by Jim Goodman
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| view of Mojiang from the Tropic of Cancer Park |
The Tropic of Cancer, 23
degrees north of the equator, the line that forms the southern boundary of the
earth’s temperate zone, runs right through the city of Mojiang, Yunnan. The city is the capital of a county on
the eastern side of Pu’er Prefecture, lying west of the Ailao Mountains that run
along the right bank of the Red River. What lured me to the area was not so much its
geographical significance as the fact Mojiang is an Autonomous Hani County, the
uppermost part of the Ailao Mountain range where they reside.
Though it is the only strictly
Hani autonomous county in the prefecture, the Hani are not the only minority
nationality living in it. I
discovered this right away when I rode a bus to Mojiang from Mosha, on the Red
River in Xinping County. Upon
departure the road climbed into the forested Ailao Mountains and after about 30
km swerves around Dajianshan, 2278 meters, and enters the county on the high
plain around Malu village.
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| market day in Malu |
This is Yi territory,
inhabited by a sub-group whose dwellings, of mud-brick walls and wooden posts
on stone foundations with tiled roofs, and clothing resemble those of Yi in
southern Chuxiong Prefecture.
The women dressed in a colorful jacket with an apron in front, the
lapel, upper sleeves and apron borders heavily embroidered, with a
sliver-studded stomacher across the waist, black trousers and turban.
The men wore ordinary modern
clothes, but both sexes might also don the goatskin coat. Made from the skins of two goats, also
popular in Chuxiong Prefecture, especially Dayao County, it hangs open in the
front and reaches to the knees. In
the summer people wear the fur side out and in the winter the fur side in.
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| Yi woman in the Malu market |
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| Haoni woman above Bixi |
It was market day when
we passed through Malu, so progress was quite slow. Stalls were up all along the main road and people wandered
among them oblivious of the vehicle traffic. Beyond Malu, the road begins a long and slow descent towards
Mojiang. It passes the attractive
Buka Reservoir, a long and narrow body of water surrounded by forested hills,
and then runs by Hani settlements perched on hillsides above their terraces.
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| Haoni woman on the road |
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| older Haoni woman in Mojiang |
Different sub-groups of Hani
live in the county but they all speak a similar dialect, which is quite unlike
that spoken by Hani in Honghe, Yuanyang and other places further down the Ailao
Mountains, which is close to that spoken by the Aini sub-group in Xishuangbanna. The sub-group north of Mojiang,
concentrated above Bixi, is called Haoni and their women wear a distinctive
outfit.
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| rural Mojiang County above Bixi |
They wear ordinary modern
trousers and long-sleeved blouse.
Over this is a short-sleeved jacket, waist-length in the front and
knee-length in the back, dark blue or black for older women and white for
younger ones. If white, it is
heavily embroidered with red designs on the sleeves and back. On their heads
they wear a tall turban, fastened with their braids across the front and with
hair braids hanging far down the back.
From Bixi the road descends
further, through an area of Han villages, until it reaches Mojiang, about 12 km
further. Mojiang lies in a natural
bowl with mountains all around and two small hills in the urban area. It’s predominantly Han-inhabited,
mostly full of modern buildings, but with an old-fashioned neighborhood left
and a park with a pond and elegant pavilions.
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| astronomical observatory, Tropic of Cancer Park |
The southern
hill is the site of the Tropic of Cancer Park. Climbing the staircase I passed a niche of carved red
sandstone pillars and, near the tip, a circle of white Stonehenge-like pillars
about 1.5 meters high. On the
summit is a monument with a spiraling exterior staircase, evocative of the
ancient Lighthouse of Alexandria.
A row of red bricks marks the actual Tropic of Cancer line here and I
could actually walk the line through this monument.
Near this stands a large stone
sundial and behind it is the domed astronomical observatory with a large
telescope inside. With nothing to
obscure the view, it’s a perfect place to observe the heavens as well as the
city and its setting.
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| tower over the Tropic of Cancer line |
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| pavilion in the Mojiang city park |
Mojiang is a small city. Nearby gold mines gave it some
prosperity in the past, but it was not a major stop on the main trade routes through
the province. Caravans on the Tea
and Horses Road did not come here.
The French Mekong Expedition passed by in the late 1860s, during the
Muslim Revolt that ravaged Yunnan for several years. Mojiang appeared to have been spared the depredations
suffered by other cities like Ning’er and Pu’er and the French were pleased to
find the local inhabitants extremely hospitable. The city officials even provided them an escort to their
next destination. This tradition
seemed to have continued to today, for I found Mojiang people very friendly and
helpful.
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| water wheels in the river near Nanwen |
Mojiang hosts market day every
five days. Besides the local
residents and Han villagers from the valley, many Hani turn up; the Haoni and
two other sub-groups. One came
from villages south of Mojiang, around Nanwen, on the Aomo River. The women wore dark blue jackets,
knee-length trousers, wrappers around the calves a belt with a brightly
embroidered sash hanging down the back and a black turban festooned with lots
of bright yarn. Their villages are
much lower than those of the other sub-groups and they also use water wheels
for farms along the Aomo River.
The other, Bukong Hani, I
would meet on a return trip to Mojiang a couple years later. I had a task to perform, to deliver
some books by a Hani teacher friend to his colleague in the Mojiang Middle
School. After I introduced myself
and mentioned my interest in Hani culture, he invited me to a local restaurant
with a few of his fellow teachers, all Hani. We had a leisurely meal, lots of rice wine and talked about
the Hani I had met in other parts of Yunnan.
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| Bukong Hani house |
One of the teachers came from
Longba, a town southeast of Mojiang.
