 Hello, everyone, I'm honored to be invited to attend this workshop in Trinity College, and I'm very glad to be here. I think this invitation is the best visa to pass the custom when I entered into Ireland. So, my topic today is the divergence of Garon origin meets Jean-Jean versus Quindum. So I am a PhD candidate in ethnology from Paris-Nantel University. So first of all, I want to give a very brief information of my field work. I did my field work in Sambar County in Ganzi Perfecture of Sichuan Province. It's located in the western part of the Garon region, has a population of around 70,000 people, which is roughly composed of around 55 Garon Tibetan. Forty-five percent and four percent Chiang people. I contacted my field work mainly in a village called Qiong Xiong, where all the villagers are ethnically Garon. My field work lasted for almost a year, four months from 2015 to 2016, one month in 2016, and four months from 2017 to 2018. So in Dambar, there is a well-known history about Song Yu Guo, which means the Eastern Quindum. They claim that their Garon women have extraordinary beauty, and their beauty lies in their ancestry in the beautiful and intelligent queens of the Dong Lü kingdom. This claim, a light of Garon's region, is a dominant narrative in the current media-driven tourist propaganda promoted by the local Dambar government. The high-profile name Dong Lü is used on restaurants and hotel signatures or for the brain names in Dambar. Nevertheless, during my various days in the county, some people, especially members of the local elites, did not support the Dong Lü story. But instead, they told me about another version of Garon's origin, namely the Zhang Zhuang. An ancient kingdom originated from the western area of Tibetan Plateau. In Chinese, we call it Xiang Xiong. Even though concrete evidence for the existence of this mythical kingdom is very small, I found that its legend has nevertheless been integrated into the presentation of the origin of Garon women's beauty, although in a masquerade form. In fact, the Eastern Women's Quindum and the Kingdom of Zhang Zhuang are two ancient civilization, which purportedly existed at a completely different period of history, tales-free tales to them are recorded in different sources. The former been found more in Chinese documents, and later in Tibetan bamboo tests. Why is it that these two different origin stories converged in the identity narrative of the modern day Garon? And how do they influence the wider recognition of Garon ethnic identity? Furthermore, importantly, how do the local fears about it? From the inception of modern geopolitics and the type of nationalism we see beginning from the 19th century onwards, new nation states must also spend time on the elaboration of a nation history or histories of ethnic groups within it, in which the origin needs plays an essential role. The historical as no symbol of our origin story is often selected and elaborated on from existing sources or else invented, even invented with the aim of building a collective tradition, establishing boundaries and maintaining the cohesion of a nation or ethnic group. How these origin tales are presented to the public in turn influences the recognition of the national and ethnic identity for local population. During China's engagement in modern nation-building activities before the advent of the Republican state in 1912, the Yellow Emperor who lived in the period of high antiquity was promoted as the ultimate as no symbol of the origin of Han culture. This novel, erotic and the legendary ancestor was a perfect sample for the revolution, allowing the new republican regime to pursue political independence and cultural autonomy by harkening back to an ancient mythical era of heroes. On the Tibetan side, even though it was not technically a nation state when Chinese nationalism came into being, in nevertheless acquired a sense of belonging and common identity based on their Tibetan Buddhist religion under the leadership of the Dalai Lama. The story of the union between a monkey and a demonist metaphor versions of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvaha and the goddess Tara remained prevalent in contemporary Tibetan communities as an origin myth. The two origin myths claimed by various factions of the Garong do not fit easily into other Tibetan nationalist narratives despite being officially classified as ethnically Tibetan by the Chinese states. Instead, the myth required a commitment and attachment to a separate Garong identity. The inter-ethnic relation held between the Garong and Han as well as with other Tibetans therefore warrants a closer look. In summer, this article will first discuss the two modes of elaboration of the Garong origin stories, examining the origin of the Zhangzhuang Kingdom based on village narratives and on the maintenance of this history in religion's writing. I will then analysis the emergence and representation of the origin of eastern kingdom for the purpose of tourism based on Chinese official writings and on the living memory of the locals. Finally, I will try to understand what mechanism have led to the superposition of these two origins and its consequences for those involved. The Garong cultural festival held in Danba County that I witnessed