Buddhist Yi and Other Gengma County Surprises

                                                            by Jim Goodman

      

White Pagoda in Gengma

  Back in the late 90s, when I developed the ambition to explore all parts of Yunnan, Lincang was practically an unknown prefecture.  I hadn’t met anyone from there and didn’t know any travelers who’d been there, either.  It wasn’t part of any guidebooks, even Chinese ones, and all I could find in the bookstores was a single thin booklet, mostly about its industry, border trade and development.  While some Yi and Lahu lived in scattered areas in the north, most of the minority-inhabited areas were in the southern counties.   For my first venture into the prefecture I chose Gengma, because it was a Dai and Wa Autonomous County.

       Coming from Baoshan into the northern part of Lincang Prefecture, the scenery was a drab landscape of largely denuded hills and concrete towns.  The road was not very good and it took all day to reach Yunxian.  But halfway from there down to Gengma, on yet another slow road in dire need of improvement, the landscape changes.  The hills are more forested, the higher mountains closer, villages further apart and mostly Dai instead of Han, with pagodas gracing small hills next to the settlements.    Sugarcane is the dominant crop in the fields, supplying the sugar mill in Gengma city, mustard and rice also grown.

Dai women in Gengma

       Gengma sits on a small knoll in one of the shallow valleys amongst the low, surrounding hills.  Ethnic Dai dominate the city’s population.  Each neighborhood has its own name and these are signposted at all the intersections in the residential zone.  A large painted stone sculpture of a peacock, the Dai mascot, stands in front of an old and sprawling banyan tree in the middle of the city and two Han-style ornamental gates mark both ends of the commercial district.

       Dai women, from adolescence up, both in Gengma and the rural villages, dress in old-fashioned Dai style.  The traditional everyday outfit consists of a black sarong, usually velvet but sometimes cotton or silk, a white terry cloth turban and a side-fastened, long-sleeved jacket with rounded hems front and rear.  Jewelry they generally save for special occasions, but most wear small gold, barrel-shaped ear plugs about one cm diameter.  Many wear shoes that are embroidered with cross stitch designs or appliquéd with cutouts coincidentally resembling Sani Yi patterns east of Kunming.

lessons at Mangkang Temple

       Buildings within the city are uninspired concrete structures, but Gengma does have two outstanding old Buddhist monuments.  One is the lone white pagoda on a slope above the middle school, built in 1472.  It is in a style similar to those in Dehong, a tall central spire surrounded by smaller spires on two levels.  The other is the Zongfo Buddhist temple next to the pond in the city park.  First constructed a year later, it is a long and attractive building with prayer banners hanging down from the rafters at the entrance and scenes from Journey to the West carved on its doors.

       With its wide, slightly sloping, tiered roofs with upturned corners, the temple reflects the Mahayana Buddhist style of its Han neighbors rather than that of Dai temples in Xishuangbanna, with their tall, steeply sloping roofs.  Gengma’s Dai are Theravada Buddhists, though, as in Banna and Dehong.  Their monks and novices dress in orange robes and the lay folk follow the same ritual Buddhist calendar as their counterparts in Southeast Asia.

Zongfo Temple

       Not every Dai village has a temple, though.  A few might have a pagoda in the vicinity, but usually the village has a central sacred spot, marked by a specially carved post and altar.   The nearest temple beyond Gengma was at Mangkang, about seven km south, in a similar style as at Zongfo Temple.  About a dozen monks and novices resided there when I visited, arriving at a moment when an older monk, prayers tattooed on his arms, was instructing the boy novices on reading and reciting the Dai language prayer books.  He used a long pointer to indicate which words the boys mispronounced (though not to hit them with when they did so).  In another corner of the hall boys were studying texts, while outside the teenage novices were at leisure, whittling or riding roller skates.

monk at leisure, Mangkang Temple

      Since they serve communities outside that don’t have their own temples, both Meangkang Temple and Zongfo Temple are quite active at Guanmenjie and Kaimenjie, the opening and closing festivals of the Buddhist retreat season.  As for the city, ordinarily Gengma is a rather quiet and unhurried place.  But every five days it hosts an open market day, when villagers from both hill and valley swarm into town and its commercial area hums with activity.

