Abstract: This paper traces the evolutionary context of the legendary story of "Ji Domesticated Dragon" in Liuzhou, Guangxi, and discusses the familial practices of Ji clan that lived in the interior frontier region during the Ming and Qing dynasties. Through various historical materials such as official records, gazetteer, inscriptions, and family genealogies, this study first examines the folklore of Ji ancestors taming a crocodile to be raised as a pet, a myth that represents the process of Ji clan rising from a chieftain family to an imperial examination pedigree. Further more, it discusses how Ji family compiled the legend of "domesticated dragon" into a family myth in the event of a crisis, and through this myth new "fengshui" was recreated to strengthen the family's status. These efforts eventually led to the formation of a multi-ethnic clan organisation in Liuzhou. The paper argues that the traditional dynastic state had developed a set of sophisticated "civilization engineering" techniques in the frontier areas. The key point of the techniques is to establish a local social space with a hierarchical structure of "barbarians"-"registered villages"-"districts and prefectures", matched with a social value system and ideology from barbarism to civilization. In Guangxi, this kind of social space provided a dynamic activity sphere for social groups such as family and lineage. It is the combination of the desire and pursuit of this value system by families and clans and the exertion of clans as a social self-organization among all social strata and ethnic groups in interaction and communication, that facilitated the integration of the interior frontiers into the national system, thus integrating the ethnic minorities into the community of the Chinese nation.

Key words: folklore, fengshui, multi-ethnic lineage