were centered around the theme of eastern kingdom. However, when I interviewed the villagers in Kongshang village, this martryarch, pardon, martryarchal origin seemed quite alien to them, even though they referred to their territory as a valley of beauty. Most of the villagers were not aware of the eastern kingdom. One villager attempted to explain this by trying to relate the local historical queen to the mythical queen recorded in the Chinese texts. We call our region Ga Morong. Ga is a king, Mo is a wife. The two word together means the king's wife or the queen. Although it's only a guess, the eastern kingdom could be driven from this region's name. We have been ruled on several occasions by a queen at certain point in our history. There are records of queens in the Garong area. Throughout history, their reign were witnesses by occidental travelers and the veracity of which were later confirmed by locals. However, the succession of political power among the Garong was not passed along matrilineal lines. And in most cases, at the time of King's death, the women in the royal family, either his mother, his wife, or his sister, only took over the regency until his legitimate male care was mature enough. There is no evidence in the historical documents nor in the memories of the village which shows a preference for male hares. Male descendants were either valued more highly than their sisters or were at least put on an equal position with them. So although some village like Amto tried to establish a connection between the mythical queen and the local queen, others questioned the authenticity of the origin of a matriarchal kingdom. One of my informants, Amto, criticized this origin story by claiming that the Garong were actually immigrants from western Tibet. The eastern kingdom is nonsense, is a story to please the tourist. We are the descendants from western Tibet, a place currently called Ali. An elderly person from our village has been working in Ali since the 1960s. He told us that our language and his are mutually intelligible. Our language is very special and it is impossible for people from Amdo or people from Khan to understand. How is it that we can communicate with the people from Ali? It's not by chance. The language indicates that we have links from ancient time and it's proved that we are immigrated from western Tibet. Ali Ngari refers to the western region of the Tibetan Ottomans region, neighbors with Speedy and Ladakh to the west. There we find the TC, the in Chinese, the most sacred mountain for Tibetan and Indians alike, which the later group called Kailash. Today, pilgrims from three religions, Hinduism, Buddhism and Buddhism converge on this mountain and the nearby Mapa, I hope I pronounced it correctly, Mapa Lake, known as Manasa Rova Lake to the Indians to the south. How do the Garong related to this vast area of the western Tibetan plateau? Jack Ray, a painter from Qiong Xiong, gave me an explanation which elaborated on that of Pen Chou. He said that the Garong are the descendants from ancient kingdom called Zhang Zhong, Chinese Xiang Xiong. We are the descendants of the immigrants from the kingdom of Zhang Zhong, which is located in western Tibet. This kingdom is older than that of Tibetan Yalong kingdom. That is about a hundred or even two thousand years before the time of Songzang Gambu. The king of Brasdy are sent by the court of Zhang Zhong. This origin was recounted in the history of the king of Brasdy. The Zhang Zhong kingdom was a country that flourished in the deserts of the high western Tibetan plateau between about 500 before Kamehara and 625 Kamehara. As it was really mentioned in Tibetan Buddhist histories, the origin and evolution of this regime remain stronger in mystery. In contrast, Zhang Zhong is mentioned and described many times in burn tests. For a long time the burn religion did not garner anywhere near as much scholarly interest as Buddhism did in the field of Tibetan studies. However, from the 1970s onward, studies about burn began to emerge and agree that Zhang Zhong constituted the cradle of burn and that it was a kingdom based on the aliens of tribes in the western region of the Tibetan plateau. Due to its integration into the Tibetan empire in the 7th century, it is now widely considered to be one of the originator of Tibetan civilization. So some Garunwa such as Pencow and Jack Ray supports the Zhang Zhong origin myths. It is not worth that. The only people who told me about this western Tibetan kingdom were those who have some knowledge of literary Tibetan, some knowledge of Tibetan writing. Pencow's grandfather as a secretary to the king of Brazdi was fluent in literary Tibetan for instance. His son, taking advantage of his family's education, taught Tibetan writing to the younger villagers including Jack Ray and Pencow. During my visits, Pencow was the chief of Qiongxiang village and in his spare time worked as a bunbo medium. Jack Ray is involved in temple construction and renovation projects throughout the Garun region as well as providing building services to villagers who need to decorate their homes. Unlike other villagers, this man could read Tibetan and have had more contact with the outside world. These local elites together with the bunbo monks were generally the