Through Yunnan to India, 1895

                                  by Jim Goodman

 

       One of the consequences of the European conquest of most of southern Asia was an insatiable interest in the region’s geography.   European-made maps at the time were full of blank spots or, at best, rough guesses of the exact location and height of certain mountains and the sources and accurate courses of major rivers.  Ambitious individuals in the academic world sought to make their reputations by answering important geographical questions.

       By the late 1880s Great Britain had already taken over northern Burma and France had seized northern Vietnam and Laos.  That put both countries’ possessions on the border of Yunnan, at a time when Chinese central authority was in the throes of collapse.  Both wanted to open Yunnan up to trade, so information on the province was at a premium.  The only serious Western attempt so far to explore Yunnan was the French Mekong Expedition in 1868.

       Looking for a river route to China, the expedition found that way blocked by the impassable Mekong Falls in southern Laos.  The group continued anyway on foot and eventually entered Yunnan through Xishuangbanna.  From Jinghong they carried on to Kunming and wanted to turn towards Dali and reach the Mekong again west of Dali.  But Yunnan was engulfed by a brutal civil war and the explorers could not get permission to go west, which terminated their tour of the province.

       A generation later, at the beginning of 1895, another French expedition set out to explore Yunnan, planning to enter from Vietnam, head west for the Mekong River (called Lancangjiang in China) and follow it north to Tibet.  The organizer of this journey was Prince Henri d’Orléans, a veteran traveler already familiar with Madagascar, parts of western China and Cambodia.  He originally intended to explore Vietnam’s Central Highlands, but discovered others already had.  He preferred somewhere that was as yet unknown.  In Yunnan he would deliberately take a different route than his countrymen followed in 1868.

       Joining the Prince were Émile Roux, a navy acquaintance, and Pierre Briffaut, a French colonist from Hanoi.  The trio and their entourage sailed up the Red River from Hanoi to Lào Cai, crossed Yunnan in early February and sailed for three days to Manhao, which was as far as boats could go.  They then headed for Mengzi, site of a French Consulate, where they organized their supplies and needs for the next part of the journey. 

       From Mengzi they returned to the Red River, marched as far as Honghe and then turned south into the hills.  A landscape they had never seen before awaited them, of irrigated rice terraces up and down the slopes of the hills.  As this was late winter, the terraces were at their most picturesque, filled with water that reflected the sky.  The inhabitants were Hani, an ethnic group unfamiliar to the party, who believed them to be the area’s aboriginals.

       Both the Prince and Roux took copious notes everywhere.  Briffaud did not.  He was basically along for the adventure.  But he was assuredly a welcome companion around the campfires, especially when the going got rougher later on.  A devoted geographical statistician, Roux took down all the numbers for the latitudes, longitudes and altitudes, made short descriptions in a journal and later wrote up a fuller account in France.  This included other observations, like his description of how the Hani bowed deeply to them when encountered on the trail and carried on their backs loaded baskets using head-straps.  He described the entry gate to a Hani village, with its carved figures designed to keep out evil spirits, a custom still in practice in many Hani villages.

       The Prince specialized in natural studies and so recorded all the species of birds, insects, mammals and flowers he discovered on the way.  Linguistics was another major interest and he collected rudimentary vocabulary lists for over thirty languages and dialects.  Long before Joseph Rock, he discovered the Naxi dongba pictograph books and collected several of them, along with samples of the Yi language script.

       From the southwest corner of Honghe County the expedition turned west for Simao (now called Pu’er), the first town of any size since Mengzi, for a brief rest, more supplies and more information on what lay ahead.  Heading west towards the Lancangjiang, they enjoyed the scenery, especially when passing the white boulders jutting out of land and water at Cuiyun.  When they reached the river they turned north to follow its course however far they could.

       Actually, they rarely marched alongside the river and mostly kept a little to the west of it.  The group stopped for a break in Lincang, a small town of 5000 inhabitants, half the size of Simao, then continued to Yunxian and Fengqing.  Just past this town they crossed the Lancangjiang again and struck for Dali.

