A nation is a nation, and where will it be necessary to fight? Can one person fight for a nation? You will ask such questions. But when you have a deep understanding of the "hidden" situation of the Tujia family in western Hunan at the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, and after you have a sufficient understanding of the complexity of the identification of the ethnic groups in the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China, you will have infinite feelings in your heart when the Tujia family is recognized as an independent ethnic group in western Hunan Province; and when you learn that this is almost the unswerving efforts of the Tujia girl Tian Xintao, who has been "hidden" for two hundred years, to raise this issue and assist in gradually separating the Tujia family that has been "hidden" for two hundred years from the Han and Miao ethnic groups in western Hunan Province. When you finally become an independent ethnic group among The 56 ethnic groups in China, you will lament how lucky the Tujia family is to have such a daughter! Every Tujia family member should be grateful and admired for Tian Xintao.
One
The ethnic composition of western Hunan is quite complex, and the ethnic groups living here have been gradually formed after thousands of years of ethnic migration and common life.
The prehistoric situation in western Hunan was originally chaotic, and it was believed that there was no trace of human activity, but excavations began to be carried out through the site of the Hongjiang Gaomiao Temple in the 1990s, and it was confirmed that there were Gaomiao people in Xiangxi 7,000 years ago.
Later archaeology in western Hunan gradually unveiled the mystery of ancient humans in this area. Yuanshui Basin cultural sites can be divided into two categories: the first is the local indigenous culture strongly influenced by the Shangzhou culture of the Central Plains, represented by the Lishui Shimen Soap City, corresponding to represent the Sanmiao ethnic group that once lived in the Yuanshui River Basin, they migrated from Dongting Lake, that is, the ancestors of the Miao people in western Xiangxi; the second type is the indigenous culture, that is, the Zhujiatai culture named after the Sangzhi Zhujiatai distributed in the upper hinterland of the Yuanshui River, which is actually the culture of the descendants of the local Gaomiao people, and such sites also include Yongshun Buermen and Longshan MiaoShi Bazui. It is mainly concentrated in the Unitary Water Basin.
The Wuling Man and Wuxi Man recorded in the Han literature actually include all the ethnic groups living in the upper reaches of the Yuan River. In the Han Dynasty, Wuxi Man once had a fierce contest with the imperial court, and after the "Zi Man" of the Wei and Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties, the "Barbarian" clan in the Tang Dynasty was divided into "Miao", but this "Miao" was not today's Miao, but a "Hundred Miao" including many southwestern ethnic groups, including the "Turen", that is, today's Tujia.
In the Tujia "History", it is called "Southwest Yi", the Book of Later Han is called "Wuling Man", the Five Dynasties is called "Wuxi Man", and the "History of Song" is "Nanbei River Barbarians", at this time and in the subsequent history books, there have been titles such as "Tu Bing", "Tu Ding", "Tu Ren", "Tu Jun" and so on.
The relationship between the two main ethnic groups in western Hunan and the Han is interesting: the Miao migrated from the Dongting Lake area where the Han culture is located, and in the early days they were deeply influenced by the Han culture, but later they maintained their cultural characteristics more completely; while the Tujia were locals, they were rarely influenced by the Han culture in the early days, but after the land was changed and returned, they were very sinicized, which also made it more difficult for the ethnic identification after liberation.
Two
The Tujia family is a native of the Yuanshui Youshui River Basin for generations, but has since been inextricably linked to immigrants.
First of all, during the Qin-Chu War in the Warring States period, the Ba people who were wiped out by the Qin State fell to Wuxi, and the Tang Dynasty's "Ten DaoZhi" said: "Chu Zi extinguished Ba, five ba zi brothers, flowed into Qianzhong, Han has the world, the names of you (water), Chen (river), Wu (water), Wu (xi), Yuan (water) and other five streams, each is the length of a stream, the number of five streams." Such records can also be found in books such as "Records of Yuanhe Counties and Counties", "Class Essentials", "Road History", "Tongjian Geographical Interpretation" and so on, which should be said to be credible. The Ba people should be an important part of the Tujia family.
