Crimes Against Nature: Kincest, Cosmology, and Conservation in Southwest China

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe post-Mao era (1976–present) has seen a number of great changes in China. Two of these – the revival of religion and the emergence of a nascent, but powerful environmental movement – have come together in a unique way in the revitalisation of dongba religion among the Naxi nationality (pop. 300,000) of northwest Yunnan and southwest Sichuan provinces. This paper examines the relations between indigenous Naxi and outside tourists (mainly Han from other parts of China) through multiple lenses, including traditional Naxi cosmologies and theories of kinship and hospitality, as well as contemporary ideas concerning tourism development and environmental protection. The aim is to show that: (1) Naxi theories of alterity occur at multiple levels simultaneously – gods/demons vs. humans, kin vs. non-kin, native vs. stranger, host vs. guest, etc. – but that a unified logic underlies the relations, transactions, and interpenetration of these groups and (2) this logic is a productive force in its own right, that is, capable of harnessing new situations to it, even as it itself evolves as novel meanings are engendered in the process of intentional action. In all of this, one figure stands out: the dongba, a traditional shaman-priest viewed as a kind of mediator or facilitator in interactions and exchanges involving a wide range of human and non-human subjects.