Table of contents:

Part I Local Identities of Space and Place

1 The Blessed Home: Residence and Identity in a Uyghur Neighborhood 11

2 Yining's Mehelle as Suburban Periphery 32

3 Desettling the Land: The Destruction of Uyghur Chthonic Identity 48

Part II Gender and the Life Cycle

4 Gleaming Eyes, Evil Eyes: Cradle and Cure in Uyghur Child Rearing 67

5 At Play in the Mehelle: The Language and Lore of Uyghur Childhood 92

6 Marriage, Mistresses, and Masculinity: Gender and Adult Social Life 114

7 The Pretty Olturash: Masculinity and Moral Order in Adult Play 143

8 "Women have hair, men have nicknames": Uyghur Nicknaming Practices 168

Part III Markets and Merchants on the Silk Road

9 Merchants and Markets in the Mehelle 203

10 Yining's Border Trade: Trader-Tourism and Uyghur Sojourning 228

Part IV Islam in the Mehelle: The Social Dimensions of Uyghur Religious Practice

11 The False Hajim and the Bad Meshrep: Piety and Politics in Uyghur Islam 255

12 The Hungry Guest: Rhetoric, Reverence, and Reversal in a Uyghur Ramadan 283