Then there were jiangxi immigrants in the five dynasties of the late Tang Dynasty, who believed that their ancestors were from Jishui, Jiangxi in the fifth generation. These who later became toasts were immigrants, and some of their natives were also immigrants; then there were military immigrants brought by the Ming Dynasty to guard against "barbaric rebellion", such as the Jiuxiwei of the Two Xuanwei Divisions of Rongmei and Sangzhi; Guard against Yongdingwei of the Yongshun Xuanwei Division; Guard against the Chongshan Guards of the Baojing Xuanwei Division; Guard against the "Miaojiang" Zhenxi Qianhushou and so on.
Most of these natives have formed villages with surnames, and since ancient times, the surnames have been Tian, Xiang, Qin, Peng, Ran and other surnames, and these surnames are relatively concentrated in a certain area (such as Yongshun Peng, Tian, Xiang surnames mostly). Tusi started by relying on the "strong clan surname" and ruled most of the natives of the same sect with his own power.
In particular, in the fifth dynasty, Peng Yu from Ji'an, Jiangxi, defeated and drove out the barbarian chieftain Wu Yuchong of Xizhou, and then successively conquered the Tu chieftains such as Jaba Chong, and gradually unified the various departments of the Youshui River Valley, and in 923, the King of Chu, Ma Yin, appointed Peng Yu as the commander of jingbian and the governor of Xizhou, leading the prefectures of Shang, Zhong, and Xiaxi, as well as the prefectures of Baojing and Yongshun. Although in 938, the contradictions between the successor Chu king Ma Xifan and the successor Xizhou Assassin Shi Pengshi continued to arise, which eventually led to the famous Battle of Xizhou in western Hunan Province, and in the fifth year of Tianfu (940), the two sides adopted the form of Lixi Prefecture copper pillars to strike and reconcile.
Xizhou Copper Pillar
As a result, Yongshun (Xizhou) Peng's Toast began the ruling process of 27 generations and 35 Tuguan Tusi, through the 9 dynasties of Later Liang, Later Tang, Later Jin, Later Han, Later Zhou and Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing, and the people under their jurisdiction were able to avoid large-scale wars and dynastic changes in history and live a relatively stable life in more than 800 years.
At that time, there were four major toasts in Huguang, in addition to Yongshun, there were Rongmei Toasts in Western Hubei, and there were Sangzhi and Baojing Toasts in Western Hunan Province, and the jurisdiction of Baojing Toasts extended all the way to the vicinity of the present-day Fenghuang County and the area between the county seat and Ziping, where the Miao people lived in mixed quarters, and in the Ming Dynasty, there was a Wuzhai Commandery in the area of Fenghuang County, and there was a ChiefTain division in the area of Ziping, all of which were led by the Baojing Prefecture Military and Civilian Propaganda and Consolation Envoy Division.
Until the sixth year of Qing Yongzheng, in order to strengthen the centralized management of remote areas, the Qing court changed the toast system to a centrally appointed official. The last toastmaster, Peng Zhaohuai, "created his family's household register and drew a map of public opinion", took the initiative to peacefully transfer political power to the central government, and returned to Jiangxi with his descendants to establish a household. The Xizhou (Yongshun) toast system came to an abrupt end.
At that time, the Tujia had already increased and developed by a considerable margin, and the Tujia in Hunan in the middle of Qianlong was conservatively estimated to be more than 400,000.
However, these big toasts in Huguang are all Tujia families, and Tusi accepts the title of the Central Dynasty, while promoting Han Confucian culture in the jurisdiction, and on the other hand, he falsely entrusts his ancestors as celebrities in the history of the Han people, which is often difficult to distinguish. Coupled with the "return of the land to the stream", a large number of Han Chinese moved into this area also brought a profound impact on the Tujia family. Therefore, in people's concepts, the concept of the Tujia as a nation is further diluted.
Old Sicheng
During the Yongzheng period to the Republic of China, the imperial palace of Yongshun Toast, Laosi City, gradually collapsed with the passage of time, and the Tujia family gradually disappeared into the Han people with the disappearance of Toast and the migration of Han immigrants.
