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Abstract: This paper explores the construction of Amannisa Khan (1526-1560) as a Uyghur culture hero through the creation and repetition of a narrative linking her to the Uyghur Twelve Muqams. The paper shows intertextual linkages between various forms in which Amannisa Khan is represented, including written histories, a stage play, a tomb, a film, a novel, and portraiture. The analysis reveals that it is the frequent recontextualization and repetition of "Amannisa Khan as collector and organizer," which was first inserted into her life story in the 1980s, that has been the most significant element in developing her culture hero image.
We are concerned here not with the [woman] but the image, not with reality but with symbol, not with history but with historical consciousness and the way that it shapes and reflects later history. (Croizier 1977, 5)
Introduction
For two months in the summer of 2007, I lived in Kashgar, an oasis town in the southwest of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China (PRC), doing field research and studying the Uyghur language.1 When local residents inquired as to my reasons for being there, I usually responded that I was an ethnomusicologist interested in Uyghur music, particularly the Uyghur On Ikki Muqami (Uyghur Twelve Muqams). In return, many people I met-from restaurant waitstaff and cab drivers to aspiring writers and college professors- responded by mentioning the name of Amannisa Khan (1526-1560), a concubine of Sultan 'Abd ar-Rashid Khan (1509-1570) of the Yarkand Khanate (1514-1670), whom they credited with having collected and systematized the On Ikki Muqam tradition. People I met insisted that, because I was interested in muqam, I needed to travel to the city of Yarkand, a roughly 4-hour bus ride southeast of Kashgar, to visit Amannisa' s tomb and to find performances of the On Ikki Muqam there. Some people informed me that Amannisa Khan created muqam in her lifetime; others said that while she did not create it, she played a large role in collecting and systematizing it. Most seemed to believe that the story of her life would be significant for my research on the music and thus felt compelled to talk about her with me.
That summer I also began to encounter the princess's...