CLASSIFICATION OF QING DYNASTY ALBUMS ON YUNNAN PROVINCE AND THEIR IMPORTANCE AS SOURCES ON SOUTHWESTERN CHINA

Abstract

Two hand-written albums on Yunnan from the collection of the Academic library of Saint Petersburg State University have been produced circa first half of the XIX century. The first album is “Illustrated descriptions of yi-barbarians of the South and the West of Yunnan” (Xyl. F-26, preface 1839, 44 illustrations, republished with commentary in 2020), the second album Xyl F-25 is without original cover, title and date, contains 73 maps of various administrative units of Yunnan province (prefectures, regions, counties). Yunnan albums may roughly be divided into two types: 1. Albums depicting ethnic groups similar to “the Miao Albums” characteristic of Guizhou province; 2. Albums containing maps of various administrative units of the province with textual descriptions on these units, with details on various peoples. Earlier versions of Yunnan albums contained descriptive data from no longer extant Ming period writings on the province, but number of the Yunnan ethnic groups mentioned on the albums increased from about 44 in mid-late XVIII century to over 100 by the second half of the XIX century, this rise in numbers is related to the publication of an extended version of “Bo Lin album” of 1818. Upon comparing descriptions from the Xyl F-25 album and official Yunnan gazetteers (Yunnan tongzhi, 1736 and 1835) we draw a conclusion that data from the gazetteers was not borrowed to this album, and its descriptions may be the original work of their unknown author. Album Xyl F-25 did not pursue a goal of providing detailed information on various peoples of Yunnan.