ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the Wasi Jiarong Tibetans who settled in the north-west of Sichuan province. From the fifteenth century, they were loyal to successive Chinese governments who gave generations of chieftains the title of pacification commissioner, or headman. They did not escape the political turmoil of the twentieth century and supported, in turn, the overthrow of the Chinese imperial system, the two-decade-long Nationalist government and finally the Chinese Communist Party after 1949. Suo Guantao was born in 1926 to a Wasi Tibetan father and Han Chinese mother, and it was her mother who ruled as de facto headman when the title fell to her son, who was away studying at the time, and then to her underage grandson. Suo Guantao tells of a childhood of complex family relationships and traditional Tibetan marriage rituals that her mother supported while encouraging Suo Guantao to pursue a modern education.
