Ethnicity and tradition in the upper Mekong region: mapping the other China at the turn of the XIX Century

This contribution deals with some aspects of “unconventional” knowledge about China, which have hardly been taken into consideration by mainstream Chinese studies, so that still today what is known of the local history and ethnology of Southwest China can hardly be compared with the knowledge acquired over decades of traditional Han studies. The northwestern borders of Yunnan province have always delimited a very complex area, hosting many peripheral populations and laying at the juncture of both Chinese and Tibetan political expansion. In my paper I will investigate ethnicity in this area at the turn of the XIX century, with a special focus on the Naxi. The analysis will be conducted by taking into account the records of the first European explorers and scholars who travelled across this region. The data collected will be then compared and contrasted with those in Han historical primary sources. This framework will be employed to perform a diachronic analysis, suggesting changes and continuities in local cultures, both geographically and ethnonymically. Lastly, passages from The Travels of Marco Polo will be considered to critically revise some of the conclusions drawn by a few notable Orientalists of the last century about the presence of the Naxi-Mosuo in the traveller’s book.