As a student I spent many happy hours raiding the lower shelves of SOAS library for the dusty volumes of late 19th- and early 20th-century missionary and traveller's tales from Xinjiang, Eastern or Chinese Turkestan as it was then more commonly known. They were redolent of Empire and every imaginable Orientalist cliché, but also cracking yarns, richly evocative of time and place. It is a great pleasure to find this rich material put to systematic use through Ildikó Bellér-Hann's exemplary and careful scholarship. Her mission is to “fill out the hollow concept of ‘tradition” (p. 19), a much-invoked and slippery term in contemporary Xinjiang, and to bring a new perspective to a field so heavily dominated by studies of politics, ethnicity and conflict: a view of social relations in the context of the everyday life and ritual practices of Uyghurs in pre-socialist Xinjiang.
Bellér-Hann draws on a huge range of European and Russian sources, published and unpublished, many of which were previously unknown to me. She also draws on some fascinating accounts written by contemporary Uyghurs, typically Christian converts. These historical sources are supported by her own fieldwork experience. The many Uyghur language terms and concepts she deploys are faultlessly rendered. Coming, as she does, from a background in Turkic studies, Chinese language sources are absent, and she is “painfully aware” of this lack. It would be fascinating, if she could stand it, to put her to work for another ten years on the Chinese sources to see how the results compare.
Her subject matter ranges widely from aspects of demography, economy and power structures: land management and irrigation, tax and legal practices, moving inwards to a consideration of village, family and gender relations, life-cycle rituals and religious practice. Her most fascinating and insightful material concerns the multifarious concepts and practices surrounding the key notion of reciprocity: “mechanisms for maintaining community” (p. 202), developing this theme throughout her consideration of the customs of hospitality, marriage and gender relations, and even death rituals.
There is such a wealth of detail in this book that it might threaten to overwhelm the reader, but it is worth the effort, for the author's consistent vision of Uyghur society unfolds throughout the pages of this book. Likewise, it is this detail which makes the book such a valuable reference tool for scholars working on contemporary Uyghur society, and the often extensive quotes from the original sources bring the material to life vividly. Bellér-Hann is always careful to make the reader aware of the perspectives of her source authors, but it is surprising how much of it is rendered relatively unproblematic in her hands. Even the vexed subject of “bride bazaars” and temporary marriage, the subject of much contradictory moralizing by scandalized Victorian observers, is dealt with sure-handedly.
She draws a number of conclusions at odds with current assumptions. She argues that “oasis identities” (cf. Rudelson, 1997) did not necessarily supersede other forms of identity linked, for example, to gender, profession, or notably Islam. She draws attention to domestic ritual, centred on the veneration of the dead and reinforced by sacrifice, and she emphasises that healing rituals were not locally regarded as shamanism (as they are in most Russian and Chinese representations) but as integral to an Islamic way of life (p. 428).
In a way it is disappointing, if predictable, to find the book marketed as having “implications for the analyses of contemporary inter-ethnic relations.” Ildikó Bellér-Hann's ground-breaking research will be an essential reference tool for a new generation of ethnographers, leading us towards a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the region and its people.
