by Jim Goodman
Bulangshan village, with its temple at the top of the slope |
The hills of Xishuangbanna are home to several non-Dai ethnic
minorities, constituting one-third of the prefecture’s population. For many centuries they lived with
little interaction with the Dai in the plains, following a different material
way of life and adhering to an animist view of the world scarcely influenced by
the folks in the plains. The sole
exception was the Bulang nationality, one of the earliest migrants to the area,
coming up from Myanmar beginning in the 7th century, who are
Buddhist.
Around 38,000 Bulang, a little over 40% of Yunnan’s total, live in
Xishuangbanna, accounting for about 3.6% of the prefecture’s population. Over
85% of them are in the western and southern parts of Menghai County, nearly
always in villages high up in the mountains. Bulang in parts of Pu’er, Baoshan and Lincang prefectures
are animist, but those in Xishuangbanna have been Buddhist for centuries,
perhaps even as long as the Dai.
According to their own mythology, the Bulang are elder brothers to the
Dai and received the Buddhist doctrine at the same time, though only the Dai
got the writing system.
Bulang Buddhist temple compound |
Consequently, the Bulang use the Dai language for rituals and religious
terminology and their monks read and write the Dai script. Some of the older men can write the
Bulang language using the Dai script, but this knowledge is not widespread, nor
were any books or pamphlets ever published in Bulang employing the Dai
alphabet. The government did not
devise a script for Bulang using English letters, either, as it did for Hani
and some other minority nationality languages.
Traditionally all Bulang males spent a few years in the village monastery,
usually sited above or beyond the residential area, where they became familiar
to one degree or another with the Dai script. Such familiarity with religious manuscripts written in Dai
did not, however, make them fluent in spoken Dai. Their own language belongs to the Mon-Khmer linguistic group
and is completely different from Dai. Situated so high above the plains, the Bulang did not
have much social intercourse with the Dai. Because the Bulang practiced the same religion as the Dai,
the latter considered them the most civilized of the hill people, but still
grouped them together with the other hill folks in a rank lower than that of
the Dai commoners in the prevailing social hierarchy in Banna. Dai mythology did not identify the
Bulang as their elder brothers.
monk resting on the steps ofa Bulang temple |
No Dai monks resided in Bulang villages and Bulang monks did not study
in Dai monasteries before beginning their religious careers. Bulang monks learned to read the Dai
religious manuscripts from older Bulang monks. Yet it was these manuscripts that were the major factor in
insuring that the practice of Bulang Buddhism was a close replica to that of
Dai Buddhism. Even today young
Bulang men still spend a few years at the monastery after middle school. Villages still celebrate Buddhist
festivals like the Water-Sprinkling Festival and the three-month Buddhist Lent,
but with a few differences.
typical Bulang village |
Like the Dai, during these three months every fortnight a different
neighborhood will conduct rites.
But the event lasts three days rather than one. The richest family plays host and picks
up two-thirds of the tab, while the rest of the neighborhood contributes the
remainder. The first day’s activities
include the assembly of the gifts to the monastery and the preparation by the
younger generation of a grand feast for the older generation, comprising lots
of meat and chicken dishes and a special beef pudding for the occasion but,
unlike the Dai, no alcohol now or for the entire three months. (They will, however, serve alcohol at
the feast to any non-Bulang guest.)
Before the elders begin eating though, younger Bulang go around to wash
their seniors’ hands first.
assembling gift packets for the monks during the Buddhist Lent |
Following the feast monks come to the house to recite scriptures,
repeating the session the next two days.
On the second morning people carry their gifts to the monastery and on
the third day, with the conclusion of the recitations, the celebrants indulge
in dancing, including one number in which men smear soot on their faces and
wear “barbarian” clothes.
Not every Bulang holiday is strictly a Buddhist one, though. A few are vestiges of ancient,
pre-Buddhist times. For two days
in the first lunar month families honor relatives who have died during the
preceding year. They take strips
of palm leaf to the monks to have them inscribe on them the names of the
deceased. They take these and
offerings of meat and leave them at the relatives’ graves, the temple, the
village gate and the village center.
For all families, the end of the second lunar month signals three days
of rites honoring their ancestors.
hillside chedi in Bulangshan |
In the past, the Bulang also held an annual festival honoring the bamboo
rat. Their mythology credits this
animal with delivering grain seeds to their ancestors, thus introducing the
Bulang to agriculture. Villagers
had to catch a bamboo rat that day, sacrifice it, cook it and divide the meat
up among all the households so that everybody got a bite of it.
For most of their history agriculture was the mainstay of their
livelihood. Like their Aini and Lahu neighbors, they created farms by
slash-and-burn and grew rice, maize, cotton and vegetables. Their only major tea-growing area was
Nanuoshan, until the Aini evicted them at the end of the Qing Dynasty. But by then the tea business was
beginning to expand and by mid-20th century far more Bulang villages
were involved in tea cultivation than in growing food crops.
The Bulang had been drinking tea before they cultivated it, but in those
days they got the ingredients for it by picking up the used leaves of the
Dai. Now that they have their own
tea they have developed their own distinctive pickling and souring
preparations. Tea with a sour to
bitter taste is the Bulang favorite.
