by Jim Goodman
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| Tacheng TIbetan neighborhood |
Anyone wishing to meet or
research Tibetans in Yunnan goes to Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in the
northwest. Tibetan villages lie
all over the high plateau and rolling hills of Shangrila County and speckle the
steep hills of the more rugged Diqing County, backed by the highest mountains
in the province. Most of Yunnan’s
Tibetans live in these two counties, but some also inhabit nearby districts in
Weixi, the prefecture’s other county, a Lisu Autonomous County, where Tibetans
are a minority and Lisu constitute over 60 % of the population.
Nevertheless, two important
old Tibetan monasteries have existed in the county since the 17th
century. One is a cave temple in
Tacheng district, several km west of the Jinshajiang, the river that divides
Weixi and Shangrila Counties.
Known as Damosi, it lies high up near the summit of the mountain, with a
few monks’ quarters built next to the mouth of the cave containing the main
shrine. It was named after Damo,
an Indian disciple of Siddartha, who is said to have spent ten years in the
cave on this mountain and achieved Enlightenment there.
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| Damosi cave temple |
According to Buddhist lore,
the surroundings are imbued with religious symbolism. Damo is supposed to have left his
footprints in the stone here. The mountain 18 kilometers distant from the cave
shrine is said to resemble an elephant kneeling before Damo's feet. The Lapu River running along the
southern base of the mountain is like a khada—the
ceremonial silk scarf. West of the
elephant's trunk is Damoshan, shaped like a seated Buddha. The temple was constructed at the mouth
of the cave in 1662 and restored in 1984.
Further west along the Lapu
River is the town of Tacheng. The
houses are old-fashioned, tile-roofed types common to rural Yunnan, with modern
buildings, and not too high, in the town business district. A modest new Tibetan temple stands on
the eastern side of town. The
town’s population, besides Tibetans, includes Han, Naxi, Lisu and Bai. But when Tacheng hosts dance troupes
for major festivals and other events, most of the performers are Tibetan.
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| TIbetan dancers in Tacheng |
The show takes place in the
main square, graced by a chorten—Tibetan
pagoda. More such chortens can be seen in nearby villages
on the road south along the river to Weixi city. But after that the villages on the hills flanking the river
are Lisu, while those alongside it tend to be Naxi. Some have covered bridges crossing the river, but with
unattractive corrugated iron roofs.
After a journey of a few hours
the road bends away from the river and eventually ends up at the northern end
of Weixi, a city bounded by scenic high mountains that climbs up the hill
behind the bus station. Some of
the business district buildings still have wooden facades with blocks of tiny
windows, just like the old days.
Traditional style houses characterize most of the residential
neighborhoods, largely Lisu, where the people still keep ponies to carry goods
to and from the market. Their
farms are right next to the suburbs and, like the Lisu in Nujiang, they plow
their fields with a pair of oxen, with one man guiding the animals and one man
working the plow.
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| lower Weixi |
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| Lisu in Weixi |
As this is a Lisu Autonomous
County, signs on government building gates are in both the Chinese and Lisu
languages. The Lisu language is
not written in the government-devised system using Latin letters and letters to
represent tones, as on signs in Nujiang.
In Weixi they use the Fraser alphabet, created by an American
missionary, using Latin letters, but adding backwards or upside-down letters
for special sounds in Lisu.
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| Lisu on the way to Weixi's market day |
The Lisu accent continues in
the artistic plaques erected in the city’s small stadium. Low-relief sculptures depict Lisu
dances, of course, but also hunting with crossbows, spearing buffaloes and
planting rice.
Compared to the Lisu of
Nujiang or southwest Yunnan, the Lisu sub-group around Weixi, and in villages
up the Lancangjiang (the Chinese portion of the Mekong), do not dress so
splendidly. The women’s outfit is
closer to that of the Naxi, with a back apron and side-fastened jacket over
plain trousers or a black skirt.
Market day is not as colorful as elsewhere in western Yunnan, but it
will include a few Tibetans selling medicinal herbs and a large section for
orchids, which is almost a cult thing in western Yunnan, some of them selling
for very high prices.
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| central Weixi business district |
While Weixi city doesn’t have
any temples, it does have a Christian church atop a ridge just west of the
city. It has a three-tiered
steeple, more in the Chinese style than Western, but a long, Western
church-style nave. On Sundays
several dozen Weixi devotees, mostly Lisu, come to hear the minister’s sermon.
The Protestant
congregation here is the legacy of American missionaries of the Republic of
China era. But they were not the
first Western proselytizers in the area.
French Lazarist missionaries arrived in the region in the 1860s. In 1867 they established their first
Catholic church at Cikou, in southern Diqing County, and in 1870 a second
church at Xiaoweixi, northwest of Weixi, 12 km north of the junction of the
Yongchun River with the Lancangjiang.
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| village above the Yongchun RIver |
Both these churches were built
in a style resembling that of Buddhist temples. The one in Cikou was later destroyed and a new one, looking
different, replaced it at CIzhong, a few km upriver. Xiaoweixi’s church survived intact, though for some years it
was converted to a school and then a storage house until the post-Mao era, when
worship was permitted again and the church resumed its original function.
