and black and white images of their trip.
Author: Tianyu Feng
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9811945527
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 266
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Book Description
This book is a comprehensive academic introduction of the natural conditions and cultural characteristics of the ChangJiang River Basin. Describing in detail the geographical location and natural conditions of the main stream and the tributaries as the starting point, the book compares the ChangJiang River Civilizations to other civilizations of large rivers of the same latitude. This book reveals the gradual deepening of the Chinese understanding the ChangJiang River, introduces the cultural divisions of the river valley, and describes the evolution of the civilizations in the basin. At the end of the book, the author points out that there are many ecological problems in the ChangJiang River valley, for which the Chinese people have taken many measures, such as water pollution control. Fishing in the main stream and important tributaries of the ChangJiang is banned for at least ten years. As a guide to analyze the natural conditions and cultural characteristics of the whole ChangJiang River Basin, this book enables researchers and common readers to have a relatively clear and comprehensive understanding in a relatively short period of time. Putting the ChangJiang River Civilization in the context of the world’s civilizations, this book makes it easier for readers to understand the uniqueness of the ChangJiang River Civilization and its contribution to the cultural diversity of the world.
Author: Thomas Mullaney
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520289757
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 419
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Book Description
Constituting over ninety percent of China's population, Han is not only the largest ethnonational group in that country but also one of the largest categories of human identity in world history. In this pathbreaking volume, a multidisciplinary group of scholars examine this ambiguous identity, one that shares features with, but cannot be subsumed under, existing notions of ethnicity, culture, race, nationality, and civilization.
Author: Peter Hessler
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062028987
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 382
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Book Description
A New York Times Notable book, this memoir by a journalist who lived in a small city in China is “a vivid and touching tribute to a place and its people” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society. Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be. “This touching memoir of an American dropped into the center of China transcends the boundaries of the travel genre and will appeal to anyone wanting to learn more about the heart and soul of the Chinese people. Highly recommended.” —Library Journal “This is a colorful memoir from a Peace Corps volunteer who came away with more understanding of the Chinese than any foreign traveler has a right to expect.” —Booklist
Author: Barbara A. West
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 1438119135
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 1025
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Book Description
Presents an alphabetical listing of information on the peoples of Asia and Oceania including origins, prehistory, history, culture, languages, and relationships to other cultures.
Author: Jianxiong Ge
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003800890
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 409
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Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive overview and explanation of China’s population, analyzing its special characteristics and patterns of growth over the past 2,000 years. Topics include its composition, distribution, migration, and deep analysis into China’s historical population. The author aims to answer complicated questions such as how China’s population was formed, when China started its earliest population surveys, how China’s population migrated and was distributed historically, and how existing population data should be evaluated and used now? In addition, the author explores the influence of natural and human-caused disasters, censuses, tax policies, and economic development on China’s population changes. The work also offers a span of rich historical detail related to population control. The book will be a great read to students and scholars of population studies, Chinese studies, ethnology, and those who are interested in Chinese history, archaeology, geography, and sociology.
