The Homeland of the Rovers：he Customs Center on ‘‘House’’ to View the social relationships of Hmongb in Yunnan

Many papers have revealed the flexibility of Hmongb interfamily relationships, often ascribing this characteristic to the state of continual migration due to slash and burn agricultural methods and post-war disorder. These researchers have proposed that such conditions may explain the establishment of a relatively flexible kinship category beneficial to the task of finding relatives when on the move. However, this interpretation is flawed in that it is based solely on appearances. Sahlins (1976) has stated that “every culture has its logic, and is not determined by the outside material conditions.” In other words, an “economic basis’’ is a symbolic scheme of practical activity, not just the practical scheme in symbolic activity. Sahlins did not mean that the material forces and constraints are left out of account,or they have no real effects on culture order. It is that the nature of the effects cannot be read from the nature of the forces, for the material effects depend on their culture encompassment. The very form of social existence of material force is determined by its integration in the culture system（ibid.：206）. Taking this as premise, we may explore the validity of interpreting social characteristics by way of a more essential cultural quality, what Sahlins referred to as the “symbolic or meaningful reason” of the Hmongb. This explanation may also help to describe Hmongb society in the aftermath of land reform in 1952, the period of people’s communes from 1958 to 1978, the household contract responsibility system, birth planning policies, et cetera. Although appearances suggest that the state impressed a strong plan to reconstruct traditional social order, we must be careful not to ignore the powerful impact of local society on these processes. In other words, while the Hmongb have been gradually absorbed into the new state bureaucracy, how can originally existing cultural mechanisms “articulate” new outside conditions in this new environment? This is also a question this paper will address. Reference material clearly shows that the concepts of house and family both play important roles in Hmongb society. Therefore, in this paper I analyze these two factors through the lens of three major social categories: the patrilineal group, affinity relationship, and groups in the locality. From observations made during my field research, I also indicate how the characteristic “family centered relationships” as well as the symbolic meaning of “house” in the Hmongb cultural system influence this society today.