       For a city of such modest size (you could walk from one end to the other in less than an hour) the market day area was quite large, comprising three large adjoining squares in the city center and a number of lanes branching out to the main street, Gengmadajie, between the entry gates.  The squares and adjoining lanes, even Gengmadajie, fill up with so many stands and stalls that there is just barely enough room for the customers and passers-by. 

       Every sort of local product is on sale:  straw for roofing, ropes, jungle herbs, all kinds of edibles both raw and prepared, spices and seasonings, stools, cloth, wood, thread, brooms, tools, sugarcane, tea, molasses and even rabbits.   Local Dai dominate the food markets, hawking noodles, fruits, hot and sour salads, pickled delicacies and bean gelatin.  In slacker moments some of them work on embroidering or appliqué for their next pair of shoes.

market day iGengma

       One of the squares is allotted to animals, mainly pigs and buffaloes.  While it doesn’t take long for a buyer to decide whether a pig is worth buying, those purchasing buffaloes were more particular and closely examined both the feet and the teeth before making up their minds.

       As I expected, many Wa women came down to Gengma from hills to the east and south.   They were easy to recognize with their darker skin tone, red and black sarongs, ear studs three times bigger than those worn by the Dai women, sometimes augmented by diamond-shaped silver pendants.  And they all seemed to be addicted to tobacco, smoking ii constantly in long silver pipes.  As elsewhere in Yunnan, the Wa women in Gengma for market day were quite friendly and I wanted to visit one of their villages on any return trip to Gengma.

examining a buffalo

       Of course, since Gengma was a Dai and Wa Autonomous County I expected Wa to show up on market day.  But they were not the only non-Dai minority in the market.  Two kinds of Lahu showed up in their traditional outfits, as well as Lisu from the same sub-group as western Dehong and a few Jingpo, in modern clothes but recognizable by the silver-studded Jingpo shoulder bag common in Dehong.  None of the maps I had on ethnic distribution in Yunnan indicated there were any Lisu or Lahu at all anywhere near Gengma, so there were discoveries to pursue someday in the county.

Dai food stalls o market day

       Women of one Lahu group wore a long, side-fastened black jacket, with thin, multi-colored strips lining the lapel and in bands around the sleeves and cuffs, and plain black trousers.  They carried shoulder bags of bright, thin, horizontal stripes in many colors and on their heads wore a round red cap. 

       The other Lahu group wore side-fastened jackets of medium blue and heavily embroidered or appliquéd in the front.  This they combined with blue, knee-length shorts, embroidered around the hems, like the outfit worn in Nanmei, over in Lincang County, where they were probably from.

       Market days are essential for a traveler to know who lives in the vicinity and might be worth a visit.  I didn’t learn where all the Lahu and Lisu lived, but found out that traditional Wa villages lay on the way east to the snow mountain Daxueshan and Buddhist Wa lived past Mangkang.  On my return to Gengma a year ad a half later I planned a Wa village excursion in between market days in Mengsheng to the south (smaller, less interesting) and Gengma two days later (as lively and colorful as the first time).

Lahu woman in Gengma

Wa woman in the market

       Unfortunately, landslides had just blocked the way to Daxueshan and heavy rains made the route out of Mangkang all but impassable.  Forced to turn back, my driver suggested we go instead to a Tu minority village called Mangyou.  Tu minority?  Never heard of them.  Let’s go.

Lisu and Dai

       The road was just as muddy as the route to the Wa villages, but we could get to Mangyou because the villagers had covered the last stretch with a bed of bamboo sticks.  Rice, maize and sugarcane fields surrounded the village and the hills were largely deforested to make room for farms.  Most houses were stilted, with angled, thatched roofs and adjoining open balcony, like those of the Wa.  A few had corrugated iron roofs and some were brick, but with an elevated attached balcony. 