Three
The Wuling Mountains began to be called "barbarian land" in history, and the Song and Yuan dynasties began to call it "MiaoJiang", where another ethnic group with a large population, the Miao people, lived here. These Miao people are rumored to be the descendants of Xuan You, who went to Dongting Lake to become Jingman after losing the Central Plains War with the Yellow Emperor, and later were forced to flee into the Wuling Mountains and wuxi area, becoming part of what is called "Wuling Man" and "Wuxi Man" in the historical records.
These experiences can be seen in the real records from the historical records of the imperial court; and from the epic poems of the Miao people recording their own national history, we can also see the transmission of the history of that migration. The ancient Miao song "Huba Juma" in western Hunan is an epic poem that describes the migration of the Miao ancestors, and the poem makes a detailed account of the history of the Miao ancestors who moved from the Yellow River to western Hunan after the death of Xuan you. The poem says that the ancestors of the Miao people originally lived on the side of the big river (that is, the Yellow River) that was "like ash" and "chaff-like", and was bullied and driven away by people, so they migrated to Dongting Lake in Hunan, and later they could not live here, so they had to continue to migrate westward, and when they moved to the "Gaorong Bazhuo" (the edge of the Wuling Mountains), they wrote down that they had established their homes in Chongshan (present-day Yongding District of Zhangjiajie) and Luxi Pass (in the area of present-day Luxi and Chenxi), and lived for a long time.
In western Hunan, the Tujia and Miao families lived intertwined, and in the Qing Dynasty, "Miao" was a generic name for ethnic minorities, so many people only knew that there was "Miao" here but did not know the existence of tujia. For example, the Ming Dynasty's Toast Army was recruited outside, generally called Miao Bing, miao soldiers who went out.
In particular, during the Ming Dynasty, the Red Miao of Western Hunan developed as a branch of the Miao people. In the forty-fourth year of the Wanli Dynasty, Zhang Heming, the imperial history of Guizhou, once played: "Red seedlings are plagued and ravaged the three provinces (referring to Huguang, Guizhou, and Sichuan). It can be seen that the power of the red seedlings at that time was already quite strong. "The main color of the "red seedling" is not red, but the main color of saffron and blue, and the name red refers to wearing a red color line dress or coiled red band.
Qing "Miao Man Tu Said" Red Miao
Red Miao", because it is centered on the Laer Mountains, is also known as "Laer Mountain Miao"; because of the early Ming Dynasty, zhenxi Qianhushuo and Ziping ChangguanSi, also known as "Zhen Zi Miao". Judging from the records of the Ming Shilu, the "red miao" at that time was quite widely distributed, and the Miao people in Huxi and Guangxi were mainly in Fenghuang, Qianzhou, Yongsui Three Halls and Baojing in Yongshun Province.
Qing Yan Ruyi's "Miao Defense Overview" contains the "Miao Frontier Full Map"
As we said, the Miao people in western Hunan were driven step by step by the imperial court from a wealthy place such as Dongting Lake to the Lal Mountain Terrace in the alpine mountains, and the environment was harsh and food was insufficient, and the Miao people were forced to go out to the "provincial land" where the Han people lived to rob, which the imperial court called "Miao Rebellion" or "Koubian". Miao Jiang Miao rebellion in the Ming Dynasty, seen in the historical records as many as 30 times. From the fifth year of Ming Hongwu (1372) to the sixteenth year of Chongzhen (1643), a total of 271 years, an average of about 9 years there was a Miao rebellion. In the 30 miao rebellions, as many as 25 times there were red seedlings in the Lar Mountains, accounting for more than 80% of the total number of Miao rebellions in the Ming Dynasty. It can be seen that the red seedlings of Lal Mountain are the main force of turmoil in Miaojiang.
The Ming court actually had administrative yamen here, such as Chenzhou Prefecture and Tongren Prefecture, as well as Weishou ChongshanWei and Zhenxi Qianhushou, but these were all useless.
The imperial court also hoped that the appointed toasts, the Baojing Xuanwei Division and the Yongshun Xuanwei Division, as well as the subordinate Wuzhai ChiefTainsi and ganziping ChiefTainsi, would manage it, and the Miao Territory Tusi would not be able to exercise control over the Red Miao in western Hunan at all. Later, Cai Fuyi, who created and guided the construction of a border wall to defend the Miao, said in the official documents: Yongshun and Baojing two toastmasters had to submit a letter of guarantee to the imperial court every year, promising to manage the Miao, Yongshun Toast bound Zhenmiao, Baojing Toast bound Zhenmiao (Zhenyi roughly Phoenix, Qianzhou two halls), but the two toastmasters did not seriously take responsibility, and sometimes deliberately connived at the Miao rebellion, the promises were false, and they would come to attack every autumn and winter.