They also like to chew betel and both chew and smoke tobacco.
pounding rice in a wooden mortar |
carrying home the wood |
Their preferred taste for food is hot and sour, especially with fish and
chicken. They also wrap spiced
meat chunks and fish in banana leaves and bake them in the fire. All this they wash down with cups of
rice liquor and bitter tea.
The tea boom enriched a good number of Bulang villages. In some places, especially those close
to main roads, families abandoned the traditional wood and bamboo, stilted
houses with tile roofs for a two-story, modern-style, cement house. Others were satisfied with replacing the
tiled roof with one of corrugated iron, in bright blue. Generally speaking, as soon as one
family changed their house, everyone else rushed to follow.
new houses in a Bulang village enriched by the tea trade |
Still, in more remote Bulang villages, while they might sport corrugated
iron roofs, houses are still the elevated, traditional ones, if not on stilts
then on brick piles. Most women
have not adopted contemporary style clothing, though the younger ones are more
likely to dress in Dai sarongs and matching blouses, rather than the
blue-black, striped sarong and side-fastened, waist-length jacket, slightly
flared at the hem, still favored by the older women. The latter also wear the dark turban, decorated with colored
pom-poms and silver at festival time, which the youth have eschewed.
In the old days the youths of both sexes used to dye their teeth black
as teenagers, rather like a rite of passage. Youth associations of people of the same age group organized
the affair. First the boys helped
the girls dye their teeth, using burnt leaves of the chestnut tree, then the
girls helped the boys. Marriage
was by choice, not arrangement, and still is. After the marriage rite the groom sleeps with his wife at
her natal house for three years, but returns to work at his own house all day. After three years, if all has gone well
between the couple, he takes her to his own village to set up house. They even hold a second wedding.
Nowadays blackening teeth has fallen into desuetude, perhaps because
young people are more susceptible to modern toothpaste advertising, which
stresses the beauty of clean, white teeth. Bulang youth are also migrating more to the towns and cities
for employment, only returning to the villages at festival time. The older generation seems to prefer
the mountains and most of them hardly ever leave the vicinity of the
village. Some of the more
enterprising women do go down to market days in Mengman, Xiding and especially
Menghun, generally dressed in their best ethnic style.
chedi and sacred tree in a field beside Bulangshan town |
Bulang villages also dominate Bada, another Autonomous Bulang District
in southwest Menghai County. Other
Bulang settlements are scattered in Mengman and Xiding districts and one of
these, Zhanglang village, 10 km southwest of Xiding, became the site of the
Bulang Nationality Ecological Museum. With no direct bus there, tourists have to rent a car to go,
which some groups do when first visiting Xiding on the Thursday market
day.
Even if it had no museum Zhanglang is worth a visit on its own. It is one of the very oldest and most
attractive Bulang villages in the prefecture. Residents claim its foundation was 1400 years ago and that
the temple was originally built three generations later. A thick forest, full of old trees with
trunks over two meters wide, surrounds the village. Over a hundred houses stand here, almost all traditional
stilted houses. A few use brick
piles instead of wooden stilts, but retain the sloping tiled roof and open-air
balcony. Many have roof
decorations at the corners and in the middle, usually stylized flames or
buffalo horns, plus the occasional pair of birds.
ancient stone carving at Zhanglang village |
The road enters the village from the east. Near the entrance is an old well, now dry and boarded
up. But a stone lion, a deity and
other old carvings on the wall around the well are still intact. Continuing along the road another 150
meters one passes the end of the old village, then a small patch of forest,
then a new extension of Zhanglang of about fifteen houses. At the edge of this neighborhood is the
museum, with a view down the valley of Bulang villages on the lower slopes, a
few Aini and one Han village higher up, and a white chedi on the summit.
Within the museum are the tools and implements of everyday life, the
baskets of split bamboo that are still being used, Bulang costumes and all the
equipment for making their clothing, antique temple furnishings and wood-carved
house decorations like plaques and a dragon staircase. A case displays medicinal plants used
in the area. Another display
features religious manuscripts on both palm-leaf and paper, and a manuscript of
the village’s history, with drawings portraying the village founders. In short, the museum gives visitors an
excellent presentation of Bulang culture.
Combined with a visit to the ancient temple and a walk around the
village observing daily chores, an excursion
Bulang woman, Zhanglang village |
The inevitable question is how much of their traditions the Bulang will
be able to retain in the future.
The major difference between them and other minorities in the hills
suggests a positive outcome. The
animist world-view that characterized traditional thought among the other hill
peoples is withering fast as people become more aware of the modern and
scientific view of the world.
While they may maintain some old customs and celebrate a few festivals,
the old spirituality underlining their traditions has eroded.
In contrast, the Bulang are still enthusiastic about their own, Buddhist
world-view. New roads have
connected remote villages with plains markets, allowing them to become involved
in the tea business and import goods that improve their domestic life. But ideas that might compete with their
religion don’t seem to travel to the hills, much less lodge themselves
there. For the Bulang, there is no
real contradiction between the demands of 21st century life and the
concepts of the religion that has served them well for 1500 years. The Buddha still points the way.
Bulang-style Buddha, Bulangshan |
* * * for more on the Bulang and other hill people in Banna, see my e-book Xishuangbanna: the Tropics of Yunnan
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