       In Dali they stayed with a French mission, where the explorers could speak French again for the first time since Mengzi.  They arrived the last week of May and made this a major stopover, staying over two weeks, especially enjoying the scenery of the lake, eating beef for the first time in many weeks, sampling the Lijiang wine known as yinjiu, and organizing the next phase of the trip.  Dali was still affected by the Muslim Revolt and supplies, including thirty mules, had to be procured in Xiaguan.  They also recruited nine Chinese, including one called Joseph, a Christian who had learned Latin.  The Prince had also studied Latin as a schoolboy and could remember enough to converse, more with use, and so Joseph wound up becoming their interpreter, remaining with the explorers the entire journey.

       Finally on the move again, the group trekked past Erhai lake to Dengchuan and then turned west towards the Lancangjiang, via Yunlong.  When they reached the river they only followed it north a short distance before being seized with a new goal—to cross the Biluo Mountains to Liiuku for a look at the Nu River.  This was the name of the Salween River in China and virtually nothing was known about it.  Local people advised against it claiming the valley was full of dangerous vapors and the mountains inhabited by warlike Lisu.

       The explorers didn’t believe any of that.  Throughout the journey people had frequently told them to beware of the next destination, which always turned how to be a great exaggeration.  The crossing wasn’t easy and they had to spend a night in the forest, but descending to Liuku they did find the weather sultry and hotter, though they did not suffer any new health problems.  They turned north up the Nu River halfway to Chenggan, then crossed over the mountains to return to the valley of the Lancangjiang at Biaocun.  From here they could hike right along the river all the way to Deqing.

       Heading north again, they soon came to their first rope-bridge.  They’d never seen this unique way to cross the river, but the guides instructed them how to use it.  Not only the travelers, the mules and all the baggage had to be moved to the other side the same way, which took the entire day.  They would use more of these in months to come and the only mishap occurred below Deqing, when Roux’ pet dog, seeing its master swinging over the river, tried to follow him by swimming across, but the rapids swept it away.

       Sheer riverside cliffs popped up all along the trail, necessitating another rope-bridge crossing or a march up and over the blocking mountain.  Often these mountain paths were quite narrow and slippery and once two of the mules tumbled down the slope.  They recovered them fortunately.  Local inhabitants were mainly Lisu, a branch without the querulous reputation of Nujiang’s Lisu and were more than hospitable.  They assumed the explorers were government agents and unloaded their complaints to them.  They also wined and dined their guests, introduced them to the ‘one-heart drink,’ with a man and woman quaffing the rice-beer together sharing a single large bamboo cup, and treated them to dance shows.  

       While the route got more rugged the scenery grew ever more impressive, with views of distant, snow-capped mountains in view.  They stopped briefly at the French Lazarist mission in Xiaoweixi, again meeting old priests who hadn’t had a chance to speak French for ages.  They continued to the Naxi settlement of Yezhi and then on to the Tibetan lamasery at Kanpu.  By chance, they arrived in time for Huobajie, the summer Fire Festival celebrated by most ethnic minorities in the northwest.

       Three days later they reached Cikou, also a Lazarist mission with two old very welcoming priests.  Less harassed by Chinese officials, this was a more successful mission than Xiaoweixi, with a large number of Tibetan converts.  Upon arrival, though, the Prince fell ill with bronchitis and fever, requiring rest and medication for a few days.  Roux took the opportunity to satisfy his geographical curiosity with a trip to Deqing, taking along Joseph and one other.  He became familiar with Tibetan chortens made of slabs of rocks inscribed with prayer, barley flour (tsampa), bettered tea and the highest mountains in the province, but found the town itself unfriendly and without interest. 

       The Prince had recuperated upon Roux’ return and by now, with the Tibetans having made it clear the group could not enter Tibet, the explorers conceived an alternate ambition.  They would try to locate the sources of the Ayeyarwady River, which would be a new contribution to geographical knowledge of Southeast Asia.  Britain had seized northern Burma a decade earlier, but their maps had designated most of the extreme north as ‘unexplored territory’.

       The expedition marched up to Yanjing and then crossed the Biluo Mountains to their west, reaching the Nu River via Dimaluo, crossing by dugout canoes at a rare calm stretch of the river and stopping for a few days at Gongshan for rest and resupply.  At this stop they sent their mules back to Cikou with a few of the crew, for animals were becoming an impediment to progress the rougher the trail became.  They hired 24 Tibetans as porters, as well as a Dulong guide who also spoke the Nu and Lisu languages.