The rebellion of the Red Miao in western Hunan against the imperial court became a nightmare for the two imperial courts of the Ming and Qing dynasties, and the existing Miaojiang border wall is an example: I can't rule you, just circle you with a wall, as long as you don't come out and rob it. Although in the eighth year of Yongzheng, the Qing court carried out the cruel opening up of miao territory at the same time as changing the land and returning to the stream, but the Miao people's uprising during the Qianjia period taught the Qing court a lesson, and the red Miao people in western Hunan were always a problem for the Qing court.
Toshi was considered an accomplice of the imperial court and participated in the court's rule over the Miao people. This also became the basis for later belief that the Tujia were Han Chinese.
In June 1933, Ling Chunsheng and Rui Yifu of the Institute of History and Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences inspected the Miao people in western Hunan and published the "Investigation Record of the Miao people in western Hunan during the Republic of China period", which early determined the status of the Miao as a major ethnic group outside the Han Manchus, Mongolia, and Tibet.
Four
In 1949, the 47th Army of the Chinese People's Liberation Army marched into western Hunan Province, at this time it had been 221 years since the fall of the late Tusi Peng Zhaowei in 1728, the Tujia nation was actually hidden, in the local Miao people' point of view, they were han, and externally looking at Xiangxi, they were sometimes mixed with the Miao, they had no leader for more than two hundred years, that is to say, the Tujia family had no even village organizations to fight for their interests; some of their customs during the Tusi rule also disappeared and weakened. In particular, the areas that are well integrated with the Han are no different from the Han, and there is no sign that this ethnic group will be united.
However, at this time, a person from this ethnic group seized the fleeting opportunity in the changing times, and almost single-handedly made the culture of this nation clear, and finally recognized by the government, becoming one of the fifty-six nationalities in the country.
This person's name is Tian Xintao.
Tian Xintao was born in the countryside of Yongshun County, according to her later recollections, Yongshun at that time was a "three-more" place: there were many bandits, tigers and leopards, and many harsh taxes, her second uncle was bitten by a tiger, her third uncle was bitten by a tiger, and there were three people in prison because the elders could not afford to pay taxes, but in general, her family was still good, because her father knew Chinese, and she herself also went to the National Eighth Middle School, which took refuge from Jiangsu and Zhejiang to Xiangxi at that time.
In October 1949, Tian Xintao was teaching at Yongshun Lianli Middle School, and during an event to greet the People's Liberation Army, she met Lieberthal, who was then the director of the political department of the 141st Division of the 47th Army, and then had some contacts, but then Liekan left Yongshun and the two broke off contact.
However, the two met again on the streets of Yuanling a few months later, and the fates of Tian Xintao and the Tu family were changed.
In August 1950, Tian Xintao attended a middle school teacher's workshop at the Xiangxi Branch Office (then located in Yuanling), one day met Lieberthal on the street, acquaintances were naturally very happy to see each other in different places, a few days later Tian Xintao went to Liekan's house to visit their couple, Liekan enthusiastically mobilized Tian Xintao to the army to be a cultural teacher, Tian Xintao said that he still wanted to go to school, and politely refused the invitation. But in this conversation, she talked about her family lineage and the situation of the Tu family, which attracted the attention of Lieberthal.
Here it has to be said that Tian Xintao was a person with a strong sense of nationality, and Li Kan was a person who was very alert to national culture, because at that time, New China had just been founded, and the work of national identification had not yet been carried out, and it was rare for them to have such awareness and vigilance. This also brought about the following series of operations that changed the fate of Tian Xin Tao and the Tu family.
Lieberthal then introduced Tian Xintao to Wang Hanfu, the leader of the bureau, who learned from her about the Tujia language, customs, and settlements, and specifically asked her to speak "eating" in Hmong and Tujia.