one who supported the Zhang Zhong origin myths. However, there are today other Tibetan groups who believe that their ancestors are the off-springs of a monkey and a goddess. Why did I not hear about these origin myths during my investigation in Danba? What identity narratives are being forged by these local scholars through the Zhang Zhong origin story? Where does this Zhang Zhong version originally come from? What is influence on the Garun? To answer this question, we must first examine the origin myth of the Garun kings, Gabo. These so-called 18 Garun kings who dominated the Garun region before the arrival of the communists still serve as a keen reference point in the identity conception of Garun people. Here I begin with a story of a region told by the last king of Brazil, Wang Shouchang. His Tibetan name is Nima Wang Deng, to a Chinese ethno-logist. He is quite old, so I didn't get chance to meet him. So Ma Changshou, when the later was conducting ethno-graphic service in the Garun region in the early 1940s, the royal family of Brazil passed on a myth which is said that they were descended from a mythical egg of the great bird Qiong. Long before our era, there was a big bird called Qiong. Descending from the sky, Qiong arrived one day at a place where which later named Aptian. That is why his tribe was called Qiong tribe. The bird gave birth to five eggs, one red, one green, one white, one black, and one multi-colored. The layer eventually hatched and a man emerged. He had the head of a bear and the body of a man. From his descendants, a tribe was formed and migrated first to Natar, then to Brazdy. Two brothers were born in this tribe. One become the king of Brazdy and the other king is the king of Bawon. So this narrative shows us the mythical origin of the royal family of Brazdy, which enabled the king to achieve his own, to achieve his own apple theosis by forging a cosmic link with an egg of the divine bird Qiong. In Ma Changshuo's original investigation, seminal origin myths were found for other garon kings such as Josuke. Pardon me, I would say in Chinese because the local languages are complicated. Wa Si, Ge Shi Zha, Suo Mo, Dang Ba, He Ke Shi, or we can also call it Wo Ri, etc. According to the ethnography published from the 1940s onward, this divine bird Qiong was worshipped as an ancestor deity by all garon kings. For example, a statue of Qiong measuring about one meter high was placed in the palace hall of the king of Wa Si and was used by the ruler as an object of veneration. This type of statue was also found along with other archaeological relics from the other kings of Suo Mo, Song Gang, Dang Ba, Chuo Si Jia, and Min Zheng Tu Si. Furthermore, a wooden board engraved with Qiong's image was placed above the entrance door of the royal palaces. The creature was usually depicted with a bird head, a human body, an eagle's talon, two horns in the forehead, a ribbon beak, and two spread wings. This statue and a board gradually disappeared after the political upheavals from the mid-20th century onward. It is pity. The fraternal links, but the local people still remember them. The fraternal links among the various garon kingdoms were therefore established through the veneration of the Qiong as a common ancestor deity. Based on the oral and written histories connected by Ma Chang Shou, I hear sensitized the genealogy represented by the graphs below. For example, this is the genealogy of the king of Dolin, the Wasi Tu Si. Although there are some differences among their origin stories, for example, the Wasi Tu Si, they speak of the origin from the Buddha, the Buddha of Puxian, Puxian Pusa. But then here comes a Qiong in the middle, and actually the king of Dolin is from the white egg of the Qiong. But although there are some differences, for example, this is a genealogy from Dandong Tu Si. So according to him, they are from the Qiong's place, Qiong's tribes, and so they become four brothers. And then last one is the genealogy of the king of Trotskyap. And they are not, there wasn't Qiong but rainbow and ferry, but they are from eggs. The egg is an element in the cosmology of Bun Bo. And here is a three king of the Qiong area. But their ancestry link allude to fraternal ties for these terrestrial kings, which means they are brothers. They have the same origin. And for certain Qiong kingdom, such mythical shelled family trees correspond to real-life biological ancestries, such as the two royal family of Brasdy and Baowang. Their ancestors, according to the myth, they were two brothers. And their descendants remained having the kingship links. In 1946, when the former king of Baowang was left without an heir, his wife asked Wang Xiu, the last king of Brasdy, to send his nephew to inherit the throne of Baowang. Accepting her request, Wang first sent his eldest nephew, Wang Zhaohan, Tibetan name Ge Sanima. But the later decided to abdict it two years later and go study in a monastery in Kishite, he said. Therefore, his younger brother Wang Wohan took over the throne of Baowang in 1948. Therefore, for other kingdom, the fraternal bound is rather more symbolic. The story told by the king of Kishite in 1941, his mythical ancestor had fraternal ties with a Ge Ka, which means Zha Gu in Chinese and Wen Chuang. In fact, after