       To get to the ‘unexplored territory’ they had to go west from Gongshan over what decades later became the caravan route to Dulongjiang.  It was not much used back then and sometimes they had to reconstruct part of the trail or make dangerous detours along very narrow mountain paths, propped up by logs and boulders along steep cliffs.  For the first part of the journey they stayed in Nu villages, finding the people very polite, almost subservient in their desire to please, very poor materially, but healthy and strong, with several octogenarians each village, something rarely found elsewhere back then.

       More discoveries ensued when they climbed over the Gaoligongshan range and descended to the Dulong River Valley.  Many of the plant and tree species were different from those in Nujiang.  The river was blue-green and cold.  They learned that it began at the north end of Dulongjiang district, so was not a tributary of the Nu, but could be one of the sources of the Ayeyarwady.  By following it through northern Burma they would find out.

       The Dulong people were even poorer than the Nu, but also very hardy and strong.  They were shorter than Nu or Lisu and were apparently related to the Nu, for their language was similar and unlike Lisu.  Many, though not all, of the women had tattooed faces, a custom allegedly adopted to discourage marauding outsiders from kidnapping their women.  They lived in hamlets of less than ten thatched roof houses.

       Several Dulong men joined the expedition, replacing Tibetan porters who did not want to travel to Burma.  Some were familiar with part of what lay ahead and either knew which routes were the less strenuous or how to quickly clear a new trail to replace one washed out by a flood or blocked by a landslide or construct a new bamboo bridge.  When food supplies ran perilously low a few Dulong took their crossbows to the jungle and returned with a few big birds.

       The trail was the worst yet taken, full of various obstacles, with signs of human habitation rare.  After crossing the Telo River, a major tributary of the Dulong River, they marched six days without meeting anyone.  Finally they arrived at Putao, run by a Khamti chieftain, whom they had to persuade/bribe that they were not British spies.  At least they could eat decent meals again but had to surrender almost all personal belongings, except their boots and rifles, to pay for supplies. 

       They left Putao for India, but Roux suddenly got very sick and had to stay in a village while the Prince continued to India and arranged relief.  Roux recovered and the group carried on to Assam, India, reached Sadiya and from there could go by boat all the way to Calcutta.  Back in France, the Prince d’Orléans and Roux both wrote up their adventures and became academic celebrities for having proven that Yunnan’s Dulong River was indeed a major source of the Ayeyarwadi River.

 

                                                                      ***      

      

      

      

  

Heqing Remake

                                           by Jim Goodman

downtown in new Heqing

       Heqing has never garnered much traveler attention.  The county lies between Dali and Lijiang, northeast of Erhai Lake and the city is closer to Lijiang (43 km) than it is to Dali (145 km).  Both a good highway and a train line run through Heqing County to connect Dali with Lijiang, but the scenery, while pleasant, is not particularly stunning until the traveler crosses the high mountains at the northern end of the county and heads towards the snow mountain backdrop of Lijiang. 

lake in northern Heqing County

       The airport servicing Lijiang is actually just inside Heqing County, but passengers inevitably head for Lijiang and give Heqing a miss.  It’s close enough to Lijiang that day trips are easy, but visitors to Lijiang become so involved with sights there, even when they recognize the artificiality of so much of what they see, that they don’t consider excursions anywhere else.  Meet Bai people?  They can do that in Dali.

       Most of Heqing County’s people are Bai, especially in the plains and towns, but they dress differently and practice some different customs than the Bai around Dali.  The women favor more subdued colors and Heqing hosts no Third Month Fair nor any Torch Festival action.  They celebrate other festivals, yet live in houses similar to those in Dali, follow Bai traditions in general and cultivate.