At the beginning of September, the Xiangxi Bureau introduced Tian Xintao to the Hunan Provincial Department of Civil Affairs, and the leader of the Department of Civil Affairs was very interested in the Language, Customs, and Characteristics of the Tujia Family, and asked her to say the items in the reception room one by one in Tujia language. A few days later, two directors of the Provincial Department of Civil Affairs and the Ministry of Civil Affairs of the Central and Southern Districts took Tian Xintao to Hankou to live in the Central and Southern Ministry of Civil Affairs.
On September 15, Tian Xintao was invited to attend the second meeting of the Central and Southern Military and Political Committee, and the party and government leaders of the Central and Southern Region attended the meeting, and more than 300 representatives from all walks of life attended the meeting. The theme of the meeting was to discuss the political, military, economic and cultural and educational issues of the Central and Southern Region. However, Tian Xintao only did one thing during the meeting, that is, to introduce the uniqueness and economic backwardness of the Tujia language and customs gathered in Yongshun, Baojing, Longshan, and Guzhang in northwestern Hunan Province.
On September 28, Tian Xintao, as a representative of the Miao ethnic group, came to the capital Beijing with the National Day Ceremony Group of Ethnic Minorities in the Central and Southern Region. In Beijing, together with representatives of other nationalities, she was cordially received and feasted on by Chairman Mao Zedong, Premier Zhou Enlai, and other party and state leaders. Pan Qi, then head of the National Day Ceremony Group for Ethnic Minorities in the Central and Southern Region, introduced Tian Xintao to Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou: "Tian Xintao represents that her grandmother is a Miao and her grandparents are Tujia, and the Tujia language she speaks is different from other ethnic groups."
On October 4, 1950, Tian Xintao took a photo when he visited the Palace Museum as a representative of the Central and Southern Bureau of the CPC Central Committee
Later, in the days in Beijing, the young girl who participated in the National Day ceremony as a representative of the Miao ethnic group in western Hunan said: "I am not a Miao, I am a 'Bizka' (Tujia family), and the language I speak is different from the Language of the Miao or other ethnic groups. With this strong sense of national self-confidence and national responsibility, Tian Xintao calls himself "Bizka" everywhere he goes. She insisted that the best and strongest evidence of the Tujia family was her national language, the Tujia language.
In front of Deng Zihui, Zhang Zhiyi, Qian Ying, Zhao Yimin, and Zhang Pinghua, responsible comrades of the party and army in the central and southern regions at that time, Tian Xintao interpreted the Tujia language he spoke, and at the same time introduced the unique customs and habits of the Tujia family, expressing the hope that the party and the government would recognize the Tujia family as a single ethnic group as soon as possible. Tian Xintao's voice as a young girl has attracted the attention of relevant central departments, and on October 14, Yang Chengzhi, an ethnologist sent by the central government, conducted an exclusive interview with Tian Xintao. During the visit, Tian Xintao introduced the human body, number, pronouns, nouns, relative titles, daily necessities, animals and plants of the Tujia language to Yang Chengzhi on the spot. Yang Chengzhi therefore wrote a special report. At the recommendation of Pan Qi, Tian Xintao also came to the Institute of Linguistics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and made a live recording of Tujia language under the organization of the famous linguist Luo Changpei. Luo Changpei concluded on the spot that the language spoken by Tian Xintao was different from neither Hmong nor Chinese nor any other minority language, and belonged to a special language of the Sino-Tibetan Tibetan-Burman language family.
Five
After returning from Beijing, Tian Xintao never returned to the teachers' workshop in Yuanling, but was recommended by the Central South Nationalities Committee to study in the education department of Renmin University, and after graduating in the summer of 1951, he was assigned to teach at the South Central Institute for Nationalities.
Tian Xintao met Peng Bo, who was working in the Central South Nationalities Committee at that time, and at their common request, the Central South Military and Political Committee named five Tujia students from Hunan, Named Peng Kai, Peng Qinghai, Peng Liangfu, Xiang Zhengrong, and Peng Nanqing, to study in the Zhongnan Folk Academy, which also identified reserve talents for the later Tujia family, during which 7 people jointly wrote to the central government to ask for confirmation that the Tujia family was a single ethnic minority.
