Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-5mhkq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-04T15:56:51.188Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Relationship between Society and Nature among the Hani People of China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Pascal Bouchery
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

With a total population of approximately one and a half million people, the Hani tribes are comprised of some twenty subgroups (the Lopi, Goxo, Zalo, Yiche, Akha, etc.), each of which possesses its own distinct identity and speaks one of the Tibeto-Burman languages. Most of this population is centered between the middle courses of the Red and Mekong rivers of China; smaller groups can be found inhabiting areas bordering on Vietnam, Burma, Laos, and Thailand. The Hani are a farming people who live in densely packed, hillside villages. Their primary crop is rice, which they grow on irrigated terraces located between eight hundred and eighteen hundred meters above sea level. The focus of this paper will be on one of the soil gods of the Hani people of the Red river area. Studying this god, who is accorded a central role in the religious liturgy of the Hani, we will see how the appropriation of a natural space and the exploitation of its resources depend directly on the cult relation maintained with him.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 44 , Issue 174 , January 1996 , pp. 99 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

Fitzgerald, C.P., The Tower of Five Glories, London, 1941.Google Scholar
Jackson, A., Na-khi Religion. An Analytial Appraisal of the Na-khi Ritual Texts, The Hague, 1979.Google Scholar
Le, Hei, “Hanizu de Shenling Fenlei,” in: Minzu Yanjiu, I, Gejiu, 1989, pp. 142–49. See also ibid., p. 141.Google Scholar
Lewis, P., Ethnographic Notes on the Akhas of Burma, 4 vols., New Haven, 1969.Google Scholar
Idem and Lewis, E., Peoples of the Golden Triangle. Six Tribes in Thailand, London, 1984.Google Scholar
Li, Qibo, “Hanizu Yuanshi Zongjiao Tanxi,” in: Honghe Minzu Yanjiu Wenji, Kunming, 1991, pp. 11–44.Google Scholar
Mao, Youquan, “Yiheren Jiangshai Lisu,” in: Yunnan Shehui Kexue, 3/1988.Google Scholar
Mus, P., “Cultes indiens et indigènes au Champa,” in: BEFEO, Vol. 33, No. 1 (1933), pp. 367–410.Google Scholar
Rock, J.R., “The Muan-Bpo Ceremony or the Sacrifice to Heaven as Practised by the Nakhi,” in: Annali Lateranensi, Vol. 16 (1952).Google Scholar