by Jim Goodman
Counties
north of Yunnan’s capital that are part of Kunming Municipality Prefecture are
among the least explored in the whole province. Photographers might zip up for a quick excursion to take
pictures of the red soil that is such a prominent landscape feature. Though the area has its share of
natural beauty and colorfully dressed ethnic minorities, little information is
available, even now on the internet, so travelers tend to opt instead for
better-known destinations.
White Yi family in Xundian County |
My own introduction to the area came about courtesy of a Kunming friend in the
hemp cloth trade. He had a
business connection with White Yi villages in western Xundian County and we
decided to pay them a visit on the day of the summer Torch Festival. There wouldn’t be the usual bonfires
associated with Torch Festival celebrations elsewhere in the province,
though. His contact had informed
him the main event was a round of fights between the prize bulls of different
villages.
Xundian
is a Yi and Hui Autonomous County.
The Hui live in and around the county administrative seat as well as
around Liushao, to the west. In
between lies Qingshui Lake, locally renowned for its clean, clear water,
atmospheric scenery and a species of trout bred there that tastes like
salmon. Some Miao villages lie
south of Liushao, while in the rolling hills to the west and north the White Yi
dominate.
White Yi village near Jijie |
The
architecture of a typical White Yi village resembles that of rural Han settlements
in the province—houses of mud-brick and wood with tiled roofs and stone
foundations. A few even have the
carved wooden fish hanging from the apex of each roof corner, a symbol of water
as protection against lightning or fire.
The villagers grow rice, maize and vegetables, but also hemp, for
producing the cloth used to make their traditional garments. In modern times
they have also been using cotton for their clothing, but hemp cloth clothing is
still what tradition demands that a deceased White Yi must be wearing at his or
her funeral and burial.
White Yi women |
The
red part of this piece is a very bright hue, leaning to orange, covered in
patterns, some a single repeating motif, others a conglomeration of many. Each village has its own particular set
of designs, so that at markets or inter-village events the women can recognize
by the patterns from which village the wearer came. When embroidering patterns the woman not only makes her own
selections from the village repertoire, she may also add some of her own
creation. The result is that at a
crowded multi-village event like this festival, no two outfits are exactly
alike.
ethnic style of the White Yi women |
traditional White Yi man's outfit |
The
women’s lower garment is a three-part long cotton skirt. The top part is white, the middle
mostly red with thin stripes, while the bottom third is heavy blue cotton so
finely pleated that at first glance it looks like corduroy. Younger women and girls wear a long, voluminous,
white pleated hemp skirt. Neither
type of skirt has a drawstring, so to wear it the woman puts it on over her
head, drops it down to the waist and bunches it together under the end of the
blouse and secures it with a cloth belt.
BlackYi women, Xundian County |
White
Yi women still don their traditional clothing for everyday work, saving their
choicest outfit for special events.
On those occasions a great number of the men dress in the ethnic style,
too. Most of the items are made of
hemp cloth and, like the women’s skirts, the wide-legged, untailored trousers
have to be bunched together at the waist and secured with a belt. On the upper part of the body a
long-sleeved shirt goes under a long-tailed, white vest, a black waistcoat with
wide half-sleeves, and a short, white vest with narrow bands of colored
trimmings along the hems, horizontally across the middle and vertically on the
sides. Like the women, too, they
top off this imaginative set of layers with a Mao cap.
awaiting the start of the program |
The
venue for the festival we came to see was in the western part of the county in
a kind of natural amphitheater surrounded by forests near the km117 marker on
the Kunming-Jijie route. The bulls
would fight on a small, flat basin just down the slope from the east side of the
road, devoid of trees or bushes.
Behind it rose a slope where spectators could sit in the relatively bare
section just below the trees. A
rocky knoll bound the north side of the basin and the south side slid away into
a small valley.
There
was no host village. Yet by our
arrival at mid-morning the slope beside the road was already full of food and
drink stalls under tents or large umbrellas. People began arriving in trucks and on motorbikes. Most of those attending were White Yi,
but the crowd also included Black Yi, Han, Hui and Miao. Older Han women wore the traditional embroidered dark bib,
including one octogenarian in tiny feet. The Miao women wore ankle-length skirts of black and white or
solid black and dark jackets with blue trimming, among the least colorful Miao
women’s outfits I’d seen in Yunnan.
They were quite friendly, though, several of them twining hemp thread
while they chatted and waited for the start of the show.