At the end of 1952, the Central and Southern Bureau transferred the linguist Yan Xueyi from Sun Yat-sen University to serve as the leader of the Xiangxi Task Force of the Central South Nationalities Commission, responsible for the preparation of the Xiangxi Miao Autonomous Region. Yan Xueqiu later recalled: "There was a female comrade named Tian Xintao, who worked in the Central South Nationalities Committee, in her 20s, from Yongshun County, Xiangxi. In a casual chat, she told me that the language of their hometown was neither Like Xiangxi Miao nor Local Chinese, but probably an independent minority language, and that they called themselves 'Bizka', which means 'local', and called themselves 'Tujia' to the outside world... I immediately asked her to pronounce a few basic words, and when I listened, it was not Chinese, nor was it like the Miao pronunciation, but close to the Tibetan-Burman Yi pronunciation. I found the Qing Dynasty's "Phoenix Hall Chronicle", "Yongshun FuZhi" and "Longshan County Chronicle", and found the words recorded in Chinese as 'Tu Man', so that Tian Xintao could pronounce it, and most of them actually coincided! ”
Since 1950, the central authorities have dispatched a large number of well-known linguists and ethnologists, such as Yan Xueqiu, Pan Guangdan, Xiang Da, Wang Jingru, and Wang Mingyu, to conduct field investigations in the Tujia areas of western Hunan province on many occasions. Among them, the investigation of the Tujia language is particularly in-depth and meticulous, because the local people mostly use the Tujia language to introduce the specific situation to the members of the investigation team, so Tian Xintao is not only a member of the central investigation team, but also carefully organized young students and some local youth to act as interpreters for the investigation team.
In 1956, Pan Guangdan held a discussion with the tujia elderly in Changyang, Hubei Province
It is particularly worth mentioning that Tian Xintao, as a local, has provided great help for experts and scholars to investigate visits. Pan Guangdan's immortal works that laid the foundation for the status of the Tujia family, "The Tujia and the Ancient Ba People in Northwest Hunan Province," "The Report on Visiting the "Tujia" in Northwest Hunan Province," "A Fraternal Ethnic Group in Northwest Hunan, Southwest Hubei, and Southeast Sichuan—The Tujia" (co-authored with Xiang Da), Wang Jingru's "Preliminary Opinions on the Tujia Language in Western Hunan Province," Wang Mingyu's "Overview of the Tujia family" in western Hunan Province, and so on, have laid the cornerstone for confirming that the Tujia is a single ethnic group.
In 1953, the upcoming elections to the people's congresses at all levels should reflect the equality of nationalities, allocate the number of deputies according to the number of ethnic minorities, and urgently need to clarify the ethnic composition and determine the names of the nationalities; to implement regional ethnic autonomy, it is also necessary to find out which places are the concentrated areas of which nationalities.
Unexpectedly, as the ethnic delegation publicized the policy of ethnic equality, the long-term oppressed ethnic minorities in history enthusiastically reported their ethnic names, and the results of the investigation showed that more than 600 million people in the country reported more than 400 kinds of ethnic names for self-registration, and there were more than 260 in Yunnan Province alone. In this case, ethnic identification became a top priority in the field of ethnic work at that time.
However, from the perspective of historical factors and actual conditions, the basis for opposing the recognition of the Tujia as a single ethnic group is also sufficient. The ethnic minorities in wuling wuxi in history, in the Han literature, are very early and recently as seedlings, and most of the legends are "barbarian traditions", but toast is dedicated to "toast"; whether it is Yongshun toast or nearby Baojing toast, their genealogies are traced back to Han people, and historically they also regard themselves as Han chinese;
The process has been tortuous and repeated, and even the investigation conclusions of the central authorities and experts and scholars have been denied and artificially obstructed. Individual leaders of Hunan Province also made some outrageous remarks, resolutely opposing the recognition of the Tujia as a single ethnic group.
