The following chapter will present this argument in greater detail with
an initial focus on the“civilized,” or chieftainship,“tribal” as the
dynasty’s idealized political embodiment of its southwestern border-
land. The effects of distinct environmental forms of differential resist-
ance, cultivation, and disease informing this identity and its spatial
expression will then be examined under the stress of Qing rivalry with
Myanmar. Overall,“chieftainship tribal”identity was a necessary, but
problematic, imperial adaptation to the region’s malaria conditions,
which, while not immutable, were notsubject to effective alteration
or control.
the terrain of native chieftainships
It is certainly possible to understand the space created by the intersection
of Han and indigenous cultures as a“middle ground”constructed by
both and dominated by neither. Nevertheless, as the Qing also“con-
structed their frontier institutions around Chinese and Manchu
140 kmShunningChelimap 5:Yunnan’s Southwestern Frontier