Beyond Shangrila: the Mountains of Deqin

    

                              by Jim Goodman

 

       Mountains in Yunnan rise higher the further northwest you go in the province.  They top more than 4000 meters in Dali Prefecture and over 5500 meters near Lijiang.  There are other 4000+ peaks in Ninglang County and upper Nujiang, but the biggest of them all lie in Deqin Autonomous Tibetan Prefecture, for most of its territory is geographically the southeastern tip of the Tibetan Plateau.  Here the mountains stand over 6000 meters.

       The most accessible and popular part of the prefecture is Shangrila County.  It used to be called Zhongdian until 2001 when, to promote its tourist potential, the government claimed it was the site of the Shangrila of James Hilton’s famous novel Lost Horizon and so officially changed its name.  With its broad plain, traditional Tibetan houses, lovely monasteries at Songzhanlin and other places and friendly people, it certainly appeals as an idyllic escape from the commotion of wherever the tourists came from.

       The Shangrila hype notwithstanding, the village of the novel had a very different setting, in a valley with a triangular-peaked snow mountain towering over one end.  Shangrila lies at about 3100 meters and from various points in the county, especially in winter, one can see some snow around the mountains beyond the plain.  But they are not very high and to see anything resembling the mountain described in Lost Horizon one has to go further on to Deqin, the next county north.

       Not long after leaving Shangrila city, after passing Napahai Lake, the landscape abruptly changes.  From here on the topography is all mountainous, with no more broad expanse of relatively flat land.  The road runs along the higher parts of the mountain slopes that, in the early 90s during my visits, were largely denuded of trees, with stray hamlets clinging to the hillsides. Then it descends to cross the Jinshajiang, the River of Golden Sand that is the moniker for the Upper Yangzi, and soon pulls into Benzilan, the first major town in Deqin County.

       There were two Benzilans then.  In the lower one, the original Tibetan settlement, the houses lined a ridge overlooking a small plateau that served as farmland and pastures.  The upper one was the commercial center along the main road, full of shops, hotels and restaurants catering to travelers on the Shangrila-Deqin route, most of whom stop here for lunch.

       From Benzilan it’s up into the mountains again, where the slopes are high and barren again, although not necessarily due to deforestation.  Many gradients are so steep they never supported forests anyway. But streams run down them and there, on modest gradients, Tibetans built their settlements that are patches of green in the otherwise dusty brown landscape.   Around 15 km from Benzilan a turn-off takes one a short distance to a dramatic view of a bend in the Jinshajiang,  The river makes a loop 2/3 the way around a conical hill  protruding from the vertical cliffs on the eastern bank.

       Back to the road, the next stop north is the monastery of Dongzhulin, 103 km north   of Shangrila, at an altitude of 3000 meters.  The original monastery lay further away from the road and was built in 1667 during the reign of the Kang Xi Emperor, who himself was interested in Tibetan Buddhism.  In the 19^th century Dongzhulin housed over 900 monks and 12 Living Buddhas (reincarnations of famous lamas).  It was here that the French missionary Père  Renou disguised himself as a trader and stayed to learn about Buddhism and to speak the local dialect in order to, after he left the monastery, proselytize Christianity among Deqin’s Tibetans.

       Dongzhulin became associated with the Tibetan Revolt in 1958, allegedly storing arms for the rebels, and in retaliation government forces leveled the monastery.  In 1985 it was rebuilt in its current location, a splendid traditional-style building, four stories high and supported by 82 thick wooden pillars.  The ground floor houses large images of various deities like Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gulugpa (Yellow Hat) monastic order, Avalokitesvar, Manjusri and others.  Portraits of celestial beings, demons, benevolent and wrathful deities fill the walls.  The 3^rd floor features huge images of the Maitreya Buddha, seven meters high, and Sakyamuni, ten meters high.  The other floors are for reciting sutras and performing private rituals. 

       In the early 90s Dongzhulin had about 300 monks and one Living Buddha.  There was also a Buddhist nunnery attached to it.  Nuns follow the same rules as monks, shave their heads, wear robes, recite sutras, etc, but have the option of staying in the nunnery or living at home.  Most stay in the nunnery across the road in Shusong. 

