Nong Zhigao: ethno-historical consciousness and cultural strategy of Nong people in China

Damrongphon Inchan

Abstract

This article presents part of an extensive study on the ethno-historical and socio-cultural contexts of the ethnic identification among the Nung/Nong, one the three major sub-branches of the Tai-speaking Zhuang people in Yunnan Province of China. Drawing on local historical-documentary research and ethnographic fieldwork in Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan, the author illustrates how local historical narratives and rituals based on the stories of a heroic ancestor, Nong Zhigao, have been instrumental in the social construction of Nung collective ethno-historical consciousness. At the same time, the historical contingencies of such narratives and religious practices have constituted boundaries within the same ethnic group. The article concludes by discussing how the worship of Nong Zhigao nowadays represents Nung’s cultural strategy to devise their collective perception of the past as a form of ethnic identification in the context of contemporary China.