Bai women returning from the fields

       Heqing city lies on a long plain backed by mountains to the east and west and higher ones to the north.  According to local mythology, the plain used to be covered in water until a monk subdued the dragons causing the flood and enabled human settlement.  Over a thousand years ago, at the beginning of the Dali Kingdom Era, settlers founded the city.  When they erected the first pillars, pairs of cranes alighted on them and congratulated the people for their victory over the dragons.  So they named their city Heqing—“he” for cranes and “qing” for congratulations.

taking home the hay

       The Mongols conquered Dali in the nid-13^th century, though that probably did not affect Bai life in Heqing.  When the Ming Dynasty ousted the Mongols’ Yuan Dynasty in 1366, Yunnan became the last Mongol stronghold.  But in 1381 the Ming general Ma Ying defeated the Mongols near Songgui, south of Heqing city and drove their forces out of the province altogether.  The Bai of Songgui commemorate this with a Horse and Mule Fair the 22^nd day of the 6^th lunar month.

       Throughout the Ming and Qing Dynasties many Bai from Heqing sought work in Lijiang city, whose Naxi residents hired them for manual labor considered beneath them, mainly as porters and house builders.  Village Naxi built their own homes, using stone foundations, wooden beams, tiled roofs and sun-dried, mud-brick walls in a style distinct from that of the Bai.  But urban dwellings aped the Han Chinese style, used more wood, with fancy carved gates and other embellishments.  Not carvers, carpenters or masons themselves, Lijiang residents employed Heqing Bai for this work. 

old-fashioned city restaurant

noodle making in the old town

       Eventually migrant Bai workers also settled in several villages in Jinshan district, east of Lijiang city, on what is considered the best agricultural land on the plain.  Today Jinshan is an Autonomous Bai District, with houses in the Dali-Heqing style, clothing like that worn in Heqing, Bai traditions still followed and a farming output that exceeds that of their Naxi neighbors.

local Bai girls in Heqing

Yi woman from Liuhe in Heqing

       Heqing remained quite peripheral to political developments until the 20^th century.  He Long’s Red Army division passed through here in 1935, winning hearts and minds and then went on to Shigu, crossed the River of Golden Sand and continued to Zhongdian to spend the winter.  Until the Communists won the war in 1949, Heqing experienced conflict between government forces and pro-Communist guerillas and the rise of powerful bandit gangs that plagued the last years of Nationalist rule.  Particularly annoying was that led by Lokyun, an ex-army officer who claimed to be a revolutionary ‘third force,’ opposed to both the communists and the government.

White Yi women in Heqing for market day

       His gang seized Yongsheng that year and demanded submission from Heqing and Lijiang.  Heqing’s leaders welcomed Lokyun, whose army then seized all the rich people to hold for ransom and ransacked all of Heqing’s houses.  Lijiang people, suspicious of these ‘revolutionaries’, resisted.  Aided by Tibetan allies, the Naxi thoroughly defeated Lokyun’s attack and killed most of his soldiers.  Lokyun regrouped eventually, but never returned to the Heqing or Lijiang area.

       Nearly five decades later I made my first visit to Heqing.  Having already been everywhere in the Lijiang Plain, I decided on an excursion to the original homeland of the folks I met in Jinshan.  About 25 km south of Lijiang the road crosses into Heqing County and enters the long plain, running between a pair of small lakes halfway between the boundary and the city.  Bai villages stud the area on both sides of the road, but the flanking mountains exhibit so sign of settlements.

shop-house in the old town

       Village houses look somewhat different from those of Naxi villages, though they use the same materials.  They resemble those of rural Dali, minus the marble and with less use of stone, set close to each other, with a high back wall, usually windowless, Dali-style arabesques painted beneath the apex of each roof end and a small lion mounted over the roof’s center.  For wealthier house owners, especially in the Bai neighborhoods of the city, the compound gate will feature carvings under the roofs, sometimes of vegetation or animals.  The entrance door will have an arch above it, perhaps paintings on the wall and banners inscribed with Chinese characters hanging down at each side of the door.

       Heqing then had two distinct sections, old and new.  In between stood the venerable red-walled, three-tiered Yunhe Tower, originally erected during the city’s foundation.  The broad street south of the tower was filled with very ordinary style modern buildings, with the last traditional homes at the far end under process of demolition.  But traditional Bai homes and shop-houses still dominated the two streets north of the tower.  Noodle-makers, potters and carpenters plied their trades outside their houses in the small lanes of the quarter.