waging war against the Qing empire in the 18th century, the Ge Ka kingdom was completely wiped out. Part of this territory was turned into a Chinese military garrison, and the rest was divided into three kingdoms, Somo, Zhuotze, and Songgang. And this therefore strange for the king of Kishite to mention a kingdom that ceased to exist long before the year of the ethnographic survey in question. If indeed, this king made no mistake in his use of the name of the Ge Ka and neither did the ethno-logist Ma Changshou. Then his origin story was not a historical fact, but rather something more akin to an imaginary collective memories, one which was shelled among garrison kingdoms in which names and titles could be vague and in-price, imprecise. The garrison kingdom never achieved political unification in reality, but the fraternal ties embedded in these origin myths reflect the formation of a historical Pan garron identity among its people, which may feasibly be the precursor to the garrison's modern day ethnic narrative. If indeed, the common origin links with the Qion for the garron royal family provides a basis for the recognition of the garron ethnic identity, then we can refer to this as an example of primordial attachment. However, the type of connection which exists between the Qion and the kingdom of Zhang Zhang remains to be answered. In fact, we found that the origin of Qion dates back to Boon mythology. It is thus the Zhang Zhang, the famous kingdom of the Boon religion, is associated with the Qion. The Qion myth was spread and transmitted through the garrison by various means such as the transmission of oral history, wall painting, wooden statue, and also some written narratives. They can also even be found in religious texts in Boon Bo Monasteries outside the garron region. Kunzhe Jabat, a prominent monk of the Degui origin, preached Boon in the garron region during the 1730s and over for the compilation and printing of Kung-Yu sponsored by the Choskab King, Konga Nobu. Indeed, the biography of the Kunzhe Jabat dedicated a portion of the text to the extraordinary king, which was one of his main patents. This text follows the Tibetan literary style beginning with his family origin of which the mythological Qion was given as the incarnation of the Choskab King's ancestor. According to this text, the royal families of Choskab derived from a local chief named Almo Longrin, who lived in Zhangzhuang. One of his descendants, Gya Qion, embodying the great bird Qion conquered all the territory of Zhangzhuang and become his moniker. His descendants then migrated Eastern world and finally settled in the Eastern Garmoron region, nowadays Garron region. This ancestry, which can be traced back to the Qion, further underlined the divine affiliation of the Choskab King, confirming his role as chief of religion political affairs. The text also reveals the existence of the Namsu, which means royal monk who worked alongside the Lei king in the Garron region. This proves that both earthly and spiritual power is rightfully held by the local royal family. Indeed, two royal brothers were to be assigned a specific function. One could be a Lei king and the other a religious leader. So the actual relationship between the royal government and the collage was interweined in Garron region. Political power was exercised by both cleric and nobles, and the spiritual authority was not always held by celibates, monks only. It was common for the Garron royal family to send their young boys to monastery. If one son, regardless of his order of birth, birth among the siblings, inherited the throne, then the other son could enter the religious life, become local petty chiefs or be married into another royal family. These royal monks were then given the title Namsu in front of their names. The kingship ties between the Lei king and the spiritual master were mutually influential. This duality of power resembled a system that prevailed in famous boom bo claim from the 11th century until 1959, allowing them to maintain their roles as leaders of the Lei religious community as well as of their monastic centers. In a similar way, the Garron royal family maintained this alliance between political power and religious authority until the 1950s. The pairing of Lei king and a religious master in Garron royal family was supported by the mythological of the Pyeong. From the western Zhongzhong region, it attributed to a secret ancestry to this family, where political power and spiritual authority were combined. Managing their more and less independent kingdom, this Garron queen were not only the gracious donors, but also the holders along with their brothers of the spiritual power over their territory. This religion, religion, political system has a different form from the theocratic system in other Tibetan regions, especially the region ruled by the Dalai Lama, who were holders of both the religious and political power, as well as being the earthly incarnation of the Bodhisattva Avalokistarvaha from the 16th century onwards. This system had therefore given the Garron region different characteristics to other Tibetan region. That is, perhaps, one of the reasons why some Garron people continue to claim a Zhongzhong origin today. Pyeong, the mythological bird, is a special sample