Ignorance of Minzu and Holism on the Study of Minzu Society

Abstract: This article analyzes two readings during the Kuige (“魁阁”) time, Under the Ancestors’ Shadow by Francis Xu Langguang and Religious Cults of the Pai-ialong the Burma-Yunnan Border by Tian Rukang, and discusses their inspirations on today’s Minzu (“民族”) study. In the 1940s, neither the local people nor the researchers look at the outside world from the perspective of the Minzu category today. Therefore, in the research text, we cannot find any trace of “Minzu”, instead, authors show their concern of holism of society and the pursuit of generalized social theory. After 1949, with the accomplishment of ethic classification, Minzu has become a conceptual framework in academic study, which caused some dilemmas in Minzu study. Recently, there has been an increasing call to renew the knowledge system of ethnology in China, and this article hopes to shed some light on this trend by putting Minzu study into the understanding of whole China, and looking for the “whole society” in Minzu area.