by Jim Goodman
For a long time the precise border
between China and Burma remained undefined.
This was especially true for the southern part of Yunnan’s Lincang
Prefecture, a long way from the capitals of both China and Burma.
Small autonomous Dai states, run by
hereditary
sawbas, lay in the plains on both sides of what is today’s
boundary, while the Wa resided in the hills.
With their reputation as fierce warriors and headhunters, Wa villages
were de facto autonomous as well, both from plains authority and each
other.
No government made any effort to
subjugate them
The British conquest of Mandalay and
northern Burma suddenly riveted Beijing’s attention to the border issue.
The government sent armed forces into Lancang
County 1887-92 to establish its authority, while the British began advancing
towards Yunnan to fix its own delineation of the international boundary.
There was no question about Dehong, which had
long been on the Southern Silk Road into Burma and was always a recognized part
of China, even though the ethnic groups who lived there also lived on the
Burmese side.
Burma had claims on
Xishuangbanna, but the British renounced them.
The main problem was who would rule over southern Lincang.
While they did not claim the right of
jurisdiction over all Dai/Shan populations on both sides of the border they did
insist that Wa-inhabited area should not be similarly divided but must all be
administered by Britain. Resisting this
demand, the Qing government eventually broke off negotiations, which were not
revived when the dynasty fell and China became a republic. The British did not send any military forces
to assert their ambitions and the border stayed peaceful and basically ignored
until after the British left Burma. Even
then, it was not until the mid-1960s that the two countries took the step of
physically demarcating the boundaries.
It was still a remote area when I
visited before the turn of the century.
Cangyuan County, encompassing most of the once disputed zones, was only
accessible by road via Gengma to its north, entering the county at Mengsheng.
A new airport and a highway from Gengma city
directly to Cangyuan city early this century has brought more outside
influences, but back then modernization was mostly only in the urban
areas.
The countryside was hardly
affected, especially in the hills, higher and steeper than those in Gengma
County, dominated by old-fashioned Wa villages of thatched bamboo and wood
houses
Cangyuan is an Autonomous Wa County, so
designated where an ethnic minority occupies over 50% of the land and/or
comprises over 50% of the population.
In
this county the Wa are virtually the only people living in the hills, other
than a few Lahu and Yi around Mengjiao.
And they were the first inhabitants, long, long ago.
The rock paintings on the cliffs of Ai Hua,
just beyond Menglai, about 30 km north of the county capital, depicting hunting
and other scenes, are believed to be the work of ancient Wa artists.
Traditional Wa culture included, and was
much influenced by, the practice of headhunting. The Wa were farmers, of the
slash-and-burn type, and fretted over threats to their crops. They believed
that a human’s soul-force resided in the head.
It could be used to protect the crops.
So every spring, prior to planting, they went on expeditions to secure
one or two heads to mount on tall poles overlooking the fields.
The further away they went the better, for
then the soul-force couldn’t find its way back home.
Its power only lasted two years, usually the
time when the field had to be changed, and another expedition would go out.
Of course the family of the victim of a
headhunting raid was not likely to pass it off as part of traditional culture, therefore
OK. They would want revenge, another
reason why the expeditions traveled so far from their homes. But just in case the revenge parties took the
trouble to come, or closer villages opted to make raids in their vicinity, Wa
villages built fortifications. They
surrounded the residential area, usually a hundred houses or more, with
sharpened bamboo stakes and thick thorn bushes.
There was only one entrance, concealed by thorn bushes like the rest of
the perimeter, but those who lived there knew where it was.
With the establishment of the People’s
Republic change came to the Wa Hills.
The government announced the banning of headhunting, slavery and the
killing of twins, but gave the affected societies (Wa, Jingpo and Hani) until
1956 to phase such customs out. As for headhunting, it had been in abeyance for
some time already.
Expeditions had
ceased many years ago and the last recorded incident was one motivated by
revenge, not protection for the rice crop.
The main effect of the decree was that Wa villages dismantled their
fortifications.
Many of the larger villages broke up
into smaller ones, but in the late 90s, when I visited the area, big old Wa villages
still existed, like Nanpie near Nuoliang and Wengding near Mengjiao, the latter
unfortunately consumed by fire this year.
Bamboo and wood was the main building material.
Houses stood on low stilts, with very steep
sides, the roof thatch hanging nearly to the ground, with a small entry niche
in the front.
Inside one small window
allowed the smoke to escape.
The hearth
was in the center and a tray suspended over the fire place held gourds, bamboo
tubes and other items that the smoke would cover and make them impenetrable to
insects.
Cangyuan town, formerly called Mengtung,
lies in a broad plain and is just ten km from the border.
Mountains rise just three km past the urban
zone.
It’s not very large.
One can walk from end to end in half an
hour.
The original Dai town lies along a
small knoll just above the main market street.
As in Gengma, also once an autonomous Dai mini-state, each neighborhood
has a posted name.
Some Wa have
resettled in the town and, now that malaria has been eradicated, some Han have
immigrated here to set up shops.
But the
majority of Cangyuan town’s residents are Dai.
Most of the Dai are farmers and on market
day, held every five days, lay out vegetables for sale in the city streets.
Dai men and younger women tend to wear modern
clothing, but the older women still prefer traditional clothing.
This consists of a sarong, long-sleeved,
side-fastened jacket and a white turban.
The colors are usually subdued; dark blue, dark gray or black for the
sarong, lighter shades for the jacket.
By contrast, the Wa women dress somewhat
more colorfully. They may be wearing a
modern blouse or jacket, but usually don wraparound skirts with colored bands,
woven ny themselves on a back-strap loom.
