A Study of the Institutional Culture of Ancient Tujia Society — The Contemporary Significance of Research on the Institutional Culture of Ancient Tujia Society
II. The Contemporary Significance of Research on the Institutional Culture of Ancient Tujia Society. It is clear that the study of institutional culture has become an important field within cultural studies and a key emerging direction in contemporary institutional research. This is because "the true elements of culture possess a certain permanence, universality, and independence; they are the organized [products of human activity]...
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II. The Contemporary Significance of Research on the Institutional Culture of Ancient Tujia Society
We clearly see that research on institutional culture has become an important field in cultural studies, and is also a key direction in the contemporary upsurge of institutional research. This is because "the true elements of culture have their own considerable permanence, universality, and independence; they are organized systems of human activity, which is what we call 'social institutions.' ... Social institutions are the true constituent components of culture." Therefore, "institutions are the true units of cultural analysis," and "unless elements, 'traits,' customs, or ideas are placed in their relevant and true institutional environment, they are difficult to define and cannot be defined. Hence, we insist that such institutional analysis is not only possible but indispensable."
Based on this understanding, this book attempts, on the foundation of previous research results, to conduct a relatively systematic theoretical exploration of the institutional culture that emerged in ancient Tujia society.③ We believe that this research has certain academic value and practical significance.
First, carrying out research on the institutional culture of ancient Tujia society helps to expand the scope of Tujia cultural research and deepen its content.
From cultural anthropologists' explanations of culture, we have already recognized that culture, as a relatively complex overall structure, is composed of three subsystems: material culture, institutional culture, and spiritual culture. In other words, institutional culture is one component of the organic whole or complex whole of culture. From the perspective of cultural interpretation, institutional culture as part of the cultural system is in fact inseparable in absolute terms from the spiritual level, such as thoughts and ideas, and from the material level. Human behavior is always governed by spiritual factors such as thoughts and ideas, and at the same time these spiritual factors inevitably give rise to and form institutional factors such as customs, rules, laws, and institutions, because human behavior has the characteristics of being collective and social. Once institutional factors arise and take shape, they cause human spiritual factors to be transformed into material results through institutional factors; this is the harvest of human behavior or human activity. It can thus be seen that institutional culture, as a component of the cultural whole, is both a product of spiritual culture and a tool of material culture. As a product of spiritual culture and a tool of material culture, institutional culture on the one hand constitutes the habits and norms of human behavior, and on the other hand also restricts or dominates changes in spiritual culture and material culture. Therefore, cultural change is often manifested through changes in institutional culture, just as Malinowski said: "All processes of cultural evolution or diffusion occur first in the form of institutional change. Whether in the form of invention or in the action of diffusion, new technological devices must always be incorporated into an already established system of organized behavior and gradually bring about a complete reshaping of the original institutions. In addition, according to functional analysis, we can prove that unless new needs are created, no invention, no revolution, and no social or intellectual change will occur. Thus, new devices in technology, knowledge, or belief must all be adapted to the cultural process or to some institution." Only changes in institutions or institutional culture can enable us to concretely understand and grasp the specific forms of cultural change. It is precisely institutional culture, as that which dominates or restricts changes in spiritual culture and material culture, that provides us with the key or model for observing and understanding human behavior and activity. Therefore, for cultural change and cultural development, the change and development of institutional culture occupy the primary position. Whether we observe human history vertically or examine social reality horizontally, we must take the change and development of institutional culture as the measure or coordinate. In fact, without the change and development of institutional culture, there would be no cultural change and development. Similarly, cultural change and development must first rely on institutional culture; by starting from the change and development of institutional culture, one can analyze and solve all specific problems in cultural change and development.
analyze and solve all specific problems in cultural change and development.
It is precisely because institutional factors such as various customs, rules, and laws always carry and preserve the material and spiritual factors of ethnic culture that contemporary Western cultural anthropologists often regard institutional analysis and research on institutional culture as a new path and new field in anthropological research. In his book Crime and Custom in Savage Society, Malinowski introduced institutional analysis into his field of anthropological research and began to use the viewpoint of the functional school to explore the operation of primitive legal institutions and social control in tribal societies. From then on, institutional analysis began to become a discursive tool in academic dialogue among anthropologists.