Under these circumstances, a large number of Tujia intellectuals, such as Peng Wuyi, Peng Bo, Peng Xiumo, and Peng Xiushu, wrote reports and sent materials to the central authorities, strongly urging the central authorities to resolve the issue of the Tujia's ethnic composition as soon as possible. Among them, Mr. Peng Wuyi's "First Draft of the Outline of the Ancient History of the Tujia People in Western Hunan Province" and "Preliminary Exploration of the Syntax of the Tujia Language in Western Hunan Province" are the most famous. In 1953, when the Central Investigation Hunan Tujia Group conducted field investigations in Yongshun, the Yongshun Tujia scholar Peng Xiumo recorded the Tujia language and Tujia folk songs pronounced by Tujia students with the International Phonetic Alphabet, providing valuable information for Wang Jingru to write the article "Preliminary Opinions on the Tujia Language in Western Hunan Province".
Until 1956, the Tujia family confirmed that the single ethnic issue had still not been resolved, so the central authorities once again instructed the Hunan Provincial Party Committee to form an investigation team to investigate the Tujia problem in western Hunan Province; in May and June 1956, the central authorities sent Xie Heshou, then deputy director of the Central Nationalities Commission, to Hunan, and Hunan Province appointed Xie Hua, director of the United Front Work Department of the Provincial CPC Committee, to form a joint investigation team of the central, provincial, and prefecture governments to once again go to Longshan, Yongshun, and other counties in western Hunan to investigate the Tujia issue. In July, the "Investigation Report on the Tujia Problem" was formed, and in August 1956, the Central Tujia Investigation Team once again investigated the Tujia language of the second district of Yongshun County to Shanxiang and Yanchong Township in the fifth district of Longshan County, and Duogu Township in the sixth district, forming the "Investigation Report on tujia language in western Hunan Province".
In 1956, the Tujia Investigation Mission was held in Yongshun
In the investigation of the Tujia language, the three major evidences confirming that the Tujia are a single ethnic group have been clearly highlighted. These three major pieces of evidence are: First, the "Tujia" himself called "Bizka" and has always lived in the border area of Xiang'e, Echuan and Qian. At that time, there were 194,000 "Tujia" people in Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture. It is mainly distributed in Longshan, Yongshun, Baojing, Guzhang and other counties. Second, the Tujia language has its own independent characteristics, which are different from Chinese and Miao. Third, the customs and habits of the Tujia family are different from those of the local Han and Miao ethnic groups, and there are unique national style of swinging dance, Tima, Andugus.
To this end, the recognition of the Tujia as a single ethnic group has also undergone a tortuous process of more than five years. In October 1956, when the investigation team reported the investigation materials to the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, Comrade Zhou Xiaozhou, who was then the first secretary of the Hunan Provincial Party Committee, decisively said: "Don't talk about other situations, just by virtue of this language, the Tujia family is an ethnic minority." Report to the central government! ”
In October 1956, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China informed the Hunan Provincial Party Committee that the Central Committee had agreed that the Tujia were a single ethnic group, and asked Hunan to write a report to the Central Committee as soon as possible so that it could be formalized. Therefore, the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China instructed the Xiangxi Miao Autonomous Prefecture Committee of the Communist Party of China to write the "Report on Requesting Instructions for Approval of the Tujia as an Ethnic Group" on November 29, 1956. On December 8, 1956, the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China approved by telegram the report of the Prefectural Committee of the Xiangxi Miao Autonomous Prefecture of the Communist Party of China and reported it to the Central Committee. On January 3, 1957, the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee issued a document on behalf of the CPC Central Committee, officially confirming the Tujia as a single ethnic group. He also informed the Hunan Provincial CPC Committee and the United Front Work Department of the Hubei, Sichuan, and Guizhou Provincial CPC Committees by urgent telegram. The Tujia family, which had been destroyed for thousands of years, finally became a separate ethnic minority.
Tian Xintao used every opportunity to express the voice of a nation in the Tujia language, and finally achieved the success of the Tujia identification, which was confirmed by all parties.
