The Development of Sibe Ethnic Awareness: With Special Consideration of the Sibe People of the Ili River Basin

Abstract

In the sixteenth century, the Sibe people emerged as a unique ethnic group, and they remained a unique ethnic group after their migration to the Ili River basin. In the Republic of China, a time when many ethnic systems were created, the Sibe gained official recognition for being an independent ethnic group. Although the creation of a written script is an act of ethnic construction, the Sibe written language could never break free of its close relation to the Manchu written language. The construction of ethnic groups and the creation of written scripts stimulated vigorous development of ethnic histories compiled by the Sibe scholars, and it is their textual research of ethnic origin that best illustrates the birth of this new ethnic group.