with represented divinity and the legitimacy of the political power of local kings in the past. Today it is still existed as a divine animal in the cosmology of the Garron people. In the Garron region, we can still see the image of the Qiong painted on the wooden board above the entrance door of the houses in the village of Qiongsheng. He is considered as a tutelary guard for the family. Moreover, the village where I conducted my fieldwork is named Qiongsheng, meaning the place where the Qiong landed. A name derived from the original myth of the Brashti royal family. This name, once reserved for the palace of the Brashti king, was later chosen as a new name by the villagers of the communist token over political power. In summary, the myth of the Qiong and their immigration from the western Tibetan plateau give rise to some Garrons' claim to Zhongzhong origin today, with some local people believing that the Zhongzhong is an even more ancient kingdom than the Yalong dynasty of central Tibet, the later of which is widely considered as a cradle of Tibetan civilization. This could explain why the ethnically Tibetan Garrons do not share the same origin myths at the Tibetans in other regions. So here we come to a new myth, Dongyu Guo with Western Kingdom myths. Actually, in the in terms of the narratives chosen for tourism development in Damba, no mention is made of any potential Zhongzhong origin for the Garrons. Instead, the origin story of an eastern kingdom is overwhelmingly promoted. Today, as you enter the town of Damba via the road to the south, you will see a cluster of gigantic statues. Here it is. I think maybe you've seen it. Have you seen it in Damba? I don't remember seeing it. Actually, if you enter Damba from the south, you won't miss it because it's the only entrance. And this building commenced on the project in 2019. And the statue is composed of two parts. The upper part, as we see, the most visible part is the phoenix. Surrounded is a silver phoenix symbolizing the Da Du river and its tributaries. This phoenix is surrounded by small statues symbolizing the watch towers. So it's a little one behind. You can see the little silver ones behind. It's a biolo, the iconic architectural of the Garron region. The lower part consists of an engraved tablet. It's here, the bronze ones. And on which is carved the image of a young woman adorned with a traditional Garron clothing. Here it is. Maybe it's not very visible. And the right of the tablet is an inscription titled The First City of Da Du River, the charm of Eastern women in both Tibetan and Chinese scripts. The statue as a whole reveals a close connection between Danba and Eastern Quindum. Records from this Quindum are to be found in a Chinese historical book which has been co-opted by the local tourism industry. And all those involved in this is promotion from the state to the local level over the last few decades. I'm sorry. Okay. Local level over the last few decades, based on its original meat, Danba is us proclaimed to be the territory full of the living relics of the Eastern Quindum. The Garron are therefore the descendants of this Quindum with the local women, hairs of the intelligent and extreme beautiful of ancient queens, making them one of the most remarkable features of this origin. This divergence in origin story between this Quindum and the aforementioned Zhang Zhuang kingdom is puzzling. When did this new Gagnatic, sorry, it's Gagnatic. It means the road by women, I hope. Gagnaric. Gagnaric, thank you very much. Gagnaric origin for the Garron appears. Why and how did it come about and under what circumstances and how does it relate to the modern Garron ethnic identity narratives? And finally, what does this mean for the Garrons themselves? The Eastern Quindum was originally mentioned as an ancient, here are the questions. Sorry. And originally as an ancient country in the old books of the town dynasty, according to his historical source, it existed during the town period, 618 to 907 comma era. Although the date of birth, the date of his appearance and the disappearance are not clear. Nowadays, as apparently historical origin of the country are attributed to the present Garron community, but their connection is not left open for interpretation. Today, the establishment of this connection is held in place by two powerful forces. The first comes from Chinese historians, intellectuals and authorities, which have undertaken the systematic classification and interpretation of all the different nationalities or ethnic groups required in China to exist in the modern Chinese nation since the beginning of the 12th century, the 20th, sorry, the 20th century. The second force comes from the local people themselves who are required to align their own narratives with the local state version by the local tourism development authorities. In the construction of Chinese nationalism and the quest for national identity, history clearly played an important role when Chinese ethnologists first conducted their work in the Garron region in the 1940s. The history of Garron was their primary research interest. The intellectual of the time made several assumptions about the history of the Garron ethnic group. In the ethnography of Ma Changxiu, as I mentioned above, he not only