The first period: the study on the identification of Xifan nationality in Yunnan in 1950s and 1960s, which can be said to be a landmark event in the beginning of Pumi nationality and cultural research. We can find that the study of Pumi nationality at this stage is mainly to find the basis for the confirmation of the ethnic composition of Pumi nationality. Since then, some researchers have conducted in-depth and detailed investigations and written many investigation articles. In a sense, it is these scholars who initiated the study of Pumi nationality and its culture.
The second period: Since 1980s, with the liberation of people's minds, the study of national culture has become active, and scholars have been studying Pumi nationality and its culture from the perspective of language and folklore. The outstanding feature of the research in this period is that on the basis of large-scale investigation, a large number of Pumi folk culture and cultural materials of Bibi and Korean laws and regulations have been collected and sorted out. However, due to the limitation of a specific era, the understanding of the richness, diversity and uniqueness of Pumi culture formed in the long history is insufficient or too simple, and little attention is paid to the relationship between the unique psychology of different people and the formation of their cultural characteristics.
The third period: Since the beginning of the 20th century, governments at all levels and relevant cultural institutions in China have attached great importance to the protection and development of ethnic cultures with a small population, including Pumi, and elites from all walks of life have also actively intervened in the protection of their national cultures, and made some new achievements, especially in the investigation and declaration of Pumi intangible cultural heritage and the research in the field of Pumi religious culture.