In the document confirming that the Tujia family is a single ethnic group issued by the United Front Work Department of the CPC Central Committee, Tian Xintao's contribution to identifying the Tujia family as a single ethnic group is objectively described: "The issue of the tujia composition was raised in 1950. On National Day that year, Tian Xintao, a representative of ethnic minorities who came to Beijing to watch the ceremony, proposed that she was a Tujia family, not a Miao ethnic group, and asked for recognition that the Tujia was an ethnic minority. ”
On December 9, 1956, Pan Guangdan, who had academically established the status of the Tujia family, said in Changyang, Hubei Province, why he would intervene in the identification of the Tujia ethnic group: "In 1950, Tian Xintao, a female teacher in Hunan Xiangxi Miao Autonomous Prefecture, participated in the National Day ceremony group for ethnic minorities as a Miao, and during the beijing ceremony, she had the privilege of meeting the central leaders, reflecting that she was not a Miao, but that she was another separate ethnic minority with different languages and different customs and habits, and asked for an investigation, which aroused the great attention of the central leaders. Instruct relevant departments to conduct investigations and studies. Later, this investigation task was concretely implemented to the Central Institute for Nationalities. At that time, he was teaching at the Central Institute for Nationalities and serving as the director of the Central South Group of the Research Department, and he undertook this heavy responsibility, so that he began to study the Tujia family in 1953. ”
It is worth mentioning that Pan Guangdan's "Tujia and Ancient Ba People" in Northwest Hunan, which is considered to be the pioneering work of tracing the origin of the Tujia family, now seems to have certain defects, he traces the origin of the Tujia family only to the Ba people into Qianzhong during the Qin-Chu dispute, and the archaeological discoveries in Xiangxi at the end of the last century to the beginning of this century, a process of evolution from the Gaomiao people - Zhujiatai people - Pu people - The Beast people - the Tujia natives have not been involved. However, we cannot be too demanding, because the archaeology of Western Hunan at that time did not provide support for this branch of the Tujia family.
In September 1957, the West Hunan Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture was established. The Tujia had the first autonomous region. According to statistics in August 1957, 38 Tujia families were self-reported and confirmed in Xiangxi Miao Autonomous Prefecture. 930,000 people, accounting for 22% of the state's total population. 25%。
There was a bit of a setback later, and only the Tujia family in western Hunan was confirmed. The identification of the ethnic composition of the Tujia family in Hubei, Sichuan, Guizhou and other provinces has not yet been completed, the anti-rightist movement has begun, the Tujia investigation has become a crime of Pan Guangdan, and the expansion of the "anti-rightist" struggle has also caused many people who ran for the Tujia family to be beaten as rightists, criticized and persecuted, and the issue of the "Tujia" component has been shelved.
It was not until after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee that the issue of the Tujia family was raised again, and in 1980 the two Tujia Autonomous Counties of Feng and Hefeng were established, in 1983 the Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefectures of Western Hubei were established, in 1984 the two Tujia Autonomous Counties of Changyang and Wufeng were established in Hubei, five autonomous counties of Xiyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang, Pengshui and Shizhu were established in Sichuan, and two autonomous counties of Yinjiang and Yanhe were also established in Guizhou.
After 30 years, the ethnic identification and regional autonomy of the Tujia family have been successfully completed.
As early as 1953, Tian Xintao came to Xinxiang with a delegation of ethnic minorities in Central and Southern China, and came to Xinxiang City, Henan Province, to study and work at Henan Normal University that year. She has successively served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Xinxiang Municipal People's Congress, a member of the Standing Committee of the Henan Provincial Party Committee of the Jiusan Society, a vice chairman of the Xinxiang Municipal Party Committee, and an associate professor of Henan Normal University. For a long time, in addition to completing her teaching tasks, doing a good job in the work of democratic parties and participating in social activities, she meticulously compiled books such as "The Process of Confirming the Tujia Family as a Single Ethnic Group" and "Manual for Comparing The Chinese Vocabulary of the Tujia Language", and was also hired as a consultant by the "History of Tujia Literature".
A photograph of Tian Xintao in old age
At 4:00 a.m. on November 5, 2019, Tian Xintao, known as the "first person in China's Tujia family", died at the age of 92 due to ineffective medical treatment.
But Tian Xintao should have left this world with a smile. It is not easy for a person to do one thing in a lifetime, but Tian Xintao has done one thing she most wants to do - to determine that the Tujia family is a nation, and what she has done has made more than 8.3 million Tujia sons and daughters across the country enjoy the great blessings of equal economic benefits of national equality, and the Tujia people should thank her.