        From here it’s another 80 km or so to the county capital and halfway there the road runs through a forest and over a pass at 4000 meters.  The peak of Baimashan looms to the left of the road.  Though only 4292 meters high, it is perpetually covered in snow.  The pastures on the edge of the forest are prime yak grazing areas in the summer months.  The whole area is a protected nature preserve, home to foxes, deer, leopards and bears.  The poplar trees and parts of the pine groves turn yellow in autumn and local species of the maple tree turn red.

       From the pass the city is another 35 km through stony hills with thin patches of forest and scarcely any human habitation until just before the city.  Formerly called Atuntse, and known to local Tibetans as Jui, Deqin is about half the size of Shangrila and at around 3400 meters a slightly higher altitude.  It is sited on slopes that funnel precipitation down to a stream at the lower end of town that eventually empties into the Lancangjiang (Upper Mekong).  Most of the buildings then were modern concrete structures, with a quasi-Tibetan style in the upper end neighborhood and no style at all elsewhere.

       The only remaining wooden buildings were around the central market, which was about half the size of Shangrila’s but less ethnically diverse, for nearly all the city’s residents are Tibetan.  Several shops here and on the main street specialized in Tibetan clothing, crafts and jewelry.  City residents and villagers come here to sell off heirlooms, furs and herbs and purchase Tibetan belts, scarves, carpets, woolen cloaks, brocaded silk, fur hats and ornaments of coral, turquoise and silver.

       Most Deqin women, though, didn’t seem to be as fond of wearing traditional clothing as in Shangrila County and when they did the outfit resembled  more the style of Lhasa, with an ankle-length dress and a long striped apron in front, rather than the ensemble popular in Shangrila County.  On the whole, they were not as outgoing or engaging as their counterparts in Shangrila/Zhongdian, but invariably polite and cordial.

       Deqin has a mosque, not for Hui but for Tibetan Muslims who converted to Islam when part of Hui-run caravans in the past.  The population is overwhelmingly Buddhist, but the devout had to journey to villages beyond the city, as Deqin had no big monastery of its own anymore.  During the Qing Dynasty, especially in its last decades, lamas from high-ranking Tibetan families ruled Deqin as their private fief.  Around the end of the 19^th century two new developments began to challenge their practical autonomy.  Under pressure from France, the Qing government allowed French missionaries to proselytize in Tibetan areas.  At the same time the government inaugurated a land reform policy in these same areas.

       Both of these threatened the lamas’ authority.  Land reform would target their own family holdings and conversion to Catholicism would undermine their religious leadership.  In 1904, the British colonial Government of India authorized the Younghusband Expedition, a military invasion of Tibet ostensibly designed to prevent the Russians from taking it.  London disapproved of the move and the following year Younghusband’s forces withdrew.

       Among the Tibetans the incident provoked outright rebellion against anything and anybody foreign.  In 1905 a widespread uprising began at Batang in southwest Sichuan, where the lamas instigated attacks on the foreign missionaries, all their converts and Chinese government officers.  Victims suffered grisly deaths, especially the priests, and the rebellion spread to Litang and Kangding in Sichuan and down into Yunnan in Atuntse/Deqin.  Massacres of priests and their followers took place in Deqin and Cikou, the French mission in the Lancangjiang valley south of Deqin.  Marauders mounted the severed heads of the priests on the Dechenling Monastery gate in Deqin.

       Chinese government forces halted the rebels’ advance on Xiaowieixi, the next Christian settlement south of Cikou.  They then marched on Deqin, isolated and surrounded the lamas in Dechenling and finally slaughtered everybody inside and burnt the building to the ground.  Chinese officials took charge of the administration, but eventually married local women and stayed on after their service was completed.  Surviving Christians rebuilt their demolished church in Cizhong, a little north of Cikou, this time in a French village style.

       The main reason travelers go to Deqin is not for the city’s few attractions, but for the view of the nearby snow mountains. On a clear day this is truly magnificent.  Leaving Deqin the road heads towards the Lancanjiang and after climbing out of the city’s valley and into the countryside, doming to Dong village and the modest Feilai Temple, surrounded by grain fields.  Inside the main hall is a large statue of the mountains’ guardian deity.  In the annex, when I visited, the carcasses of freshly killed goats hung from the rafters.  As the monks were presumably vegetarian it wasn’t their food.  Some Bon, pre-Buddhist sacrifice? I wondered, but never did find out.

