This paper discusses how Chicken Foot Mountain 雞足山 in Yunnan
was shaped into a Buddhist sacred site during the late Ming period, and
describes the strategies utilized by native officials (tusi 土司) to strengthen
their ascribed status. The Ming state gradually extended its influence into
southwest China’s mountain areas in order to bring material resources under
its control, resulting in conflicts between mountain populations and lowland
farmers that frequently required the intervention of native officials. During the
same era, a local mountain in the Dali 大理 area came to be popularly
identified as Chicken Foot Mountain, renowned as the favored meditation site
of the Indian Buddhist Saint, Mahākāśyapa, and many Buddhist temples were
built in the area by native elites. Worship at Chicken Foot Mountain was
eventually brought under the auspices of the Ming state. However, the real
concern behind these ritual institutions was to establish control over a huge
quantity of mountain resources, land and trading routes. In this paper, I argue
that as commerce increasingly impacted southwest China, the formation of
orthodoxy and its accompanying institutions in the mountain areas legitimatized
native officials’ traditional privileges.