never really implemented or even seriously contemplated. The dynasty’s
inability to grasp Zomi-culture in anything but human terms accounts in
considerable measure for the ongoing contradictions in the Qing process
of imperial borderland formation in southwestern Yunnan. Here condi-
tions were often indiscriminately essentialized as“savage,”or“miasma-
(zhangqi) ridden,”among similar pejorative terms.
The contradictory demands created by malaria along the southwestern
edges of the Qing empire substantially conditioned the formation, main-
tenance, and limits of provincial administrative space in ethnic terms. The
result was an official compromise in the form of native chieftainships
acting as the dynasty’sfickle pickets between the subjects of Yunnan
proper and the“wilds”of the outer frontier. Yet this contestable division
of provincial space was not entirely the product of conflicting human
ambition, for behind the clamor of its indigenous and imperial creators
rises the relentless whine of mosquitoes.
Notes1 Zhou Yu,“Cong zheng Miandian riji,” 8 : 786. For accounts of the Myanmar
campaigns, see Zhuang Jifa,“Qing Gaozong shidai de Zhong Mian guanxi,”
11 – 37 ; Zhuang Jifa,Qing Gaozong shi quan wu gong,Chapter 6 ; Dai Ying-
cong,“A Disguised Defeat,” 145 – 89.
2 Quoted in Dai Yingcong,“A Disguised Defeat”; 182 – 83.
3 Pasquet,“Entre Chine et Birmanie,” 57 – 59.
4 Giersch, “‘A Motley Throng’,” 72 ; White, The Middle Ground, 50 – 53 ;
Giersch,“Qing China’s Reluctant Subjects,” 29.
5 Zhou Shunwu,China Provincial Geography, 384 – 86 ; Xu and Liu,“The Chal-
lenges of Malaria Elimination,” 1 – 4. A number of distinctions regarding vari-
ous species of malarial mosquitoes can be made in terms of range and elevation.
Generally speakingAnopheles minimusis the main, but not the only, vector
south of 25 N below elevations offifteen hundred meters.Anopheles sinensisis
the main vector above this elevation and scattered more thinly over roughly the
same region. Still other species are vectors to the north and east of these locales;
Dong Xueshu,“Yunnan sheng de chuannüe meijie,” 144 – 47.
6 For general accounts of the Qing native chieftain system, see You Zhong,
Zhongguo xinan gudai minzu, 362 – 68 ; Herman,“Empire in the Southwest,”
50 – 52 ; Gong Yin,Zhongguo tusi zhidu, 110 – 12 ; Ma Ruheng and Ma Daz-
heng, eds.,Qingdai de bianjiang zhengce, 34 – 36 , 382 – 406.
7 Liu Bin,“Yongchang tusi lun,” 3 : 2131 b– 32 a;QSL,QL 31 / 5 / 28 , 18 : 375 b. For
an example of official acknowledgement of the limited utility of the
chieftainship-wild distinction, see Ni Tui,“Tuguan shuo,” 3 : 2131 a. Such dis-
tinctive hairstyles did emerge prior to the 1850 s. Subsequently, as a result of
postuprising revisions in ethnic policy, the heads of all Miao were ordered
shaved; Xu Jiagan,Miaojiang wenjian lu, 214.