ANCESTORS IN THE SPRING
THE QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA
Göran AIMER*
İ. Guessing at China
The study of traditional Chinese society is a multidisciplinary task of many facets. The enterprise is of a general historical nature as it aims at a reconstruction and understanding of a civilization which is part of the past. The study of China has seen an exciting cross-fertilization of styles and methods of investigation. Recent decades have brought about a tremendous development of the knowledge of Chinese traditional social life, although the formidable size of the undertaking explains why our knowledge is still fragmentary and in many respects unsystematic. What then is the place of anthropology in this broad field of enquiry? There can, of course, be no simple answer to that question and anthropologically minded students of Chinese society will offer, and have offered, widely different opinions. One possible contribution, which I will advocate here, is that the anthropologist could provide 'anthropological' readings of the source material, which is shared property of all disciplines involved in the study of China.
From the point of view of the anthropologist our knowledge of the traditional rural society is very scanty indeed. And yet there is no immediate remedy for this state of affairs. The reason for this is partly to be found in the nature of the Chinese documents and sources on which the anthropologist will have to rely. Sometimes we obtain very full and detailed descriptions of aspects of social life, often we find rich prescriptions for various social undertakings, but generally speaking we will have to content ourselves with glimpses rather than full records of rustic life. Quite often, notes on life in the Chinese countryside are of an anecdotal character. There is, however, a vast amount of interesting data contained in such documents as local gazetteers, kin group chronicles, and ethnographic essays. Local 'gentry', despite their Confucian education, were often keen ethnographers eager to describe and sometimes boast about
* Professor Aijmer, a previous contributor to this Journal, teaches in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
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ANCESTORS IN THE SPRING
THE QINGMING FESTIVAL IN CENTRAL CHINA
Göran AIMER*
İ. Guessing at China
The study of traditional Chinese society is a multidisciplinary task of many facets. The enterprise is of a general historical nature as it aims at a reconstruction and understanding of a civilization which is part of the past. The study of China has seen an exciting cross-fertilization of styles and methods of investigation. Recent decades have brought about a tremendous development of the know- ledge of Chinese traditional social life, although the formidable size of the undertaking explains why our knowledge is still fragmentary and in many respects unsystematic. What then is the place of anthropology in this broad field of enquiry? There can, of course, be no simple answer to that question and anthropologically minded students of Chinese society will offer, and have offered, widely different opinions. One possible contribution, which I will advocate here, is that the anthropologist could provide 'anthropological' readings of the source material, which is shared property of all disciplines involved in the study of China.
From the point of view of the anthropologist our knowledge of the traditional rural society is very scanty indeed. And yet there is no immediate remedy for this state of affairs. The reason for this is partly to be found in the nature of the Chinese documents and sources on which the anthropologist will have to rely. Sometimes we obtain very full and detailed descriptions of aspects of social life, often we find rich prescriptions for various social undertakings, but generally speaking we will have to content ourselves with glimp- ses rather than full records of rustic life. Quite often, notes on life in the Chinese countryside are of an anecdotal character. There is however, a vast amount of interesting data contained in such docu- ments as local gazetteers, kin group chronicles, and ethnographic essays. Local 'gentry', despite their Confucian education, were often keen ethnographers eager to describe and sometimes boast about
* Professor Aijmer, a previous contributor to this Journal, teaches in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
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