       The women wore a side-fastened, plain blue jacket for everyday use, over a black, calf-length sarong over black leggings and on their heads a black turban with the fringed end hanging over one side.  For special occasions they don a jacket trimmed with color bands around the cuffs and rows of solver studs along the lapel.  Younger girls dressed in Dai-style blouses and sarongs, sometimes matching, and many tied their hair up like Dai girls in Gengma.  The men, of course, dressed in ordinary modern clothes.

       Villagers were shy upon our arrival, but soon a local family invited us inside for a chat and a glass of local rice liquor.   And that brought a small crowd along.  We entered a sparsely furnished room, with a bed along one wall, and crouched on the floor beside the fireplace in a slightly sunken square in the center.  An iron cooking tripod held a kettle above the coals and a split bamboo tray hung above the hearth, to hold bamboo utensils and containers and such to be hardened by the smoke.

Mangyou Yi village

       It resembled the hearths of Wa , Lahu or Aini houses I’d visited elsewhere in Yunnan.  But the large stove-oven in the kitchen reminded me of Hani houses in Ailaoshan.  Wooden buckets and mortars and half-gourd water pitchers lay along the wall beside it.  There were no tables, chairs or stools.  Family and guests crouched together around the hearth, guaranteeing automatic intimacy.

       While we conversed I showed them pictures I took of people in the Gengma market my first trip.  After looking through them they asked me if I had any photos of Yi people.  I replied I didn’t know what they looked like.  Well, they were Yi, as it turned out, though Gengma folks called them Tu, their sub-group name.  This was the only Yi village in the county, though they said another Tu/Yi village was near Mengjiao in Cangyuan County.

Yi woman in Mangyou

       Already familiar with Yi culture elsewhere in Yunnan, I asked them if they had a bìmaw, the Yi ritual specialist, and celebrated the Torch Festival.  No, they celebrated Guanmenjie and Kaimenjie, because they were Buddhist.  They migrated here sometime in the Qing Dynasty and adopted the religion of their Dai neighbors.  They didn’t have their own temple, just the sacred village center pillar like Buddhist villages, Dai or Wa.  For festivals and important religious events they went to Mangkang Temple. 

       I didn’t ask whether any of their boys went down to the temple to be novices for a while, but their claim they followed Buddhist precepts in guiding their lives seemed genuine.  They were certainly as polite and mild-mannered as the Dai households I’d visited around Gengma. 

sacred village post and altar

       Much of the conversation had to be translated through one of the men who could speak Chinese.  The younger generation knew more Chinese than their elders, but it was the elders with whom I talked the most.  The women knew some Dai language from their market experience, but basically conversation among the villagers was all in Yi.

       Mangyou villagers are Buddhist, like the Dai, and live in houses like those of the Wa, yet still proudly identify themselves as Yi, even though they cut themselves off from other Yi centuries ago.  Within their own community they have tenaciously retained their Yi language for everyday usage.  By now it must be practically a separate dialect from that spoken by Yi in Dali Prefecture.  They keep it alive because it is their link with their past, exemplifying how language alone can define ethnic identity.

Mangyou Yi  woman dressed up for market day

                                                                     * * *                       

       

Up the Sword Ladder

                                                                  by Jim Goodman
     

Hua Lisu woman, Tengchong County

       Imagine that you're a young Hua Lisu man in western Yunnan in the isolated mountains of Tengchong, Lianghe and Yingjiang Counties, who wants to powerfully impress a certain eligible young Lisu lady.  Like her mother and sisters she is a very old-fashioned Lisu and prefers the colorful traditional costume of a long-tailed blue jacket, with extra flaps around the shoulders and trimmings in red, yellow, white and green.  (The eye-catching jacket alone justifies their name, for Hua Lisu means Flowery Lisu in Chinese.)  This she wears over trousers that fall just past the knees and bright puttees wrapped in lacquered black rattan rings.  She looks especially charming when she puts on her collar-ring with silver pendants dangling from it down her chest, and dons the round turban embellished with white discs cut from shells.  She is certainly worth impressing and in traditional Hua Lisu culture there's a sure way for you to gain prestige, in her eyes and in the eyes of your rivals, a way to win a reputation as one of the boldest, most outstanding young men in the village--up the sword ladder.

