Abstract
Fei Xiaotong not only put forward the concept of the Tibetan-Yi Corridor, but also pointed out that it was an “ethnic area shaped by history.” How did the corridor form throughout history? After studying the ethnic flows of the Tibetan-Yi Corridor in history, this paper points out that there were mainly five trends in the area: 1. The Tibeto-Burman ethnic group migrating from north to south; 2. The Tubo eastward expansion and the process of “Fan-isation” in the north of this corridor; 3. The Mongolian southward migration; 4. the Mu chieftains and Yi northward expansion in the Ming and Qing Dynasties; 5. The Han pouring into the area in the Ming and Qing Dynasties until the Republic of China. Analyzing these trends, the author believes that the ethnic flows of these five large ethnicities have fundamentally shaped today’s ethnic patterns in the Tibetan-Yi Corridor. The study may help us understand the corridor as an “ethnic area shaped by history.”
Highlights
Since 2000, the Tibetan-Yi Corridor has gradually become a key region for Chinese ethnological, ethno-historical, and anthropological research
Around 6000 BCE the climate of the Yellow River basin rapidly became colder and drier, which was probably the main reason causing the original inhabitants of the upper reaches of the Yellow River to experience a large-scale southward migration.(Li Wenyi, 1998) Historical linguistics studies suggest the origins of the Tibeto-Burman ethnic group and its separation with the Chinese language certainly happened in the upper reaches of the Yellow River. (Wu Anqi, 2002) These Neolithic inhabitants who migrated southward to the Tibetan-Yi Corridor about 6000 years ago were the main pioneers of the Tibetan-Yi Corridor, as well as the earliest ancestors of the Tibeto-Burman ethnic group (Shuo Shi, 2008)
There is no doubt that the main five ethnic flows in the history of the Tibetan-Yi Corridor outlined above have shaped the causes and process of today’s ethnic structure of the Tibetan-Yi Corridor. From these five main ethnic flow trends, we can see that the ethnic activities throughout the history of the Tibetan-Yi Corridor presented the following features: As an “ethnic region shaped by history,” the formation process of the ethnic composition of the Tibetan-Yi Corridor was characterized by great openness and fluidity
Summary
Since 2000, the Tibetan-Yi Corridor has gradually become a key region for Chinese ethnological, ethno-historical, and anthropological research. Shi should be noted that in the 1980s Fei Xiaotong had put forth the concept of “Tibetan-Yi Corridor,” with the important precondition that he regarded it an independent “ethnic region shaped by history,” and he gave the following description of the historical features of the Tibetan-Yi Corridor: “This corridor was the bordering area of contact between the Han and the Tibetans, between the Yi and the Tibetans, and in different historical phases it presented a situation of political seesawing This corridor was the area where nationalities called Qiang, Di, Rong, etc., lived, and where local regimes of different sizes and longevity appeared.”(Fei Xiaotong,1980) pointed out that: “We ought to further clarify the process of ethnic evolution of this entire corridor.”(Fei Xiaotong,1980) “If we could thoroughly describe this corridor, we would be able to answer a great number of questions about ethnic formation, contacts, amalgamation, changes, and so on ”(Xiaotong Fei,1982). Even though the ethnic migrations and flows in this area have been frequent and complex throughout history, generally speaking, historically the ethnic flows in the Tibetan-Yi Corridor have mainly presented five trends, which we are going to describe
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