The Kucong are an ethnic minority living in the Jinping and Luchu
areas of South Yunnan, although the ethnic classification of the Chinese
government does not afford them the status of a distinct minority nationality,
but registers them as a part of the Lahu nationality. A branch
of them moved into northwestern Vietnam where they are known as the
Lahu or the Cosung.
The Kucong have attracted the attention of ethnologists because at
least some of them were renowned as an ethnic group of migratory
hunter-gatherers who practised a silent trade with surrounding peoples
of an agricultural economy. The Kucong of today, however, practice
swidden agriculture supplemented with some hunting and gathering.
The aim of this paper is twofold: one is to present an ethnographic
overview, putting together data scattered in numerous publications, and
the other is to place the Kucong in the ethnic and cultural history of the
area covering South China and northern Indochina.
The latter constitutes no easy task. The problem is whether they are
the last representatives of a cultural tradition based on a hunting and
gathering economy, a tradition which may go back to the Upper
Palaeolithic in this area, or whether they represent a case of cultural
devolution, regressing from swidden agriculture to a hunter-gatherer
economy, as has been supposed for the Punan in Borneo and the Phi
Tong Luang in northern Thailand.
The available materials, i.e., historical records, migration legends
and ethnographic evidence, do not give a definite answer. The culture
betrays few features suggestive of a hunter-gatherer tradition. We can
cite only the worship of hunting deities, and the squirrel as a present
from the bridegroom's side at betrothal, as well as actual hunting and
gathering activities. The culture of the Kucong is very similar to that of
their agricultural neighbors, particularly that of the Hani and to a lesser
degree that of the Lahu. This is the case not only in subsistence
economy and material culture, but also in religious rituals and
mythology. Furthermore, the Cosung in Vietnam have a legend relating
a cultural regression.
All these are in favor of cultural devolution. Nevertheless it seems
to me appropriate to leave the matter undecided at the present stage of
research, since the materials at our disposal are still insufficient for a final
judgement.
雲南のクツォン人と北部インドシナ採集狩猟民 : 古い伝統か文化的退化か
KH_021_2_002.pdf
(2.98MB)
