by Jim Goodman
Yi festival in the mountains of Ninglang County |
Southwest China’s Yi
nationality is the fourth largest ethnic minority in the country. They inhabit mostly mountainous terrain
in southern Sichuan, western Guizhou and Guangxi and throughout nearly all of
Yunnan, where they form 11% of the province’s population, the most numerous of
its 25 ethnic minorities.
Ancestors of Yunnan’s Yi founded the Nanzhao Kingdom, which vied for
supremacy with Tang Dynasty China from the 7th century for control
of southwest China until both regimes collapsed in the early 10th
century.
Though
the Yi permanently lost political power in Yunnan they were still the dominant
ethnic group in the successor Bai-run Kingdom of Dali and remained so after the
Mongol conquest in the mid-13th century. Only when the Ming Dynasty sponsored large-scale Han
immigration to Yunnan did the proportion of Yi in Yunnan begin to reduce.
Yi women in the Ninglang city market |
Contemporary Yi are not, and
never really were, a homogenous nationality. In Yunnan alone there are over two dozen sub-groups, residing
in different kinds of ecological conditions, speaking five distinct
dialects. That much I knew myself
before I ever visited Yunnan. But
on my first journey there the first Yi I wanted to meet were the Liangshan Yi,
the Cool Mountain Yi of Ninglang County.
I had read about them already in a Peter Goullart account of his journey
with a Black Yi aristocrat as well as when doing research on the Long
March. The Red Army had a
memorable encounter with the same branch of the Yi in southern Sichuan.
Maps of southwest China
compiled by Western explorers in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries marked the entire Liangshan area, the Greater Cool Mountains in
Xichang, Sichuan and the Lesser Cool Mountains in Ninglang, Yunnan as
“Independent Lololand.” The
designation Lolo, which translates as
something resembling savage, was the
pre-1949 term for the Yi. While
today all Yunnan Yi refer to themselves as Yi when speaking to outsiders, among
themselves they use their own name for their sub-group: Nisu in Yuanyang, Tuli in Weishan and
Midu, Sani in Shilin, etc. The
Liangshan Yi call themselves Nuosu—the Dark People. While they dominate Ninglang County, the Nuosu also reside
in Lijiang, Shangrila, Lanping, Jianchuan and Yangbi Counties.
Nuosu Yi villlage in early autumn |
“Independent” did not mean a
separate state. It was more of a
no-go zone for outsiders, particularly Han, because the Liangshan Yi society
was a slave-holding one and outsiders risked capture and sale as a slave. It was a very complex one, though, and
one’s status was not permanently fixed.
At the top were the Black Yi aristocrats, comprising about 15% of the
people at most. Below them were
the White Yi, serfs to the Black Yi, around 50% of the population. They did not have the privileges of the
Black Yi and were often drafted to fight in the ceaseless feuds the Yi lords
had with each other. But they
could not be enslaved or killed with impunity.
Cool Mountain Yi, in felted wool cape |
Two kinds of slaves ranked
below the White Yi—field slaves and house slaves. Unlike the situation in the pre-Civil War American South,
the field slaves were actually better off. They had to labor in the master’s fields, but could actually
work their own private plot, make money and either buy their freedom or buy a
slave of their own to work and then amass enough capital to, for example, buy
out the slave’s whole family.
Meanwhile, their slaves could work their own plots and even buy a slave
to work for them. The lowest
status in Nuosu society, therefore, was to be a slave of a slave of a slave.
House slaves didn’t have that
option, however, and their lives and conditions were subject to the personality
traits of their owners. Some were
nice; some were harsh, even cruel, as attested by the display of torture
instruments in the Xichang Museum.
After 1949, though, no “Independent Lololand” could exist. The new Communist government, however,
moved gradually to eliminate the slave system. They began by winning over Black Yi slave-owners, already
aware the system was doomed, to emancipate their slaves in return for positions
in the new autonomous governing body.
carrying water in wooden buckets |
Not all acquiesced, though,
and the government was obliged to mount a military campaign in 1956 against
recalcitrant Black Yi in remote areas.
It lasted two years and the cemetery in Ninglang is full of the graves
of young Chinese soldiers who died in the campaign. All that is a distant memory today. But while the old slavery system is
dead, the Nuosu are still one of the most conservative of Yi sub-groups.
Typical characteristics associated with Yi culture—the mid-summer Torch
Festival, the role of the ritual specialist called bìmaw (also spelled bimo),
the use of the ancient Yi script—are not necessarily part of Yi life everywhere
in Yunnan. But with the Nuosu they
are.
Among the Nuosu customs
maintained is that of an almost ritualized form of hospitality. For Ninglang’s Yi there are three kinds
of guests and each type requires a separate kind of reception. The most common is a fellow villager or
other familiar guest, who will be seated by the fireplace and served with
whatever is available, tea and potatoes usually, liquor occasionally.
The second category is the
special guest, one of high rank or from some distance away. For them the host slays a two-legged
animal; a chicken usually, but it could be a duck or goose. For the third type, a very rare guest
from especially far away, the host kills a four-legged animal—small pig, sheep
or goat.
typical Yi log cabins |
Coming from Thailand, I
qualified as the third type of guest in every remote mountain village I visited
overnight. In Ninglang Yi houses
where I made regular visits every season or so for a few years, my hosts killed
chickens. Part of this hospitality
routine was to take a prognosis of the event, while the chicken was being
cooked, by inserting two toothpicks into two small holes in the chicken’s
thighbone. If the toothpicks
leaned too close together that meant the guest was trying to take advantage of
the host. If they were too far
apart it signified the host was trying to evade hospitality
responsibilities. If they formed a
nice “V” (as mine did each time, fortunately for me and the hosts) then the
visit would proceed harmoniously.
the hearth |
For the second and third type
of guest, liquor is an integral part of the reception. Overnight guests might bring their own,
but the host is obligated to serve some.