Undoubtedly, research on institutional culture can provide new methods and ideas for ethnological research from an entirely new perspective. Therefore, institutional culture in various fields of each ethnic society—political institutions, economic institutions, educational institutions, religious institutions, marriage institutions, and so on—should become a specialized field of ethnological research.② However, judging from the current state of Tujia cultural research, achievements in the study of institutional culture are still insufficient, or it can be said that they are still in the initial stage. This situation is bound to slow the overall progress of research on Tujia institutional culture. Therefore, this book attempts, on the basis of fully absorbing previous research results, to conduct a systematic theoretical exploration of the institutional culture that emerged in traditional Tujia society, in order to broaden the field of Tujia cultural research and deepen its content.
Second, carrying out research on the institutional culture of ancient Tujia society is a contemporary necessity for inheriting and developing traditional Tujia culture.
"Traditional culture refers to the original culture of an ethnic group formed in its historical development. It is closely combined with the ethnic body of each people and, through sedimentation over hundreds and thousands of years, despite social changes and the impact of various cultures, can still preserve its basic content and form. To this day it still plays a visible or invisible major influence and role in the collective life of each ethnic group. It may even be said that, in contemporary times, the most basic and most important marker distinguishing different ethnic groups is their unique traditional cultural factors." The traditional culture of ethnic minorities is a treasure in the cultural treasury of the Chinese nation and the cultural foundation for the survival and development of each ethnic group.
Today, in the era of reform and opening up, and in the process of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, various foreign cultures and local cultures surge against one another, population mobility among different ethnic groups is further strengthened, and the conditions and environment for the existence of traditional minority cultures have undergone rapid and profound changes, presenting a situation in which revival, decline, and variation coexist. To inherit and develop the traditional culture of ethnic minorities, efforts must be focused on two aspects: first, carry forward the essence of ethnic culture. Effective protection, organization, and research must be carried out on the outstanding cultural heritage of ethnic minorities, and according to the criteria of whether it is of the people, for the masses, and socialist; whether it is conducive to ethnic survival and development; and whether it is conducive to the common development and prosperity of all ethnic groups, the essence and dross of traditional minority culture should be distinguished, and the outstanding achievements in traditional minority culture should be fully tapped. Second, guide traditional minority culture to adapt to socialist modernization. Under the strong impact of various foreign cultures in the process of modernization, the cultural development of ethnic minorities faces a painful choice of cultural development models. Therefore, how to guide traditional minority culture to adapt to the requirements of modernization and endow traditional culture with more modern spirit and contemporary flavor is particularly important.
Traditional Tujia culture is the cultural accumulation of the Tujia people in various historical periods. It reflects the labor, creation, and spiritual pursuits of the Tujia people and concentrates the wisdom of the Tujia laboring people. Its institutional culture is very rich in content. For example, the enterprising spirit and spirit of mutual friendship are embodied in economic institutions; the spirit of patriotism is embodied in military institutions; the spirit of loving life, loving labor, and arduous struggle is embodied in marriage and family institutions; the pragmatic spirit is embodied in religious institutions; and the optimistic spirit is embodied in funeral institutions. These positive cultural spirits embodied in traditional Tujia institutional culture must continue to be carried forward and enhanced in the new historical period.
In the current construction of socialist culture, when excavating and protecting the heritage of traditional Tujia institutional culture, we must always adhere to the principle of placing equal emphasis on inheritance and innovation. The outstanding parts of traditional Tujia institutional culture should be vigorously promoted. For example, in the Ming dynasty, Tusi officials attached relatively great importance to education and generally established Tusi schools and private schools. This practice of valuing the training of talent played a positive role in raising the overall level of cultural development in Tujia areas. Another example is that various customary laws in Tujia areas played an irreplaceable role in maintaining production order and stabilizing social order. All of this is worthy of our in-depth study and careful summation. Of course, we also need to establish a consciousness of reform and use advanced socialist institutional culture to guide the innovation of traditional Tujia institutional culture. For example, Changyang Tujia Autonomous County in Hubei created the "Bashan Dance" on the basis of the traditional Tujia funeral institutional culture of the "jump funeral dance." This new art form won broad welcome among the masses and was commended by cultural management departments at all levels. Another example is Laifeng County in Enshi Tujia Autonomous Prefecture, which used traditional sacrificial culture to hold "Hand-waving Festival" cultural activities; Enshi County held the "Daughter's Meeting"; and Hefeng County developed the Rongmei Tusi small stele forest tourism project, and so on. All of these are attempts at cultural innovation, and these cultural innovation activities have played a certain positive role in invigorating the ethnic spirit and promoting economic development.