The French established their
church at a time when most of the province was experiencing the convulsions of
the Muslim Rebellion, which didn’t end until 1879. It must have been a lonely outpost for the
missionaries. But in 1892 they got
a visit from a few of their fellow countrymen when the exploring expedition
under the Prince d’Orléans passed through here on their way to search for the
sources of the Irrawaddy River.
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| Xiaoweixi Catholic Church, built in 1870 |
While the scenery along the
Yongchun River is quite pleasant, that changes dramatically once the road turns
north along the Lancangjiang. Now
it’s high mountains along the river, especially the western side, and beyond
them even higher mountains, often with perennially snow-capped peaks. Lisu villages lie high up near the
snow line and streams coming down from Biluoshan, the mountain range on the
western side, cut deep gorges as they reach to the river.
From Kangpu, one of the larger
towns on the route, the mountains are also quite steep on the eastern side of
the river and the landscape resembles that in the Nujiang canyon. Augmenting this notion is the presence
of three pairs of rope-bridges between Kangpu and Yezhi.
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| Shouguosi |
The highland area is mostly
Lisu territory, but the riverside towns like Kangp;u and Yezhi are Naxi. During the Ming Dynasty, the government
of the Naxi chieftain of Lijiang was responsible for frontier security. As a result, Naxi garrison towns began
appearing on the upper reaches of the Lancangjiang, even north of Diqing.
Badi district, north of Yezhi,
is the other major area besides Tacheng with substantial numbers of Tibetan
residents. Yet in the mountains
above Kangpu, far even from Badi, is the county’s other major Tibetan temple. Called Shouguosi, it was founded in the
late Ming Dynasty by monks of the Karmapa (Black Hat) sect of eastern
Tibet. The same sect later
sponsored construction of a subsidiary monastery at Puhua, near Bingzhongluo in
upper Nujiang.
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| decorated roof at the temple entrance |
Shouguosi sits on a hill about
350 meters above the riverside town of Kangpu. The road to get there is beyond Kangpu, about six km south
of Yezhi, where it zigzags up the forested hill four km and ends at the
village. A mixed population of
Naxi, Tibetan, Lisu and Han occupy about 30-40 houses, mostly in the Naxi
style, including the traditional pair of wooden fish suspended from the apex of
the roof, representing water as a defense against fire and lightning.
Strings of prayer flags
span the lanes leading to the temple, which sits above the back end of the
village. Unusually, it faces west,
towards the Biluo Mountains and Tibet itself. The temple is an elegant old redwood building, with three
tiers and gray tiled roofs. The
top tier was added in the mid-Qing Dynasty and elegantly carved posts support
the four corners of the roof.
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| Bhairab wall mural outside the entrance |
In contrast to the muted tones
of the exterior, inside the temple is a whirl of color. Long tubular pendants, covered with
flaps of different bright colors, drop down from the ceiling. New thangkas
(religious paintings) and long, narrow pennants hang from the brackets. Most of the wall murals, generally
featuring forms of Bhairab, have been repainted, though a few original, partly
faded sections remain. Gilded
bronze statues of Buddha, Avalokitesvar, Padmapani and Tara decorate the altar
area.
Like the thangkas, these look like recent works and probably donations from
outside the immediate area, since there are no nearby Tibetan villages. From eight to ten monks and novices
live there and the village is very religious-minded. That’s not surprising, since the four different
nationalities that live there do so because of their common faith. Shouguosi monks are very proud of their
temple and their tradition and welcome the rare visitor with tea and a khada—ceremonial white scarf.
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| central market square of Yezhi, old yamen on the right |
Just past the turnoff up to
Shouguosi, the road passes between high cliffs that squeeze the river and turn
it into raging rapids comparable to those on the Nu River over the Biluo
Mountains. Then a few km later the
landscape changes. The mountains
on the east bank stand further away from the river. A broad tableland spreads out down from their gentle slopes
and the town of Yezhi lies at the end of it, just above the river.
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| Naxi at the Yezhi shops |
Naxi women in Yezhi dress very
much like those in Lijiang County, minus the ‘seven-starred cape:’
side=fastened jacket in maroon, blue or black, plain trousers and a long black
apron. Occasionally Lisu women
turn up in town, usually in modern clothes, but recognizable by their fringed
white shoulder bags. The next
village north of Yezhi, on the west bank, is also Naxi, but the settlements
above the river, on the edges of high ridges and the slopes of the western
mountains, are all Lisu.
In the 1930s the Morses, an
American Protestant missionary family, set up a base in Yezhi. For several years they evangelized
among the then poor, downtrodden, exploited Lisu villages and had great
success. Eventually they moved on
to Gongshan County in Nujiang, with similar results, until forced to flee to
Burma in 1949. Today most Lisu in
western Weixi County are Christian.
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| Lisu village near Yezhi |
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| Naxi woman in Yezhi |
Perhaps that’s why they don’t
favor their full ethnic outfit for everyday wear anymore. Some missionary groups sought to eradicate
the custom because it pre-dated the arrival of the Word of God. The Morses’ sect did not make such
demands, but at any rate the Weixi Lisu did not abandon it completely. They still don it for the big Christian
festivals, for while Christianity is part of their tradition now, so is their
original Lisu identity.
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| the Lancangjiang in Weixi County |
* * *
for more on the Tibetans in Yunnan, see my e-book Living in Shangrila
on the Naxi, see my e-book Children of the Jade Dragon
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