But first he pours a bit into a small cup, moves it counter-clockwise
around the hearth, then places it in a high place in the room as an offering to
the ancestors. Only after this
does he serve some to his guest, with an exchange of toasts.
Yi in the mountains of
Ninglang County are not wealthy.
To welcome guests by slaying their animals is an expense beyond their
ordinary budget. Traditionally
though, the guest acknowledges this by offering kàba, or compensation, before departure, three times, since it is
also custom to politely decline twice.
Fully informed of this by my Yi friends I did the same, but the amount I
was advised to give was always much less than the value of the food and liquor
served me. The Yi never seek to
‘profit’ from the encounter.
raising a toast with maize liquor |
Along with the meat of the
requisite animal, my meals with my Yi hosts included potatoes and buckwheat
bread, two Cool Mountain staples.
Villages are sited too high up to grow rice, so buckwheat, barley and
millet suffice instead, with some of it traded for rice in the markets. They also grow maize, but its main use
is for alcohol or animal feed.
Potatoes, turnips and radishes are the main vegetables; chickens, pigs,
sheep and goats their main livestock.
They usually live in log cabins with tiled roofs, the hearth in the main
receiving and dining room and bedrooms to the sides. Overnight guests, however, sleep beside the fire.
Yi girls dance at theTorch Festival |
Among the
conservative traits the Nuosu Yi have retained, particularly among the women,
is the preference for traditional clothing. Females of all ages wear a long, cotton skirt, pleated from
the knees down, each of the three or four wide sections a contrasting color;
bright pastels for the younger women, darker tones for the older ones. They hold it in place with a long,
narrow, fringed belt, with a triangular purse, fully embroidered or appliquéd
with crescents, whorls and spirals, bordered by necktie-shaped, decorated cloth
tassels and suspended from the belt.
The purse and belt ends bounce against the skirt while she walks.
On the upper part of the body
the woman wears a long-sleeved blouse with striped or embroidered cuffs and a
silk or velvet vest. Headgear
depends on marital status. Those
married with children don a wide, rectangular black hat, while the unmarried or
married without children wear either a flat, embroidered rectangular cloth held
in place by tying the braids over the top of the head, or a large, rounded
black hat, the edges trimmed with color bands, the hat held in place by a scarf
tied over it and fastened under the chin.
For ornaments they will use strings of amber, coral and filigreed silver
beads, disk-shaped earrings with attached pendants and embossed silver plates
around the neck.
Yi women on a mountain trail |
traditional Nuosu woman's purse |
Among the
women, traditional clothing is not just for special occasions but is the norm
for everyday life--fieldwork, tending to the animals, cooking, fetching water,
chopping wood and going to the market.
Men usually dress in modern style clothes, but may wear a dark turban
and both sexes wear the distinctive Yi woolen cape. Most common is the felted, A-line type called vombaw. More expensive types are from woven wool: the vahlah—fringed
at the knees—and the heavier jyeshi—pleated
top to bottom.
Nuosu Yi girl, Ninglang County |
Ninglang
is a Yi Autonomous County, so Yi officials run the administration, subsidize
the annual Torch Festival celebrations in the city and encourage the maintenance
of Yi traditions. While Yi
officials, teachers, businessmen and so forth may no longer themselves cling to
the old animist world-view, their womenfolk are still steeped in it. I once attended a traditional ritual
expulsion of evil spirits in the house of my Yi friend, an English teacher in
Ninglang, whose wife insisted on the ceremony due to some domestic bad luck in
recent days.
A young bìmaw in his late 20s conducted the rites beside the hearth, wearing
a special round bamboo-frame woolen hat, reading incantations from a
Yi-language manuscript. Then he
poured a bit of water on the coals to create steam, grabbed the sacrificial
cock and waved it through the steam to purify it, moved it clockwise over the
hearth to retain the good spirits in the house, counter-clockwise to repel the
bad ones, and several times over the host couple’s heads to expel evil and
prevent nightmares.
Continuing recitations without
the use of the book, the bìmaw next
knocks the chicken senseless, slices it through its mouth, breaks the left wing
bone at its shoulder and cuts a hole in the skin at that spot. After more incantations the bìmaw picks up the dead animal, puts his
mouth over the hole at the shoulder and blows hard. This makes the cock crow as if it were alive, which makes
any lingering evil house spirits take fright and flee. Just to be sure, the bìmaw repeats the procedure several
minutes later.
young Yi bìmaw |
The final act is to throw the
cock and the sacrificial knife outside the door. If the blade and the cock’s head and feet point away from the
house, as it did the time I witnessed, the rite is deemed successful. If they point towards the house the bìmaw has to repeat the rite with a
fresh chicken. When successful,
the host gives the bìmaw a bottle of
liquor and some money, placed in a bowl of buckwheat flour. Then they all dine together when
the hostess cooks and serves the chicken.
With an attitude typical for Nuosu men, however
secular-minded and well educated they may be, my Yi friend saw no reason not to
participate in this “superstitious” event. For him it was a positive occasion showcasing his people's time-honored customs. The bìmaw’s
youth testified to the continuing strength of Yi culture. It takes several years to qualify for the role of theYi ritual specialist and obviously the next generation was keeping the tradition going. And though my friend may
not have believed in the true efficacy of the ritual, it was fine with him that
the women and children did. The
rites restored their sense of worry-free domestic harmony. And that’s a bonus for the non-believer
as well. Being modern doesn’t mean
you have to stop being Yi.
Nuosu Yi woman--pride in the traditional look |
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for more on the Ninglang County Yi see my e-book Children of the Jade Dragon
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