Changsha Marches West: Territorialization and the ‘King of Pacifying Hunan’ Cult in Xinjiang

• In Event: State and Society in the Contact Zone: Historical Anthropology and the New Qing History

Abstract

The historical anthropology of China has a long tradition of illuminating the relationships between religious practice, belief, and social structure on a more or less local level. This paper draws on this historiography to examine the transformation of a minor local cult into an ideological instrument of military mobilization and reterritorialization. The King of Pacifying Hunan (Dingxiang Wang) began as the city god of Shanhua County in Changsha, but the events of the Taiping War transformed him into a recognized protector god. The King became the patron deity of the Hunan Army during and after the Taiping War, and they established temporary cult centers wherever they went. During the Northwestern campaign, worship of the King was a central part of membership in the Hunan Army and helped to consolidate its members’ common sense of native place. Indeed, the vast majority of the soldiers came from the area right around Changsha – the Han culture brought to Xinjiang was specifically Hunanese. After the conquest of Xinjiang, demobilized Hunan Army soldiers and officials not only expanded the King’s cult all over the region, they also made efforts to naturalize him by fabricating legends that tied the deity directly to Xinjiang history. This refashioning of a distinctly Changsha god into the “Local God” of a reconquered territory was directly tied to the state-making process and creation of a new province. The Local God’s emanation was meant to transform the territory into a regular part of China according to the vision of Changsha’s statecraft community.

Author

• Eric T. Schluessel, Harvard University