White Yi at the festival grounds |
The
White Yi women, nearly all of them of all ages wore their traditional outfits,
stood out in the crowd wherever they went. They moved around in groups of three to seven or more in
waves of fluttering red and white against a largely green background. Some people watched a basketball
tournament held about thee hundred meters from the arena, but most just milled
around, drinking or snacking, playing games of skill or chance, until around
2:00, when the first pair of bulls were ready to square off.
Attention now turned to the arena
as men in their full traditional attire, the only thing deemed suitable for the
role, the tails of their starched white vests flapping in the breeze, escorted
their contending bulls from opposite ends of the field. The handlers guided the pair into
position against each other, prodded the two into combat and let go of the
leashes when they began to fight.
The first match, however, nearly
ended in disaster. The
head-butting had barely begun when suddenly one bull panicked and wheeled
around to flee, accidentally goring his handler in the process and charging
into the crowd. Other handlers
quickly caught and subdued it while four men rushed in to rescue the injured
man. Two of them lifted him by his
arms and the other two grabbed onto the cuffs of his trousers. As they carried him away his trousers
slipped down and his bare ass hung low over the ground all the way to the
ambulance. Fortunately, the wound
was slight and he was soon back on his feet.
escorting the village champion to the arena |
The next match was nearly a
repeat. The pair of bulls pushed
and shoved each other for several minutes until one lifted his opponent and
began shaking it. That move
frightened the losing bull, which abruptly turned around, knocked down and ran
over one of its handlers and began running towards the slope beside the road,
where I myself was standing.
Everyone scattered and I ducked behind one of the small refreshment
tents, figuring the bull would get tangled in the tent canvas before it could
reach and strike me.
Fortunately, the bull halted before reaching the tents, turned away and ambled quietly towards the valley. For me and the other startled spectators it seemed we were in for an exciting day. But none of the ensuing fights matched the drama and adrenalin rush of the first two. In fact, they were so normal as to be, in view of what had happened already, kind of anti-climactic.
Fortunately, the bull halted before reaching the tents, turned away and ambled quietly towards the valley. For me and the other startled spectators it seemed we were in for an exciting day. But none of the ensuing fights matched the drama and adrenalin rush of the first two. In fact, they were so normal as to be, in view of what had happened already, kind of anti-climactic.
a handler watches his bull i combat |
At each round first one handler led
his leashed bull in a stately march from the valley to the center of the
arena. After he was in place
another handler from the rocky knoll side of the arena brought in the opposing
bull. Once they had been
positioned, the bulls would dig up a bit of the turf in front of them, as if to
mark their territory. The
handlers, their bulls still on leashes, prodded the bulls to face each other
and commence combat, and dropped the leashes when the bulls began to fight.
For the first two rounds the bulls
went at it as soon as they faced each other. But in the several matches that followed the bulls seemed
reluctant to fight. We amused
ourselves speculating that maybe the bulls had witnessed what happened the
first two matches, did not fantasize themselves as the mighty winner, but
rather feared they might be the one that suffered the humiliating rout.
The Yi were prepared for any bullish recalcitrance. Several Yi picadors jabbed at the beasts with long sticks to provoke their anger, under the assumption the bulls would take it out on each other and not turn around and attack the picadors. Finally the bulls locked horns and began pushing and ramming each other, with pauses in between efforts, until one bull proved the stronger and the loser turned and fled.
The Yi were prepared for any bullish recalcitrance. Several Yi picadors jabbed at the beasts with long sticks to provoke their anger, under the assumption the bulls would take it out on each other and not turn around and attack the picadors. Finally the bulls locked horns and began pushing and ramming each other, with pauses in between efforts, until one bull proved the stronger and the loser turned and fled.
In one match, however, one of the
bulls simply refused to fight.
Whenever its handler prodded its head to face the other bull it turned
in another direction. And it was
oblivious to the repeated picador jabs.
It just wanted to run away, but couldn’t because it was still on the
leash. After several fruitless
minutes of trying to make this dumb animal be a good bull and fight like a
bull, while the amused crowd laughed and heckled its handlers, the latter gave
up and led the bull away. Its
opponent was declared winner by default.
head-to-head and may the best bull win |
But
the bull that refused to fight like a bull? The bull that revealed the embarrassing fact it had the
heart of a rabbit? Their so-called
village champion bull? We figured
the handlers probably just informed the disappointed villagers that this bull
would no longer represent the village in any future tournament. They would train a replacement, one with
a bull’s true fighting spirit. As
for the bull that brought shame upon itself, its handlers and the village it
represented, they would use it as raw material for the main ingredients of a
big, happy, compensatory, collective village feast. Cheers!
* * *
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