Wu Dingliang (1894-1969)
In the turbulent war years, Mr. Wu Dingliang tried to establish a strong and broad-minded anthropology department - bringing together various disciplines such as bone, physiology, statistics, blood, history, ethnicity, language, archaeology, and art. The discipline he is trying to establish cannot be measured by the existing anthropological framework, but it is a disciplinary vision with real Chinese characteristics and awareness of Chinese problems, which can be called "general anthropology".
By various circumstances, I had the privilege of seeing two archives currently stored in the zhejiang university archives: two lists of faculty members issued by Professor Wu Dingliang, then head of the Department of Anthropology at Zhejiang University, in 1948 and 1949. At that time, Mr. Wu had been "dug" by President Zhu Kezhen from the Academia Sinica in Nanjing for several years to carry out the construction and teaching of anthropology disciplines at Zhejiang University. These two precious materials record the initial composition of anthropology at Zhejiang University, and also reflect Mr. Wu's vision of the construction of anthropological disciplines: biologist Zhang Zonghan, cultural anthropologists Tian Rukang, Hu Qingjun, and Zheng Gongdun, ethnologist Jin Zutong, physical anthropologist Wu Rukang, archeological linguist Wen Zaiyu, hematology and ethnographer Ma Xiuquan, biologist Ying Youmei, archaeologist He Tianxing, cartographer Li Tiemin, administrator Zhuang Xueben, and so on. In addition to the list, scholars who have worked in anthropology at Zhejiang University include physical anthropologist Liu Xian, archaeologist Xia Nai, calligrapher Sha Menghai, educator Meng Xiancheng, and ethnologists Ma Changshou and Zhang Qiyun. With the departmental adjustment in 1952, the vast majority of the people on the list left Zhejiang University, leaving behind a blueprint for anthropology that failed to draw a successful one.
Scholars who have opened this period of history have all lamented Mr. Wu Dingliang's vision and boldness. Professor Wang Jianmin, an expert in the history of Chinese studies, commented: "Although Zhu Kezhen, president of Zhejiang University, who has always supported the development of anthropology, believes that 'the situation is not good, funding is difficult, and expansion should not be sought at this time', Wu Dingliang still created the Institute of Anthropology of Zhejiang University through hard work. Du Jing, who has studied the history of anthropology at Zhejiang University, once commented that this academic team "included experts in physical anthropology or biological anthropology, cultural anthropology or ethnology, archaeology or archaeological anthropology, linguistic anthropology, etc., and was the most powerful of several universities running anthropology departments in China at that time." Professor Ruan Yunxing of the Institute of Anthropology of Zhejiang University commented: "The anthropology of Zhejiang University headed by Wu Dingliang ... It has started the cause of cultivating senior talents in continental physique/cultural anthropology, leaving valuable experience in discipline construction that adheres to high professional standards and builds first-class disciplines. ”
With today's highly specialized division of disciplines, it is difficult to build the discipline of anthropology with the development ideas presented on the list. Mr. Wu Dingliang is now known as a physical anthropologist and was the first Fellow of the Academia Sinica (elected in 1948). However, he tried to establish an anthropological department that brought together various disciplines such as bone, physiology, statistics, blood, history, ethnicity, language, archaeology, and art. This great but unrealized vision is well worthy of our scrutiny.
