景迈山茶祖故事中的历史与族群关系

茶史和茶马古道研究中的一个重要问题,是茶叶出产区与茶叶消费区之间的联系如何建立起来。关于茶叶贸易与茶叶消费的很多历史研究已经涉及这一问题,但较少论及作为茶叶生产者的当地人对茶叶消费者等他人的态度。本文讨论了云南景迈山布朗族和傣族的两种茶祖故事,它们都说本民族/族群的祖先是茶文化的发明者,本民族/族群种茶的历史大约有2000年,但没有讲述与对方民族/族群的关系。本文的研究表明,这两种茶祖故事是最近才产生的,它们之间不仅互相矛盾,而且与其他地方及族群的茶祖故事也不一致,很多内容与已知的历史不符。这些现象显示了这两种茶祖故事是在“以言行事”,通过宣称本民族是茶文化的发明者,来吹捧本地、本民族所产的茶叶。这一行为中隐含了“发明者即最佳者”的观念,凸显了这两个民族/族群之间的市场竞争关系。

History and Ethnic Relation in the Tea Ancestor Stories of the Jingmai Mountain

An important issue in the study of tea history and the ancient tea horse road is how to establish the connection between tea production and consumption areas.In response,there have been many researches on the history of the tea trade and tea consumption,but less about the attitude of local tea producers toward tea consumers.This article discusses the tea ancestor stories of the Blang and Dai ethnic groups in the Jingmai Mountain,Yunnan Province,both of whom have viewed ancestors of their own ethnic groups as the inventors of tea culture,for they had been planting tea trees since nearly 2000 years ago,without mentioning any relationship.It is found that these two tea ancestor stories have been recently produced,which are not only contradictory with each other,but also inconsistent with the tea ancestor stories in other places and ethnic groups,and many contents are even incongruous with the history.These phenomena show that these tea ancestor stories have been“achieving things by words”and publicizing the local tea by claiming that they themselves invented tea culture.This behavior implies the concept of“inventor as the best”and shows the market competition between the two ethnic groups.