Bai merchant weighing her goods

bamboo conical cap stall

       Bai women of all ages dressed in traditional style, basically consisting of a long-sleeved blouse, side-fastened vest, trousers, apron and cap or turban.  The older women favored dark colors, mostly black and maybe a dark blue blouse.  Younger women usually donned white blouses, lighter colored trousers and a red, maroon or black vest.  Gray ‘Mao caps’ with bigger brims were the commonest headgear.

       The Bai women of Songgui district, who frequent the city, especially for market day, dressed the same except for the headgear.  Young and old wore a kind of large round black beret, with a jeweled starburst ornament s attached to the left side of the brim. 

copper ware section

       The most colorful people in the city were women of the White Yi minority, from Liuhe Autonomous Yi District in the mountains east of Songgui.  Their distinctive clothing item was a calf-length, long-sleeved tunic, in various shades of blue with contrasting bands on the sleeves.  It split at the waist, with a thin strip hanging down in front and the wider part draped over the back of the hips.  They wore ordinary blouse and trousers underneath and a wide, multi-colored sash belt wrapped several times around the waist.  On their heads they wore a black bonnet that hung over the back of the neck, with colored trimming on the brim.

      They were also the most engaging people in the city.  The Bai were polite and friendly everywhere; the Yi waved hello and approached me to have a conversation.  Their command of Chinese wasn’t much better than mine, so we were able to communicate.  Compared to the shy and skittish Yi around Dali and Ninglang, this sub-group was refreshingly forward.  They were overnight in the city for market day next morning.  More of them came to town on the first buses out of Liuhe next day, all in traditional outfits, but often with non-traditional plastic pack baskets or bright yellow backpacks sporting the Marlboro logo.

       Market day began early and by mid-morning was already crowded.  Bai villagers started arriving shortly after sunrise, some to set up stalls, some to purchase fruits and vegetables at their freshest.  Most wore pack baskets of split bamboo, some with a wooden shoulder board, which was occasionally enhanced with painted designs.

Heqing Bai woman selling garlic

Songgui Bai girl

       Market day stalls, layouts and services spread throughout the old quarter and spilled over into the area around Yunhe Tower.  Sellers set up on both sides of the streets, usually hawking a single item.  It was summer, so lots of fruits—peaches, sour plums, apples, bananas, strawberries, mangoes and pears.  The food market was full of rice, maize, vegetables and meat and, as in Lijiang, women were the butchers.  Various wafers, breadsticks, candies, steamed buns and other snacks were available, though for drinks one had to enter a restaurant.

       Articles of clothing were on sale everywhere.  Some were modern items like trousers, jackets, t-shirts, shoes and baby clothes.  Others were ethnic-oriented—Bai vests, long-sleeved blouses, plain and printed aprons, Bai caps, cloths for the brims and bolts of cotton cloth.  Bai women here are not so jewelry-minded, confining their ornaments mainly to small silver earrings and jade bangles.  Silver clasps and chain necklaces were available at stalls and much fancier stuff at the antiques displays.

spinning board with animal figures

       Besides a range of merchandise, market day also provided services, like shoe repair and sewing machine work near the food market and tooth extraction, blood pressure readings and fortune telling in the new town.  One man managed a stall with a board painted with twelve kinds of various air, land and water creatures (not the ones of the zodiac) in a circle and a movable dragon-headed pointer in the middle.  I didn’t learn whether it was a game board or some sort of fortune telling device.

       Local Bai handicrafts were also part of the market scene; not the embroidered or tie-dyed items common around Dali, but more everyday use goods.  Potters sold everything from teapots, cups and saucers to big storage jars, glazed and painted.  A large section next to the food market displayed copper and brass pots, pans, vases, dippers and utensils.  Bai metalworkers have a regional reputation for their wares and such items are not only part of a Bai household, they are exported up to Lijiang and Shangrila.

       Other crafts were not Bai specialties, in fact common throughout the province, but part of everyday rural usage.  In one of the old town lanes women sold rain capes made of palm bark fiber, quite in demand now that the monsoon had arrived.  Around the corner from the tea market, the street leading east of Yunhe Tower was the basketry section.  Stalls here offered carrying baskets of different types, conical steamer covers, brooms and winnowing trays.  Most trays were ordinary size, but a few were two meters in diameter, mainly used in the fields.  Some of the sellers wove new baskets while they tended their goods.

locally made baskets and winnow trays

       Market activity persisted until late afternoon, when folks running the stalls and layouts finally began packing up to go home.  The basket makers heaped their goods into a tall pile that they carried on their backs.  Other merchants piled their wares in big baskets or rice bags.  Some toted these on their backs, while others put them in a tractor-trailer to return to their villages.