Hua Lisu man

       Or picture yourself as an older, middle-aged man, raising a family, with teenaged children inclined to challenge your authority on the broader issues of life.  You need to enhance your prestige so they will heed your guidelines on proper Lisu behavior.  You also must participate in discussions with other household heads over issues like contracts with the logging companies, how much of the forest to cut, where to graze the animals and so on.  You would like to add more weight to your opinion, to have it listened to with greater respect.  To elevate your prestige so to achieve this, as well as to enhance your authority at home, the route is the same one taken by the aspiring lover--up the sword ladder.

       The opportunity for this takes place once a year, the 8th day of the 2nd lunar month.  On this day the Hua Lisu erect a tall ladder, with as many as 60 or 70 machetes for the rungs, sharp side up.  The ladder must be scaled barefoot and bare-handed and the entire effort can be totally wasted if the climber suffers so much as a single small cut on the soles of his feet.  It's an imposing task and would be difficult even with gloves and boots, certainly for anyone afflicted with a more than normal amount of acrophobia.

the ascent

action on the Sword Ladder

       No one is compelled to climb.  No draftees from selected families.  No casting lots to determine who goes up.  It's entirely voluntary.  And because it's a fairly dangerous thing to do only the most eager, or most inveterate, status-seekers make the try.  About a dozen men on average attempt the climb in any given year.  Half of them will be old enough to be the fathers of the other half.

       The Sword Ladder Festival dates back to the time the Lisu migrated to western Yunnan from their original homeland near the banks of the Jinshajiang (Upper Yangzi) in southwest Sichuan.  Midway through the Ming Dynasty, in the early 16th century, they began moving to the Nujiang Valley (Upper Salween) and the western hills of present-day Baoshan and Dehong Prefectures.  Some continued into Burma and today the same sub-groups live on both sides of the border.

going up and going down

safety mudrss by the emcee

       The Ming Dynasty only took full control of Yunnan at the end of the 14th century.  The western frontier remained a security problem all through the following century and in the early 16th century the Ming minister Wang Ji arrived intending to pacify the area.  The newly-arrived Lisu at that time were subject to regular harassment by bandit incursions and many of their men joined Wang Ji's forces.
       Wang Ji himself was a charismatic, fearless leader with great appeal to the Lisu.  He led the campaigns personally and in the end laid down his life in defense of the frontier and the Lisu who lived on the Chinese side of it.  Among his troops he had the reputation of being able to walk through fire and climb a ladder of swords in his bare feet.  While this is a Chinese metaphor for exceptional bravery, the Hua Lisu took it literally.  On the day of his death, the 8th day of the 2nd moon, they emulate Wang Ji by walking across hot coals the night before and climbing the sword ladder that day.

picnic at the festival grounds

       As night falls on the day prior villagers set fires at the edge of the settled area.  When the fires have burned down to a layer of glowing coals the boldest of the village men dash barefoot across the "sea of fire," as they call it.  Like the climbing exercise the next day, the soles of their feet must emerge from the ordeal unscorched and unblemished.  And they do.
       Unlike some other mountain people in the region, the Lisu do not ordinarily go barefoot.  So the men's ability to run across the coals and climb the sword ladder does not come from a build-up of thick calluses on the soles of their feet, which are every bit as tender as a city dweller's.

Hua Lisu elder

       The swords are not razor sharp, but honed enough to cut bamboo and sugar cane and swords that are obviously dull or nicked are rejected as rungs for the ladder.  The inexplicability of this feat, repeated annually since Wang Ji's death three centuries ago, has even helped preserve Hua Lisu traditions in general, for it was the reason why the Christian missionaries gave up their conversion campaign.