Finally, carrying out research on the institutional culture of ancient Tujia society helps to correctly understand and handle ethnic relations in Tujia areas and serves the building of a harmonious society in Tujia areas.
The Wuling mountain area, where the Tujia live in concentrated communities, is located in the hinterland of the motherland. It is not only the ancestral home of the Tujia, Miao, Dong, Gelao, and other ethnic groups, but also a convergence zone between the Han Chinese of the Central Plains and the ethnic minorities of the southwest. Population mobility among ethnic groups is relatively frequent, and ethnic relations are intricate and complex. For more than fifty years since the founding of New China, this region has established a new type of ethnic relations featuring equality, unity, and mutual assistance. Economic ties among ethnic groups have gradually strengthened, and traditional folk trade, mainly in the form of "going to market," has flourished without decline. Cultural exchanges between Han Chinese and various ethnic minorities have become increasingly frequent, and the culture and arts of various ethnic groups have influenced one another. Intermarriage among ethnic minorities and between Han Chinese and various ethnic minorities has become more common, and exogamy has become the main way of contracting marriage in the region, with the interethnic marriage rate reaching over 60 percent. These circumstances show that the development of ethnic relations in the Wuling mountain area has achieved remarkable results. However, because the ethnic estrangement left over from history has not yet been completely eliminated, and especially because of constraints imposed by the level of social production development, sudden incidents of ethnic contradictions and conflicts triggered by adjustments in ethnic interest relations still occur from time to time. The existence of these problems has seriously affected the normal development of ethnic relations in the region and has become a major obstacle to building a harmonious society there.
At the Central Ethnic Work Conference held in 2005, Comrade Hu Jintao described socialist ethnic relations as a new type of relations featuring "equality, unity, mutual assistance, and harmony." This is a new development of the elements of China's socialist ethnic relations, an important principle on ethnic relations put forward by the Party Central Committee under new circumstances, and also an important foundation for building a harmonious society. In a multi-ethnic country like ours, without harmony in ethnic relations, there can be no overall social harmony, still less national peace and stability.
In ethnic regions, traditional culture plays a positive role in stabilizing ethnic relations and promoting the harmonious development of ethnic societies. Traditional ethnic culture is not only the psychological foundation for the unity and cohesion of a given ethnic group, but also a bridge for developing friendly relations between different ethnic groups. The history of ethnic relations in China and abroad shows that the establishment of friendly relations between ethnic groups often relies on cultural exchange as a means and prerequisite. Therefore, ethnic culture is an important component of exchange between ethnic groups and a major channel and bridge for mutual communication and understanding. Without the communication and understanding of ethnic cultures, there can be no development of other relations between ethnic groups. Historical examples such as the Silk Road and Zheng He's voyages to the Western Seas sufficiently prove the importance of cultural exchange for developing ethnic relations.
In the Tujia regions throughout history, although there were many ethnic conflicts, ethnic relations were generally quite stable, and peaceful coexistence was the mainstream of ethnic relations. If we study the traditional institutional culture of the Tujia in depth, it is not difficult to discover that their traditional institutions contain many cultural traits of tolerance, openness, and adaptability, as well as the cosmological view of "the unity of heaven and humanity" and the cultural spirit of "harmony and integration." For example, in the traditional religious system of the Tujia, the Tujia people absorbed the Han cultural concept of "the unity of heaven and humanity" and adopted a relatively pragmatic attitude in understanding the relationship between humans and the universe: on the one hand, they regarded the universe as a supernatural existence and the master of human society; on the other hand, they did not show blind worship and obedience toward the universe (or the will of the gods), but believed that through sacrificial rituals it could be made to serve their own ethnic group. This concept of "two-way inclusiveness," which advocates both subordination to and closeness with the universe, embodies the Tujia spirit of "harmony and integration" in the "unity of heaven and humanity" regarding the relationship between the way of heaven and the way of humanity. Therefore, through studying the traditional institutional culture of the Tujia, we can unearth many positive cultural factors conducive to ethnic unity and discover that traditional ethnic culture is the profound historical foundation for building harmonious ethnic relations.