彝文读写能力与明中叶在滇东黔西形成了的彝族民族意识
Disciples of Sage Ake:
Yi-Language Literacy and the Emergence of Yi Ethnic Consciousness in Eastern Yunnan and Western Guizhou in the Mid-Ming Period

　　University of California, Davis, USA
　　美国加利福尼亚大学戴维斯分校

　　【摘要】彜族文字对彝民族意识有比较重的象征性的意义， 但是创造现代的标准彝文之前大部分学者认为彝文主要是呗耄所用。明成化至嘉靖年间彝文读写能力不仅是呗耄所有，并且在滇东黔西一带广泛蔓延到彝族的高层阶级，即 兹（君长），莫（臣）与那苏（或黑种）阶层。这种广泛的读写能力留下来了不少证据，而且《彝汉教典》等史料代表当时彝族学者对彝文读写能力的态度。在当代彝族文化中心，高层阶级发展了彝文读写能力，然而读写能力使彝族土司家族网络成为一个以各地高层彝族为成员的读者共同体。当时彝族作家辩论了如何做共同体的成员，成员的资格包括：有共同的礼仪，有共同的祖先，及共同的历史传统。彝族政治家思想家没有放弃以氏族部落为基础的传统身份，但是他们认出来了两个总体性的民族种类，即 尼（彝）与 夏（汉）。明中叶的彝族学者用彝文为高层阶级的读者描述彝民族的成员范围，结果产生了一种新的民族意识。

　　关键词：读写能力 民族意识 彝族高层阶级 彝文学问

　　Abstract

　　I argue that Yi-language literacy was not limited to pe-m? during the Ming, but became widespread among the upper strata of the Nasu-ruled Yi polities of northeastern Yunnan and western Guizhou in the mid-Ming period, including lords (ndz’?), officials (m?), and the landowning class (na-so). We have many indications of this Yi-language literacy, and Yi ideas about the value of reading and writing to all classes of society are attested in such sources as the mid-Ming statecraft primer Ne-?a mo-mi (The Canon of Yi and Han Learning). The emergence of widespread upper-class literacy in Yi transformed what had been a network of lordly families into a community of readers among the Yi courtiers at native official yamens in eastern Yunnan and western Guizhou. This community engaged in a written discourse about what defined membership in the Yi community, including shared ritual practices, ancestry and historical traditions. Yi thinkers and statesmen did not abandon traditional identities based on descent and locality, but began to recognize a larger pair of oppositional ethnic categories: Ne (Yi) and ?a (Han). By writing in Yi about what made one Yi for an elite Yi audience, mid-Ming Yi scholars gave birth to a new kind of ethnic consciousness.

　　Keywords: literacy─ethnic identity─Yi elites─Yi-language scholarship

　　作者简介:
　　魏大可，加州大学戴维斯分校的博士生，打算2005年六月份完成博士论文，《罗婺甸，凤氏土知府与武定一带的彝族文化，1174-1745》。他是加州大学伯克莱分校的硕士。在2000至2001年在云南大学作了访问学者，同时作了档案研究，上了云南民族学院的张纯德学教授的彝文课。2001年内在云南武定县万德乡作了六个星期田野调查，是第一次用彝文史料来研究明清代彝族政治文化发展的美国学者。

　　About the Author:
　　Jacob Whittaker will complete his Ph.D. at University of California, Davis in June 2005 with a dissertation entitled “Indigenous Elites and Cultural Brokerage in Late Imperial Yunnan: The Lu-?o Polity, the Feng Family Native Prefects, and Nasu Yi Civilization in Wuding, 1174-1745.” He holds a Master of Arts from University of California, Berkeley. He was a visiting scholar at Yunnan University in 2000-2001, during which time he did archival research and studied Northeastern Yi with Prof. Zhang Chunde of Yunnan Nationalities Institute. During that time, he did six weeks of field research in Wande Township, Wuding County, Yunnan. Mr. Whittaker is the first American historian to study the classical Yi language and use Yi-language historical sources to understand the development of Yi politics and culture in the Ming and Qing periods.