Some commentators believe that the anthropology built by Academician Wu Dingliang is an American-style "four branches" anthropology, a "great anthropology" that brings together the four branches of archaeology, physique, language, and culture. But this statement is not accurate. Wu Dingliang's main study places were in the United Kingdom and Switzerland, where the four branches of anthropology were not formed, and linguistics and archaeology have always been self-contained. In fact, Wu Dingliang's disciplinary vision was not only different from Europe and the United States, but also different from China at that time. The Department of Anthropology of Zhejiang University, which he formed, is different from the "Northern School" that emphasizes community investigation, the "Southern School" that emphasizes historical evidence, and the "West China School" that attaches importance to frontier historical places. He even supported colleagues in conducting what today seems "trendy" overseas research. The fieldwork required for Tian Rukang's book The Sarawak Chinese was completed in 1950. He also personally or supported his colleagues to measure the bones of Yin Xu merchants, Malays, and Miao people, and conducted research on "primitive culture" and "social life" of the Shemin, Gaoshan, Miao, Zhongmin, and Borneo natives, and conducted research on blood type, skull, and physical development in Zhejiang and other places. In the Department of Anthropology under his presidency, courses such as "Anthropometry", "Vital Statistics", "Physical Anthropology", "General Anthropology", "Chinese Anthropology", "Chinese Antiquarians", "Archaeology", "Southeast Asian and Southeast Asian Studies", "Chinese Frontier Nationalities", "Frontier Languages", "Frontier Museology", "Specimen Making and Identification Methods", "Prehistoric Culture", "History of Human Development", "Eugenics" and so on are offered. Such a strong anthropology department with a broad field of vision cannot but make people wonder why he established such an anthropology department that is not found in ancient and modern China and abroad?
In 1948 and 1949, Professor Wu Dingliang, then head of the Department of Anthropology at Zhejiang University, issued two lists of faculty members.
Academician Wu Dingliang's positioning of anthropology can be glimpsed from his article "The Meaning and Scope of Anthropology" published in the Monthly Journal of Thought and Times (No. 45) in 1948:
According to the content, nature and trends of modern development of anthropology, the meaning of anthropology must be broad, and the close relationship between the two parts of physique and culture should be included within the scope of anthropological research, and anthropology should not be opposed to ethnology or ethnography, as Peinsen and Deligarts have suggested, so that the meaning is confused, because the content of the latter is actually part of anthropology in the broad sense. The classification of the various clans is based on the trichotomy of The Wisdom of Wendri: that is, anthropology is divided into three categories: physical anthropology, ethnology and archaeology - the most reasonable. Although the methods and materials of the three studies have their own particularities, the objects of their research are human and human activities.
From this article, we can learn at least three important information: First, Wu Dingliang's anthropological origins come from Europe, and the three anthropologists he said were K. Bahnson, J. Deniker, and M. Winternitz, all famous anthropologists in Europe in the early 20th century. Second, Wu Dingliang clearly put forward the concept of "anthropology in the broad sense" and advocated the combination of physical anthropology, ethnology and archaeology, because all three studied "human beings and human activities" and could not be abandoned. Third, the anthropology established by Wu Dingliang at Zhejiang University did not follow the trend of this "three-branch anthropology" structure, but joined the fields of physiology, psychology, history, and art. It is worth noting that as a scholar from the Institute of History and Philology of the Academia Sinica, although Wu Dingliang attaches great importance to language and writing, he does not give linguistics a special status.
In general, the anthropological discipline that Wu Dingliang tried to establish at Zhejiang University cannot be measured by the existing anthropological framework, but it is a disciplinary vision with Chinese characteristics and awareness of Chinese problems, which can be called "generalized anthropology". If we use the common perspective of anthropology as an "imported" discipline, it is not easy to understand Mr. Wu's good intentions by comparing China with a well-formed European and American anthropological institution. However, if we change our perspective and judge the time without using today's American "great anthropology" pattern, not dividing anthropology with Soviet-style "non-literary and rational", not looking for "gaps" in The comparison between China and foreign countries, but starting from the Chinese-oriented and Chinese problems, we will find that Mr. Wu Dingliang's "generalized anthropology" concept is closely related to the problem of national construction in modern China.
