Discipline | Multidisciplinary |
---|---|
Language | English |
Edited by | James Huston Edgar David Crockett Graham Leslie Gifford Kilborn |
Publication details | |
History | 1922–1945 |
Publisher | West China Border Research Society (Republican China) |
Frequency | Biannually, triannually, annually |
Standard abbreviations | |
ISO 4 | J. West China Border Res. Soc. |
Indexing | |
OCLC no. | 977595689 |
The Journal of the West China Border Research Society (JWCBRS) was a scientific journal published at irregular intervals between 1922 and 1945 by the West China Border Research Society, and printed by the Canadian Methodist Mission Press. It was the first English-language journal published in Sichuan. [1]
The West China Border Research Society was formed on 24 March 1922 at the West China Union University, [2] in the Chengdu home of Dr. William Reginald Morse, who became the first President of the Society. Most of its founding members were Protestant missionaries, including Morse himself. The first formal meeting of the Society was held in October 1922 in the home of Albert James Brace, a Canadian Methodist missionary and Master of the Szechwan Lodge No. 112, who was elected as Secretary of the Society. [3] In addition to Morse and Brace, the first members of the Society also included Joseph Beech (AMEM), George Bradford Neumann (AMEM), Daniel Sheets Dye (ABFMS), Clarence L. Foster (ABFMS), David Crockett Graham (ABFMS), Dryden Linsley Phelps (ABFMS), James Huston Edgar (CIM), John R. Muir (CIM), T. Edgar Plewman (CMM), James Livingstone Stewart (CMM), Edward Corry Wilford (CMM), Earl Dome (YMCA), George G. Helde (YMCA) and H. N. Steptoe. [2]
The Journal of the West China Border Research Society was originally published on a biannual basis, [4] except for Volume III (1926–1929), [5] before becoming an annual publication in 1932 (Volume V). [6] Since the publication of Volume XII (1940), the JWCBRS was divided into two categories, with Series A covering general subjects and Series B devoted to the natural sciences. [7] The purpose of the Journal was to report on the "investigations into the country, peoples, customs and environment of West China, especially as they affect the non-Chinese", and to promote the study of "the life and customs, the religion and sociology, the enthology and anthropology, and other problems related to the various aboriginal races that inhabit the border lands of Western China". Members of the Society were expected to travel at least once every three years, into the tribal regions, and to there investigate some phase of the life of the district. [5]
The emphasis fell on the exploration of the border region between Western Sichuan and Eastern Tibet, and the tribal people-inhabited region of Southern Sichuan. [8] But due to the increasing state of lawlessness and banditry and the difficulty in travelling into these border regions, the scope of the Society's activities was enlarged to include the study of all problems peculiar to the land and life of Western China, either Chinese or Aboriginal. [5] Alex McKay wrote in Revue d'Études Tibétaines that "the West China Border Research Society was not the first of its kind, [8] [...] but the JWCBRS was the first journal of its kind". [4]
Most of the articles published in the JWCBRS can be divided into seven categories by discipline, namely, archaeology, ethnology, geography and geology, medicine and pharmacy, religious studies, study of history, and botany and zoology. [9] Significant contributors included James Huston Edgar, author of numerous articles especially concerning the Tibetan region; David Crockett Graham, who did research on the Chuan Miao people and the 1937 volume is largely devoted to his studies of this group; [4] Thomas Torrance, who was particularly interested in the Qiang people; Vyvyan Donnithorne, who wrote a long article for Volume VI (1933–1934) detailing his investigation on the East Syriac Christian tradition in Guanghan (Hanchow); [10] and W. Brian Harland's "On the Physiographical History of Western Szechwan" for the 1945 volume. In addition, the Journal also published articles by non-missionary scholars, such as Joseph Rock and Alexandra David-Néel. [11]
Mianyang is the second largest prefecture-level city of Sichuan province in Southwestern China. Located in north-central Sichuan covering an area of 20,281 square kilometres (7,831 sq mi) consisting of Jiangyou, a county-level city, five counties, and three urban districts. Its total population was 4,868,243 people at the 2020 Chinese census, of whom 2,232,865 live in its built-up area made of three urban districts.
The Northeast Project, which is short for the Serial Research Project on the History and Current State of the Northeast Borderland, was a five-year research project on the history and current situation of the frontiers of Northeast China which lasted from 2002 to 2007. It was launched by the Chinese Academy of Social Science (CASS) and received financial support from both the Chinese government and the CASS.
The West China Union University, also called West China University or Huaxi University, was a private university in Chengdu, Sichuan, China. It was the product of the collective efforts of four Protestant, denominational, missionary boards — American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, American Methodist Episcopal Mission, Friends' Foreign Mission Association and Canadian Methodist Mission — and eventually became a division of the West China Educational Union, which was created in 1906. The Church Missionary Society became a partner in the university in 1918.
Song Cheng-tsi (1890–1955), also known as Song Chen-tze, Chʻeng-Tsi Song, C. T. Song or C. T. Sung, was a bishop of the Sichuanese Anglican Church.
Christianity is a minority religion in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan. The Eastern Lipo, Kadu people and A-Hmao are ethnic groups present in the province.