       Combined with strolls in the countryside, where farmers were busy planting rice, witnessing this vibrant market day scene made my Heqing excursion delightful and worthwhile.  The only negative note was the sight of old houses being destroyed and swathes of rubble near Yunhe Tower.  What kind of new construction was due?  Was the remainder of the old town doomed?

       When in Lijiang again a few years later I made a day trip to Heqing to satisfy my curiosity.  The transformation was startling.  The entire downtown area around Yunhe Tower had been completely rebuilt, but not in any boring anonymous modern way.  Even the nondescript buildings of the new town had been replaced.  Now houses lining the main streets were attractive two and three story buildings that showed obvious Dali influence, but in a distinctly different style.

Yunhe Tower in the 90s

modern Bai house in new Heqing

       Except for one street with all gray houses, the new constructions, designed by a Kunming company, featured whitewashed walls liberally embellished with black paintings under the roof apexes and on the walls.  They had angled tiled roofs, sometimes in pairs, and upper story multiple windows with wooden frames.   Arched doorways and other motifs reflected the inspiration of traditional Bai architecture.

       Yunhe Tower had been renovated and the area around it cleared and made into parks.  A classical two-tiered archway stood at the end of the street south of the tower.   And a big new temple was under construction in the northeast quarter.  Altogether, Heqing was a city that looked better than it did before its modern development.  Nowadays, that’s something rare.

Yunhe Tower post-renovation

                                                                        * * * 

Blending the Buddha and the Benzhu in Bai Religion

                                                        by Jim Goodman

Guan Yin Temple near Dsli

       If you ask anyone of the Bai ethnic minority around Dali, in western Yunnan, who is their most important deity, the answer will be Guan Yin.  Also known as Avalokitesvar, Guan Yin is the Buddhist Goddess of Compassion.  The Bai are nominally Mahayana Buddhist, and the cult of Guan Yin is an essential feature of this brand of Buddhism.  But the Bai also venerate Guan Yin because of an ancient legend that credits her with repelling a Han Dynasty invasion of the Dali plain two millennia ago.

       Accordingly, when the Han army arrived in Dali, Guan Yin disguised herself as a frail, old woman carrying a huge boulder strapped to her back.  Beholding this phenomenon, the Han soldiers worried that if this people’s old women were this strong, their male warriors, men the same age as that of the invader’s troops, must be something like super-human.  So they fled.

Guan Yin frightens the invaders

        In gratitude, the Bai erected a modest temple to Guan Yin over the boulder and originally called it the Huge Stone Temple.  Several buildings were added in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.  The compound lies at the foot of the Malong Peak of the Azure Mountains that rise above the western side of the Dali Plain, on the main Xiaguan-Dali road, five km south of the old city.  Two tall, seven-tiered iron pagodas flank the compound’s entrance gate.  Within the yard are temples, smaller pagodas, pavilions, recitation halls, corridors full of images, a small fish pond, a vaulted stone bridge and scores of potted flowers.

Bai villagers worship their benzhu

       While individual worshipers may come here at any time, on the 19^th day of the 3^rd, 6^th and 9^th lunar months the temple is especially active, for Bai villagers come in groups to pay homage to Guan Yin.  And on the 29^th day of the second lunar month the temple hosts its annual grand festival, augmenting the rituals with dance programs and a holiday market.  The large crowds that attend this event clearly demonstrate Guan Yin’s enduring importance to the Bai people. 

       However, if you were to ask who is the most important deity in their own village, the answer will not be Guan Yin but someone else, a deity whose name will be different from village to village, for each Bai settlement has its own protector god.  Known by the Chinese term benzhu, this is the village patron, the guardian of its territory, who may be a deified ancestor, warrior or other leader from the past, around whom local legends and myths have differentiated it from the deities of every other village.