Wu Dingliang's generation of scholars was born in a chaotic world, and they had a sharp pain in the crisis of the country and the nation. For them, the so-called "feelings of family and country" and "great national righteousness" are the original intentions of governing learning. In an article in honor of Mr. Wu Dingliang, Professor Luo Weidong said that the main motivation for Mr. Wu's anthropological research came from his dissatisfaction with racist prejudice in Europe and the United States. At that time, the "Yellow Peril Theory", "Chinese Western Sayings", "Chinese innate deficiencies" and other arguments prompted Wu Dingliang to make up his mind to start from anthropology and study the "Chinese" in an all-round way. Wu Dingliang once said in a statement: "Sigh Chinese the naivety of class science ... [And] none of the Chinese students studied anthropology, so I made up my mind to study anthropology in England and Switzerland in the last few years. ”
Mr. Wu's extensive knowledge system gives him a unique insight into the significance of anthropology in China. In 1944, in Kang Dao Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 7 and No. 8, Wu Dingliang published an article entitled "Anthropological Proof of Ethnic Integration". Like many anthropologists at the time, he was worried that foreign scholars would try to divide China through the history of the frontier minorities, but his way of answering the question was quite unique:
Although the various clans of the Gaiwu Kingdom have dozens of names for han manchus, Mongolians, Huizang and Miaoyi in the southwest, their bloodlines have long been mixed in thousands of years of political, economic and cultural exchanges; the various ethnic groups depend on each other for survival, he is lip and teeth, even if the customs, habits, languages and cultural relics are slightly different, and the main characteristics of the physique are roughly the same... It is said that the Chinese nation is formed by the fusion of the majority of the clans, and this theory coincides with the scientific facts, and the bloodlines of each clan have long been mixed many times through the Spring and Autumn Period, the Warring States, the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the Wuhu Chaohua and the Great Changes in the Central Plains, which have long been mixed many times, and the historical facts are verifiable.
Obviously, this article is related to the debate around the "Chinese nation" at that time, and scholars such as Fu Sinian, Gu Jiegang, Tao Xisheng, Wu Wenzao, and Fei Xiaotong have their own views and cannot stand with each other. Wu Dingliang took a different approach, using the physical measurement data of the Russian anthropologist Shi Luguo, the Japanese ethnologist Torii Ryūzo, and the mainland geologist Ding Wenjiang in Han, Hui, Tibet, Mongolia and other places, and with his own measurement data in the Miao area, "from an anthropological point of view, to clarify the mixed components of the physique of various ethnic groups and their integration." In other words, Mr. Wu Dingliang not only encourages and endorses the conclusion of archaeology and history to study the pluralism and unity of the "Chinese nation", but also proves in terms of physical structure that the Chinese nation is a nation formed by long-term intermarriage and mixed blood. After analyzing and summarizing these data, Wu Dingliang said that "the difference in the physique of the nationality is based on regional changes, there is no obvious boundary to be divided at the beginning, its body shape is generally quite close, the vertical mixing time is far and near, and the degree is different, rather than the difference in type."
Wu Dingliang's exposition was different from the strategy of Tao Xisheng, Gu Jiegang and other scholars at that time to simplify the characteristics of the Chinese nation, but on the basis of fully recognizing the "differences" of various ethnic groups, they were discussed from the perspective of "integration" of culture and physique. This exposition not only respects the characteristics of all ethnic groups, but also emphasizes the commonality of the Chinese nation, which is very close to the "pattern of pluralism and integration of the Chinese nation" proposed by Mr. Fei Xiaotong many years later. Mr. Wu's research path, based on ethnicity and archaeology and based on physique measurement, is a unique "multiple evidence method", the purpose of which is to establish a three-dimensional and solid scientific foundation for the "Chinese nation". It can be said that this is a forward-looking, Chinese problem awareness, compatible with liberal arts and sciences and integrating Chinese and Western "complex theory". At this point, it is not difficult for us to understand why Mr. Wu Dingliang attaches so much importance to the ethnic differences within the Chinese, nor why Mr. Wu Dingliang wants to develop a "generalized anthropology" that spans physique, archaeology and ethnicity, and includes history, psychology, physiology and art.
Author: Agazo poem
Editor: Liu Di
Editor-in-Charge: Yang Yiqi
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.