David Crockett Graham was a polymath American Baptist minister and missionary, educator, author, archaeologist, anthropologist, naturalist and field collector in the Province of Sichuan during the Chinese Republican Era, from 1911 to 1948. He was a 32nd degree Mason, and a past master of the Szechwan Lodge No. 112. From 1921 to 1942, Graham collected and sent to the Smithsonian Institution nearly 400,000 zoological specimens, including more than 230 new species and 9 new genera, of which 29 were named after him. From 1932 to 1942 he was curator of the Museum of Art, Archaeology and Ethnology at the West China Union University, which still stands as part of Sichuan University, in Chengdu. There, he taught comparative religions at the Theological College, and archaeology and anthropology at the University. He wrote extensively and spent his retirement years, from 1950 to 1961, in Englewood, Colorado compiling his writings and research into three books that were published by the Smithsonian Institution. A fourth manuscript lay in the Whitman College and Northwest Archives until it was discovered by Hartmut Walravens, who edited it and published it in 2018. McKhann refers to Graham as "One of a handful of Western missionaries whose scientific work was respected by other scientists—and of even fewer scientists whose religious work was respected by other missionaries."
Thomas Torrance (1871–1959) was a Scottish Presbyterian minister and Protestant missionary to Sichuan, western China. He was first sent there by the China Inland Mission (CIM), and later by The American Bible Society. He married Annie Elizabeth Sharpe (1883–1980) of the CIM in 1911. He was the father of the 20th century theologian, Thomas F. Torrance.
William Reginald Morse was a Canadian author, medical doctor, and medical missionary serving under the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society in Sichuan, West China. In 1901 he proceeded to West China where he founded West China Union University. The university was one of the first co-educational medical schools in China that provided western education. Morse also made substantial contributions to the fields of anthropology and medical history through his published works. Morse provided historical insight to the West on the traditional practices of Chinese and Tibetan Medicine. Morse specifically delineated the influence of religion and culture in the evolution of medicine in East Asia. Additionally, Morse wrote several anthropological books that outlined the physical and physiological behavior of the people of Sichuan and Tibet. Morse was interested not only in understanding the vast differences in culture between China and the West, but also communicating these differences to the West.
The Diocese of Western China, also known as Diocese of Szechwan or Hua Hsi Diocese (華西教區), was an Anglican diocese in late-Qing-dynasty and Republican China, established in 1895, under the supervision of the Church of England. It had belonged to the Church in China since its outset, and had been part of the Chinese Anglican Church since 1912. In 1936, it was divided into the Diocese of East Szechwan (聖公會東川教區) and Diocese of West Szechwan (聖公會西川教區).
Frederick Boreham was Archdeacon of Cornwall and Chaplain to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
The Venerable Vyvyan Henry Donnithorne, MC, MA was Archdeacon of Western Szechwan from 1935 to 1949.
Gospel Church, today known as Kangding Christian Church, is a Protestant church situated on Guangming Road, Kangding, a county-level city in Garzê Tibetan Prefecture, Sichuan Province. First built in 1905, on Yanhe West Road, by China Inland Mission missionaries, the church was relocated to its present location in 1958. It has been subjected to the control of the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Church since 1954.
Gospel Church is a Protestant church situated on Dabei Upper Street, in the county-level city of Guanghan, Deyang, Sichuan Province. Founded in 1902, it was formerly an Anglican church in the West Szechwan Diocese of the Church in China. It has been subjected to the control of the state-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic Church since 1954. In 2003, a new church was built on Shuyuan Street, and renamed Grace Church.
The history of Anglicanism in Sichuan began in 1887 when Anglican missionaries working with the China Inland Mission began to arrive from the United Kingdom. These were later joined by missionaries from the Church Missionary Society and Bible Churchmen's Missionary Society. Or according to Annals of Religion in Mianyang, in 1885, a small mission church was already founded in Mianyang by Alfred Arthur Phillips and Gertrude Emma Wells of the Church Missionary Society. Missionaries built churches, founded schools, and distributed Chinese translations of Anglican religious texts. These efforts were relatively successful and Anglicanism grew to become one of the two largest denominations of Protestant Christianity in the province, alongside Methodism.
The Protestant mission began in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan in 1877, when premises were rented by the China Inland Mission in Chungking. However, compared with Catholicism, which had been spread throughout the province for over two centuries at the time, it grew rather slowly, it was not until the late 1980s that Protestantism experienced rapid growth. The two largest denominations in the province before 1950 were Anglicanism and Methodism.
The presence of the Catholic Church in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan and city of Chongqing dates back to 1640, when two missionaries, Lodovico Buglio and Gabriel de Magalhães, through Jesuit missions in China, entered the province and spent much of the 1640s evangelizing in Chengdu and its surrounding areas.
The Canadian Methodist Mission (CMM), also known as Missionary Society of the Methodist Church in Canada, was a Canadian Methodist Christian missionary society mostly working in the province of Szechwan, which was also referred to as "West China."
The history of Methodism in Sichuan began in 1882 when missionaries began to arrive from the United States. Methodists founded or helped found several colleges, schools, and hospitals to aid in modernization and conversion efforts. Later, American Methodists were joined by missionaries from Canada. Methodism grew to become one of the two largest denominations of Protestant Christianity in the province by 1922, along with Anglicanism.
The history of Baptist Christianity in Sichuan began in 1890 when missionaries began arriving from the United States. Baptist missionaries in Sichuan were organized under the American Baptist Missionary Union, later renamed American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. Missionary activity in China generated controversy among many native Chinese and faced armed opposition during both the Boxer Rebellion and the later Communist movement in China. Although the former did not affect Sichuan so much as some other parts of China, the province was one of the hotbeds of anti-missionary riots throughout its ecclesiastical history.
The West China Missionary News (WCMN) was a monthly news magazine published in Chengdu (Chengtu) from 1899 to 1943 by the West China Missions Advisory Board, and printed by Canadian Methodist Mission Press. It was aimed at Protestant missionaries working in Sichuan, and was the first and longest-running English-language newspaper in that province.