Brief introduction of Tao Yunkui

Tao Yunkui (1904— 1944), male, originally from Wujin, Jiangsu, now living in Tianjin, is an ethnologist and anthropologist in China.

Chinese name: Tao Yunkui.

Date of birth: 1904

Date of death: 1944

Occupation: Ethnologist and Anthropologist

Graduate institutions: Nankai University, Berlin University and Hamburg University.

Representative Works: Chicken Bone of Southwest Tribe

brief introduction

Tao Yunkui 1924 studied at Nankai University. From 65438 to 0927, he went to Germany and studied anthropology, genetics and ethnology at the University of Berlin and the University of Hamburg successively, and obtained his doctorate. After returning to China, he worked as an editor at the Institute of History and Language of Nanjing Academia Sinica from 65438 to 0934. Later, at the invitation of Yunnan Provincial Department of Education, Ling Chunsheng and his colleagues went to Lijiang, Zhongdian, Weixi, Yunnan-Myanmar, Yunnan-Vietnam border and other ethnic minority areas for more than two years. Physical fitness was measured in the survey, and the customs and habits of ethnic minorities were investigated in detail, with many manuscripts.

During his stay in War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, he successively served as director of sociology department of Yunnan University, professor of Southwest United University, director of Frontier Humanities Research Office of Nankai University, and editor-in-chief of Frontier Humanities magazine. Tao Yunkui studied under the German-Austrian Ethnology Communication School, trying to study all ethnic groups in Yunnan from the perspective of "cultural history". His masterpiece "Chicken Bone Divination of Southwest Tribes" (Frontier Humanities No.2, volume 1) makes a detailed study on the distribution and historical records of "chicken bone divination", and holds that this divination method is the cultural product of non-Han nationality, and the "chicken bone divination" of Han nationality was introduced by non-Han nationality.

In his later works, he tried to generalize ethnology theory and combine it with frontier politics at that time, taking "the general law of human society and culture as the main body of research or discussion and the social and cultural facts of southwest frontier as the research object" (An Introduction to Southwest Frontier Society), aiming at leading to the China of the living utensils and cultural relics system of ethnic minorities, thus tending to "modernization".

Tao Yunkui has made great contributions to the investigation and study of ethnic minorities in Yunnan, the discovery of totem system of Yi people and the development of sociology department of Yunnan University and frontier humanities research of Nankai University. Tao Yunkui's academic works are mainly about 10 investigation reports about ethnic minorities in Yunnan, which are of great research value. Articles are scattered in publications such as Southwest Frontier and Frontier Humanities.