They are also distinguished by their long silver pipes, which
practically every woman brings with her to the market. The Wa have the greatest percentage of female
smokers among all of Yunnan’s nationalities.
The Cangyuan Wa are not as colorful as their counterparts in Menglian,
but they are just as friendly and very polite and hospitable to any surprise
Western visitor.
The same could be said about the Dai
here.
Visiting temples and Dai
neighborhoods I was frequently greeted with
huanying—“welcome” in
Chinese.
Their dialect differs from that
spoken in Dehong or Xishuangbanna, but they share the same religion—the
Theravada Buddhism of Southeast Asia.
Introduced
by missionaries from Sri Lanka, where it originated, it took hold in Burma, Thailand,
Laos, Cambodia and in southern Yunnan among the Dai south and west of the Red
River, the De’ang and Bulang.
The earliest Theravada temple in
Cangyuan County, the Jinlong Temple, was erected in Mengjjiao, north of
Cangyuan town, in 1380.
It remained the
most prestigious temple in the area, but was leveled by Red Guard fanatics
during the Cultural Revolution.
Reconstructed in 1980, an earthquake flattened it eight years later.
In Cangyuan town, the Guangyunmian Temple
dates its construction to 1828, sponsored by the Yunnan government. Its style is a mixture of Burmese and
Chinese, with gilded rising dragons flanking the entrance and a three-tiered
separate building in the courtyard. Murals
of the Buddha’s life and contemporary social activities adorn the interior
walls. It had a few resident monks and
about twenty novices when I visited, evidence that at least some Dai families
were still following the Theravada custom of enrolling their sons for a
temporary stay at the monastery.
After 1956, when headhunting was
officially abolished, Dai Buddhist monks began proselytizing among the Wa.
While most Wa held onto their animist
beliefs, a significant proportion adopted Buddhism, especially around Ban Hong
in the western part of the county.
The
temple resembles an ordinary thatched Wa house on the exterior, but the
interior is just like a Dai temple.
Like rural Dai, Buddhist Wa villages
construct a special house for the sacred village pillar.
Besides adopting the Dai religion, Buddhist
Wa also took other features of Dai culture, such as the garments of the
women.
Buddhist Wa women still smoke,
though.
The road west from Banhong runs through
hilly territory until it reaches the checkpoint at Mengkaba next to the Nanding
River.
From here the road turns
northeast and runs about a hundred meters above the river through a narrow
gorge before descending back to the plain and passing several Dai villages on
the way to Mengding.
Once a little Dai
state with its own
sawba, today it is scarcely more than a business
center, only really active on market days, held every five days.
The scenic and very fertile plain along
the Nanding River is home to two kinds of Dai.
The Han Dai, the original inhabitants, live away from the river, in
houses sited on the ground, mostly north of the town and east of the
highway. Their women dress like those in
Cangyuan County, usually in black sarongs and pale jackets, though with a very
tight bodice that seems designed to flatten the breasts. They may also wear a
conical cap of split bamboo over, or instead of, their turbans. Their main temple in Mengding, of stone, wood
and tiles in the Burmese style, has long been a place of pilgrimage for
Buddhists in the area.
The Shui Dai immigrated here from
Xishuangbanna in the Qing Dynasty and established villages along the river
south of Mengding.
Their women choose
brighter colors for their outfits, often donning the same color sarong and
jacket.
They live in houses above the
ground, though they may use brick piles rather than wooden stilts, and usually
have adjoining balconies.
Besides rice,
sugar cane and vegetables, some of them have rubber tree plantations at the
edge of the settled area.
Nongmu, one of the largest Shui Dai
villages, lies within walking distance south of Mengding, very near a bamboo
plank suspension bridge over the river.
About a hundred meters long and three or four meters above the river,
the bridge sways a bit when crossed and is used not only by people on foot or
bicycle, but also three-wheeled taxis and loaded tractor-trailers.
Unlike some of the smaller villages, Nongmu
has its own temple, an odd-looking building of gray stone with arched columns
and a multi-gabled wooden roof.
Besides the local Dai, Mengding’s market
day also draws those from across the border. Many of the women smear
tanaka
wood paste on their cheeks, a common practice in Myanmar, that is supposed to
keep their cheeks soft and smooth.
They
often inscribe patterns on the paste, resembling the tattoos of the Dai men.
Wa and De’ang also turn up for market day,
both to run stalls and to shop for themselves.
Both the Wa and De’ang around Mengding
are Buddhists. Villages of both are
small to medium size, with traditional stilted houses of wood, bamboo and
thatch. Not many have their own temples,
yet they do have their sacred village pillar like the Dai.
The De’ang are one of the smallest minorities
in Yunnan and have been Buddhist as long as the Dai.
In Myanmar and Thailand
they are known as Palong and distinctive for
the women’s wide silver belt.
Such an
item is rare among Yunnan’s De’ang, but they often wear rattan rings around the
waist instead.
The sarong is usually
black with thin red stripes, worn with a front-fastened, long-sleeved jacket of
light green or blue, with broad red panels down the front.
Several De’ang villages lie around Qinshui,
beyond Mangmei, a Wa and Lahu area, north of Mengding, and Junzhai, across the
river.
In a couple short trips I could not
explore everything of interest on the Cangyuan to Mengding route. Nature parks, remote villages, unobserved
market days and attending Dai and Wa festivals still remain on my list of
things to do on a future excursion. And
that would include more encounters with friendly, hospitable Dai, Wa and De’ang
in their attractive, sometimes gorgeous, natural settings.
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