collected above mentioned region meets told by the local people, but he also proclaimed that he had located the Garrons history with history with Chinese official historical sources, which then form a classic narrative framework for later intellectuals to base their work on. According to Ma, the Garron date back to center to a certain Rangmang people who apparently lived during the Han dynasty 2006 before common era and 220, the existence of whom was recorded in several ancient Chinese books such as historical memories, Shi Ji and the book of the later Han Hohanxu. Given the cultural trace that Ma observed among the Garron, which during his investigation corresponded to what these historical accounts of the Rangmang described, the comparison was set in stone at this time. He demonstrated the similarity of various cultural features between the people, which I made a summary as follow. It is too long, so I want to speak all of them, but one of his point is about that Rangmang valued women as they are and their maternal lineage. And so this is the Garron and Rangmang have a special multi-story architecture, which Ma Changshuo believed that it corresponded to the Diao Lou in the Garron era. So furthermore, Ma Changshuo associated the Garron with the Jia Liangyi people. So following the temporal framework of Chinese history, the Jia Liangyi are believed to have a people who lived in the Sui dynasty, 5,081 to 681 and to 618 common era, recorded in the book of the Sui Shu. They also live in a multi-story structure in the mountains. Thus the history of the Garron is constructed by Ma in the following chronology. So from Rangmang of Han dynasty, they become Jia Liangyi in the Sui dynasty, then they become Garron today. The new appropriation of temporal reference, such as the concrete dates associated with the Han and Sui dynasty, marking a new beginning of official measurable history for the Garron people. More importantly, it provides a means to align Garron's present existence with timeline found in Chinese written documents. This linear framework of Ma Changshuo has been repeated by several later ethnologists and historians. These local Garron elites who received a Chinese based education approve of these appropriations of Rangmang, Jia Liangyi and other groups from ancient times into their own local history guided by a substantial view of history. Common cultural features, especially the multi-story architecture and the relatively high-statual women hold in Garron society are considered evidence of real historical facts. Therefore, the collection between the Garron and those ancient groups recorded in the Chinese sources prove these histories to be true. Among these ancient groups, the Eastern Quindum has been identified as one of the precursor of the Garron because it has some of the same cultural features as Rangmang, the high-right houses and the Gyanaskic social system. Moreover, the relationship established between those ancient communities further integrated Garron's history into the identity narrative of Chinese official history. Statements made by Chinese intellectuals about Garron history as a legitimacy of expert institutional knowledge, the kudu of which has an inevitable influence on the conception of Garron ethnic identity. The discursive power exercised by the Chinese scholar is recognized not only by local authorities. Also by some local intellectuals in 2012 during the Garron cultural festival, a forum of Garron culture was held in Danbat town. Several scholars from university or research center were invited to speak by local governments. A local villager who was also a former local government official participated in the forum and he explained to me that it was very necessary to listen to the expert's opinion. Thus, local official and certain local intellectuals actively attempt to place their own historical comprehension with the Chinese national context. Through this active participation in Chinese official history, this local elite constructed and interpret their history and understanding by embedding them with a grander national narrative. So in general, the local, certain local intellectuals support the Eastern Quindum narrative and they believe that the women's Quindum story is well known by the Chinese tourists because of the famous novel Journey to the West, and so this exotic ancient Quindum is associated with the economic and political interest of the Danbat county. So in conclusion, the kingdom of Zhangzhuang's history, which I, sorry, I missed one thing is that actually the Qiong is behind the Quindum story. Although we call the phoenix the great statue in the entrance road, phoenix in Chinese, but in their Tibetan inscription they called it Qiong Chen, is a great Qiong. So I think that the name phoenix is given in Chinese for the benefits of the current tourists, but the Qiong, the gowns still keep the Qiong close to their hearts. So in conclusion, I think these two, this divergence of their origin corresponds to a construction of their ethnic group corresponding to Anderson's concrete concept of an imagined communities. So without erasing the memory of Zhangzhuang, they have chosen to place it in the Quindum's shadow instead. So thank you all for listening. Sorry for the delay. Thank you very much.