He informed that a Hani village a little beyond Longba, called Dameido,
would be celebrating Hani New Year the next day. As in the mountains of Yuanjiang County, where I had just
observed it, the Hani in Mojiang hold it in November, rather than at Lunar New
Year, though on different days in different districts.
With a couple days to spare
before I had to return to Kunming, I set out early morning on a bus to Longba,
a ride about an hour and half through open countryside. From here, continuing east, the road is
rougher and soon amongst the hills and terraced farms. The road ended at Zhaogaisu, with
Xiaomeido village just across the stream.
At the latter settlement the first Hani I met were three men departing
for Dameido, so I joined them.
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| terraced farms of Dameido village |
The landscape is not as
dramatic as north of Bixi or further down the Ailao Mountains, like Yuanyang
and Luchun Counties. The hills are
smaller, the terraces less steeply angled and not always irrigated. Domestic architecture, however, is
quite different from that of Hani villages elsewhere in Mojiang and next-door
Honghe County.
The Bukong Hani, the name of
the area’s sub-group, live in block-like, mud-brick houses with flat roofs and
a notched ladder connecting the lower floor roof with the upper roof. They resemble those of the Huayao Dai
in Xinping County and those of the Yi and Hani in Yuanyang and Jinping Counties,
but with no shed on the roof. No
doubt they lay out crops here to dry, but my arrival didn’t coincide with any
harvest. Instead, I saw local
residents sometimes ascending to the roofs just to sit in the sun or do some
stitching.
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| on the flat roofs of Dameido village houses |
Dameido lay on the other side
of the ridge, about a twenty-minute walk.
I didn’t have a contact name to look up. When I asked for one the evening before, my Hani hosts told
me it wasn’t necessary. Hani
people are very hospitable. Just
show up and someone will invite you to stay with them.
And that’s how it went. One of my walking companions took me to
his uncle’s house in the upper part of the village. The path was higher than the settled area, so we had to
climb down a notched ladder to get to the lanes between the houses. His uncle immediately invited me
to stay the night. New Year had
just begun and folks were killing pigs and preparing dishes for the evening
feast.
We had tea and jiu (rice liquor) inside on a hard mud
floor, cabinets lining the walls, large jugs of rice wine in front of them and
the kitchen to the right just inside the door. A bedroom on this floor was graced with a wooden window
frame with carved floral designs.
Upstairs were more bedrooms, one of which I would use, and from the roof
I had a great view of the stars later that night.
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| Bukong Hani women on the first floor roof |
After a late afternoon tour of
the village it was time for the banquet.
Before it began an older woman went to several corners of the ground
floor with a basket of seeds, scattering some in each spot as an offering to
the spirits We then
commenced dining on several pork dishes, including the fat, blood soup, a few
vegetables, rice and jiu.
The special dish for the
occasion was a sweet dumpling called
tangyuan in Chinese. When
preparing these the Hani first cook three of them, each marked as representing people,
animals and crops. Whichever pops
up first out of the bowl they’re cooked in indicates good luck in the coming
year for whichever of the three the dumpling represents.
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| Bukong Hani girl |
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| Bukong Hani woman |
Mr. Li had several guests, so
it was a typically long and drawn out meal. We talked about Yunnan and Thailand (they weren’t curious
about America). Nobody spoke
English here, their Hani dialect was incomprehensible to me, so we conversed in
basic Chinese, at a level I could more or less understand.
After this first day of
feasting, the second day was devoted to entertainment. The previous evening the villagers had
erected a sturdy swing in the center of the village near the middle school and
next to the basketball court. It
had a strong crossbeam supported by two tripods, with two ropes hanging down
and a board connecting them.
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| Mr. Li entertaining his guest before a meal |
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| riding the New Year swing in Dameido |
People rode it standing up,
alone or in pairs, and doing knee bends to go higher. By mid-morning the scene was crowded with youths eager to
swing. Such was the demand for a
turn that each rider only got to execute three or four movements and thus
didn’t get very high. But
everybody had a good time and no one tried to hog the time and swing longer
than anyone else.
After a couple hours the kids
started drifting off to lunch, as did I.
I walked back to Mr. Li’s house and passed a shirtless man sitting on a
stool and a Hani woman massaging his back with jiu as a treatment for a skin rash. So they don’t just drink the stuff. When I arrived, Mr. Li brought out his
bow and two-stringed instrument and, while the women prepared the food,
entertained me with a few tunes.
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| Hani woman in Dameido |
Then we had our meal,
resembling that of the night before.
I reported what I saw around the swing and mentioned that only about a
third of the girls wore Hani clothes.
He replied that the percentage would likely go up tonight for the
dances. Unfortunately, I had to
return to Mojiang. The third day
involved visits to relatives, both within Dameido and to other villages.
One of Mr. Li’s guests said
dances would also take place in Zhaogaisu and there was a bus from there to Mojiang
at 4 a.m. Zhaogaisu was where I
had to go first anyway, but when I got there folks told me no dances that night
and no bus next morning.
Fortunately, a truck gave me a lift all the way to Mojang.
The following day I took a bus
back to Kunming to keep my appointment.
Naturally, my recent experiences with the Hani of Dameido kept
reverberating in my memory. And I
also recalled that dinner in Mojiang, when one of the teachers told me not to
worry about not having a contact in Dameido because “The Hani are very hospitable.” Yes. I’d just had proof.
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| the Hani village of Dameido |
*
* *
for more on Mojiang
and the Hani see my e-book The Terrace
Builders
Mojiang is one of the stops on Delta Tours Vietnam’s journey
from Kunming to Jinghong. See the
schedule at https://www.deltatoursvietnam.com/kunming-to-jinghong
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