Memory and Identity: Tashi Tsering, the Last <i>Qinwang</i> South of the Yellow River

Abstract

Today’s Henan Mongol Autonomous County is located in the southeastern part of present-day Qinghai Province, in the northeastern part of the Tibetan plateau. This historical pastoral area South of the Yellow River is a border area where, a milieu was created due to the long-term mutual contacts between Tibetans and Mongols, in which specific local customs, language patterns, and social communities have emerged. The initial turning point in their ethnical and cultural identity was the integration into the modern Chinese State in 1954, followed by ethnic classification. Moreover the local pastoral Mongol and Tietan populations have been transformed into minority nationalities is-á-vis the Han Chinese, and many Tibetans even were classified as Mengguzu (Mongols), however, perceived as Tibet-Mongols (Tib. Bod Sog) by themselves and their neighbours. By looking at the outstanding historical figure of Tashi Tsering, the last Mongol qinwang of the Henan grasslands at the Sino-Tibetan borderlands, this paper examines how the people of the Henan grasslands integrate their memory of the local traditional leader into their identity construction, and how they revive their Mongolness despite their seclusion from other Mongol communities.