       It began in the 1920's when the Frasers, husband and wife, entered Tengchong County from Burma and headed for Hua Lisu settlements in the hills northwest of the county seat.  They happened to arrive the same week as the festival.  Mrs. Fraser, who later authored the memoir of their missionary work, was sure there was some kind of trick involved in the "sea of fire" exercise and poo-poohed the accomplishment of those few who did it.  It was dark, after all.
       Yet they could not figure out the sword ladder climbing, which they witnessed close-up in broad daylight.  The only explanation they could divine was the power of the Devil, coming to the aid of these pagan climbers.  So, because the Devil's influence was so strong among this branch of the Lisu, as Mrs. Fraser wrote, the missionaries left Tengchong and moved north to proselytize among the Black Lisu of Nujiang.  Today the Black Lisu are largely Christian, while the Hua Lisu to this day have resisted conversion and remain the largest sub-group of non-Christian Lisu.
       The Hua Lisu way of life has not remained static since their migration to western Yunnan.  They evolved from a mainly hunting and gathering society to one of agriculture and animal husbandry by the time of their encounter with the Frasers.  Since then the Hua Lisu have largely abandoned slash-and-burn in favor of fixed field farming and were until this century involved in the logging business.

stepping on the swords

at the top

       Yet the Sword Ladder Festival has endured with no major modifications since its beginning.  It remains the highlight of the Lisu year, combined with a carnival in the adjacent field, where Lisu villagers amuse themselves at various stalls until the actual climbing commences.  Some of the stalls offer small market items, others noodles and drinks and still others the dice game popular in western Yunnan.

dice game at the festival

       In this one three large dice are mounted on a bar at the top of a slightly slanted tray.  When the game master yanks the cord to pull away the bar the three dice tumble into the lower tray lying flat just below.  At the far end of this tray people place their bets.  Usually the dice fall together, but sometimes they drop one by one.  When two have landed a player may anticipate being a winner, only to see the third one finally fall and knock over one of the other two, thus changing the final configuration.

       Around noon is the erection of the ladder.  Long lines of men pull the ropes attached to the ladder's top and hoist it upright.  After the ropes have been secured to stakes three men begin fixing the swords in place, from the bottom up.  As they get higher up the swords are delivered by pulley rope.  This operation takes over an hour, followed by a break of around two hours to wait for the auspicious moment to begin climbing.  Meanwhile, those in attendance hold picnics, play the dice game and wander about the carnival grounds.

examining the feet after the climb

       On this day the women don their best costumes and all their beads and jewelry.  But Lisu men for the most part also dress in the traditional style, one of the few minorities in which the men do so.  They wear a long-sleeved, side-fastened jacket, usually blue, a wide belt, knee-length trousers and striped leggings.  On special occasions like this they will also don a turban, embroidered shoulder bags and a bandoleer or two of silver dollar-sized discs cut from shells.  Those going up the ladder are the most resplendent.

       Without fanfare or announcement the start of the climbing is signaled by a man placing a bundle of burning incense sticks at each of the stakes holding the ropes attached to the ladder.  Then an older man removes his shoes and commences his steady climb to the platform full of pennants at the top.  He removes a few of these, hurls them to the ground and sets off several strings of firecrackers.  Then as he descends another begins to climb.  About halfway up the ladder is a narrow platform.  The one ascending halts here until the previous climber has passed him on the way down.

       When the descending climber reaches the last rung he steps onto short bamboo poles and lifts his feet for inspection by the emcee.  Observing that no cuts or blood mar the soles of the feet, the emcee rubs them with ashes and gives the performer a small cup of liquor.  No one applauds the success, lest that distract the others on the ladder.  While awaiting the next to descend the emcee, gazing intently at the climbers, makes magical gestures to insure no mishap occurs.

festival dance

       After all this year's climbers have completed their turns, a loudspeaker begins broadcasting traditional Lisu songs.  The climbers and their wives then join hands for a ring dance around the base of the ladder, with alcohol served them as refreshment partway through the performance.
       This is the last act of the festival.  The ring breaks up and the crowd heads for home.  The ladder remains standing until the following day, when the men gather to take it down, remove the swords, disassemble the components, and put them away until next year.  And already those who considered it, but failed to muster sufficient courage to climb this year, have witnessed the new esteem bestowed on the climbers by their admirers.  And already they have begun telling themselves that if their neighbors or rivals can succeed without any problems, why then next year they, too, will have what it takes for that tried and true way to social prominence--up the sword ladder.

the last act--dancing around the Sword Pole

                                                                         * * *