       The Bai adopted their tradition from the classic Chinese cult of the city god.  This was usually a local hero associated with the city, charged with advancing its fortunes, and if it failed in that respect, city officials might berate, chastise or even ‘punish’ the god for its failures.  The Bai didn’t adopt that part of the custom, but did transfer the city god to the village god, with the responsibility of insuring the continuity of the land and its inhabitants.  All major life cycle rituals take place in the temple of the village benzhu, further emphasizing the tie between the benzhu and its village devotees.  And the benzhu is the first deity appealed to for good fortune, bounteous harvests, expulsion of evil spirits and the hope of bearing children.   

    

buffalo-headed guardian

horse-headed guardian

        The cult resembles that of another Chinese-influenced civilization—the Vietnamese.  Villages in Vietnam also conscript a deceased hero as their protective deity, although in their case the guardian spirit is usually a warrior who fought Chinese invaders.  The Dali area was not the venue of so much warfare over the centuries as northern Vietnam, so martial heroes are not as prominent among the ranks of the Bai benzhu personalities, who are more likely to be famous ancestors from the time the village was founded, as well as noted officials, exceptionally filial sons and even virtuous women.  Warrior spirits serve as guardians to the installed benzhu image, but they could as easily be mythical animal-headed soldiers rather than historical figures associated with the village protector deity.

procession for the benzhu

       Every year Bai villages honor their benzhu with a festival.  The dates vary according to each village, but it generally takes place in the spring.  Villagers slaughter pigs and sheep and hold a collective feast.  Entertainment includes traditional dances and songs, perhaps a classical orchestra performance, plus lion and dragon dances. 

       The climax of the occasion is a long procession, the dance troupes part of it, with the image of the benzhu, either as a sculpture or a portrait, carried in a special palanquin.  In some cases, two or three villages with strong kinship relations may share the same benzhu.  Then the procession will proceed to one of the villages sharing the deity and spend the night there.  Villagers living close to a major town like Dali or Xichou may take their procession there and afterwards return home.  Or the procession route may be just all around the farms of the village and back to the temple.

carrying the benzhu's portrait

       Male elders wear Chinese-style silk jackets and caps.  Younger men may dress in the traditional Bai vest, jacket and turban.  Women dress in the Bai style, the older generation in blue and black, the younger ones in white-sleeved blouses with red or pastel-colored vests.  The women carry small percussion knockers that they beat rhythmically while they march.  The procession often stops for brief performances of the dancers and generally lasts several hours altogether.  More than just a religious festival, the event binds the villagers together in a shared, very localized identity.

       While benzhu celebrations are strictly village affairs, another major Bai festival, incorporating many of the same themes, features the participation of Bai people from all over the Dali Plain.  And for most of them it is the biggest social event in the year.  Called Raoshanling in Chinese, Gweusala in Bai, Visiting Three Spirits in English, it occurs every year from the 23^rd to 25^th days of the 4^th lunar month.  Three different villages successively host the event and the most devout participants will spend a night in each of them.

traditional Bai dance in the procession

       Ordinarily, this is the period between the end of the wheat harvest and the transplanting of rice seedlings.  But the weather patterns are never entirely predictable and in some years there might be some of either activity going on when the festival falls due.  Having evolved from its original concept of honoring an ancient king who defended the land from Burmese invaders, the traditional purpose of the festival is to promote fertility, both in terms of the coming rice crop and the fertility of the women.

Bai dragon dance

       In the past, this was also a time for romantic liaisons in the woods, made easier by the custom of overnight stays in three different places.  Entertainment in the daytime programs, with openly suggestive dances and very risqué song lyrics, enhanced the atmosphere for sexual dalliance, not to mention the underlying fertility theme of the festival. 

       Because of these aspects, puritanical Chinese Nationalist officials tried to ban Raoshanling in the 1930s.  Though the festival was strictly a Bai affair that Han Chinese never attended, their view was doubtless influenced by their preconceptions of ’barbarian’ sexual mores.  The Bai ignored the edict and continued to celebrate it the old way until the Cultural Revolution.  Fanatical Red Guards then transformed it into a political event.  Visiting Three Spirits became a celebration of the Three Constantly Read Articles—Mao’s ‘Serve the People,’ ‘In Memory of Norman Bethune” and “The Foolish Old Man Who Tried to Move the Mountain.”  Red Guards organized mass rallies to recite one of the articles in turn at each of the three festival sites. 

to an from Qinglong for Raoshanling

       That aberration didn’t last long, though, and the festival has been back to normal since the early 80s.  While there may not be so many romantic escapades in the woods these days (plenty of other venues for that, anyway), some of the mildly licentious festival atmosphere persists in the disheveled clothing of the male dancers, feigned drunkenness, erotic dance gestures and suggestive singing.  And much like the benzhu celebrations, the program includes both rituals and entertainment.

