Renewed Doubts on the New Theory of Naxi Ethnic Origins — A Further Discussion with Mr. Suwa Tetsurō
This 1993 article by Lin Xiangxiao continues a published scholarly debate with the Japanese scholar Suwa Tetsurō over the ethnic origins of the Naxi people. Responding to Suwa's claim that the Naxi ethnic stock descended mainly from indigenous farmers rather than northern nomads, Lin marshals comparative-linguistic evidence (extensive cognates linking Naxi, Qiang, and Yi vocabulary and Naxi's status as a "boundary" language between the Qiangic and Loloish branches), pastoral imagery preserved in Dongba scripture and Yongning Naxi oral epics, a reconstruction of the historical shift from matrilineal to patrilineal kinship among the Yongning Naxi, and the documented geographic accuracy of Dongba soul-guiding routes tracing back to Qiang territory near Songpan. Lin concludes that the ancestors forming the Naxi ethnic core originated among the pastoral ancient Qiang of the north, rejecting Suwa's proposed "dualist" models of pastoral/agricultural, patrilineal/matrilineal, and ruler/ruled origins.
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