        The opening day is above Qinglong village, at the foot of Wutai Peak.  In the past people came here the evening before, in processions that stopped briefly at various benzhu temples and shrines to nature deities like the Mountain God and the Dragon Deity of the Lake.  This is the biggest day and the path to the temple is lined with market stalls, food shops and vendors selling the paraphernalia of the festival--tassels of grains and flowers, cloth pendants of hearts and figurines and the round stickers of the Eight Trigrams that people affix to their brows.  Inside the temple devotees offer incense and prayers, bring trays of food to be blessed and form groups that chant sutras.

preparing messages to the gods

       At the entrance to the temple courtyard a few older men act as scribes to write prayers to the gods for the devotees.  These are done on yellow paper, with the donor's name and address at the bottom.  The prayer is placed into a rectangular paper box.  The devotee takes this to the courtyard and sets fire to it by lighting it from the top.  If the flames crackle while the box is burnt that indicates the god has already acknowledged receipt of the message.

       Inside the temple Bai women in rows chant prayers and beat clackers, punctuated by a woman drummer and a male horn player standing next to the altar.  Another group of women sit in the courtyard outside the temple entrance.  These sessions can last a couple hours, after which the women take a break and then resume.  They dress in their best and cleanest traditional jackets, ornamented with pendants hanging down the front and the back.

       Most visitors spend less time with the rituals and enjoy the fair.  They check out the numerous stalls in the markets, have a meal on the grounds, quaff a few drinks and watch the occasional traditional dance performances.  The crowd only starts thinning out in late afternoon, when most go home, though some may head for Xichou to spend the night and catch the next day’s event.

ornaments worn over the back

       The second day's venue is Hesichong, a small village below Xichou.  Market stalls line the street to the temple again, but of a more modest size and fewer in number. The activity within the temple is the same as the previous day's, but this day has one additional feature--a procession through the streets of Xichou.  Some participants wear funny masks, false noses and the like.  But the groups always include several women singing and dancing.  They periodically stop to perform, making a ring, some twirling batons, others rhythmically knocking their hips against each other.

       On the third day, smaller still, but perhaps the most enjoyable because of its intimacy, the host is Majiuyi, a pretty lakeside Bai village 6 km northeast of Dali.  Throughout the morning, while devotees from Majiuyi and nearby villages make offerings at the temple, an 18-member Bai orchestra plays classical dongjing music.  There is no vocal accompaniment, but a spoken prayer precedes each tune.

Bai musicians at Majiuyi

       At mid-morning a procession winds through the village and performs in the temple courtyard.  A troupe of middle-aged Bai women, wearing dark glasses with their traditional clothing, dances in loops or in pairs, wielding decorated staffs and bumping hips together.  After that they gather in front of the orchestra and a pair of older women, in high-pitched, quivering voices, sing call-and-response songs.  The smirks on their faces and the sniggers and smiles of the audience indicate the raunchy nature of the lyrics.  Following a couple more tunes by the orchestra, the show concludes and the last act of the program is the collective feast for the musicians and performers.

       In these modern times, the traditional Raoshanling retains its popularity.  While Chinese tourists may show up to watch the dances, it is essentially a festival for Bai participants, with special Bai characteristics that serve as a proud assertion of the Bai ethnic identity.  Religiously, too, it’s still relevant, adding the protective power of the Three Spirits to that bestowed by Guan Yin since her personal intervention on behalf of the Bai two millennia ago, the intercession of nature gods, Buddhist and Taoist deities residing in the area’s many temples, and the vigilance of their own village guardian benzhu.  That’s a lot of allies to help face any potential misfortune in life.  Spiritually speaking, the Bai feel secure.

rituals for Raoshanling

                                                                  * * *