      Lovely  Taizishan Snow Mountain, 6054 meters altitude, is visible from the approach to Dong.  A little further on, at a small break in the forest, is the most celebrated viewpoint.  Looking west one can clearly see Meili Snow Mountain, at 6740 meters altitude the highest in the province.  From its peak a long wide glacier runs down in front.  This is the most accessible glacier in Yunnan and in later years tour companies promoted one-day hikes to it and back or overnight camping at the glacier’s foot.  Adventurous travelers could also go on extended treks in the nature preserve around the mountain.

       On my visit the viewpoint also featured several chortens and strings of prayer flags, adding a religious aspect to the scene.  After a few years the government built a high wall between the road and the viewpoint with a ticket booth in front of its only door.  The entry fee was 150 yuan.  On my visit it was free.

       The road continues along the Lancangjiang Valley all the way to the Tibetan border, passing both forested and barren areas and through tunnels chiseled out of the cliffs.  It is a good example of Yunnan’s road engineering skills, though occasionally subject to landslides, which are always quickly restored.  Herder take their yaks along the same road and wherever fatal accidents have occurred, people have erected chortens on mounds of stone slabs inscribed with Tibetan prayers.

       About 30 km north of Deqin the road swerves away from the valley to cross the Adong River.  Upstream stands a major hydroelectric plant and a switch pulled here daily around midnight plunged Deqin and vicinity into darkness.  Further up, 64 km from Deqin, lies Foshan, a nondescript town from where the Lancang River is the provincial boundary between Yunnan and Tibet.  Just past Foshan is the rather prosperous village of Nagu, famous for the ancient stone coffins found nearby, but unfortunately they had been removed to a museum by the time of my visit.  Another 40 km is the Tibetan border, with an old Naxi settlement on the way, a relic of the early Qing Dynasty when Naxi troops from Lijiang guarded the border.

       While the mountains south of Taizishan are not as high or dramatic, the scenery all the way to Cizhong is quite impressive.  A road from the south end of Deqin winds along narrow gorges cut by the Lancangjiang’s tributary streams, offering sporadic glimpses of the snow peaks, passes through three tunnels and then makes eight distinct bends on the descent to the riverside town of Yunling.

       From Yunling the road runs along the Lancang River, with excellent views across to isolated villages, monasteries perched atop ravines, deep gorges cut by streams, splendid tall, thin waterfalls spillling over sheer cliffs, and occasional thick forests that burst into a variety of colors in autumn.  Around Yanmen, 30 km south of Yunling, Nagu-like stone coffins have also been found, including remnants of ancient pottery and bronze artifacts.

       A little downriver on the opposite bank lies the county’s last major attraction—the Catholic Church at Cizhong.  Tibetans comprise 3/4 of the population, with Naxi at 20% and Han 5%.  The altitude is sufficiently lower here so that Cizhong farms can grow rice instead of barley.  Viniculture, introduced by the French missionaries, is also prominent and Cizhong has a reputation for its wine.  Tibetan Christianity never revived in Deqin, but here in Cizhong, in spite of 1905, it survived.  Its congregation is mostly the older generation, but its very existence puts Cizhong on the list of what-to-see for any traveler seriously exploring Deqin County.

    

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For more on Deqin and the Tibetans, see my r-book Living in Shangrila

 

By Tractor-Trailer to the River of Golden Sand

                                                      by Jim Goodman

on the road north of Tanhua

       When I first visited Yunnan in 1992, the province had already been partially open to foreigners for several years.  They could visit established tourist destinations like Kunming, the Stone Forest, Dali, Lijiang and Jinghong, but little else.  But by then, the open-door policy was proving successful and over the next few years the government allowed foreigners into several more counties every season.

       Enough attractions existed in and around these popular sites to warrant extensive exploration and return excursions.  But once I began to make my trips to Yunnan regular, from then on as it turned out, I included at least one newly opened county every itinerary.  To guide my choices I thumbed through the coffee-table picture books on the province I bought from Kunming’s Foreign Languages Bookstore.  

       Having already had encounters with some of the Yi minority sub-groups, I decided to visit very different Yi in Dayao County, in northwest Chuxiong Prefecture.  Nobody went there because it was not en route to somewhere else.  Except for Dayao city itself, it was a Yi-dominated county, with different related sub-groups, and that was sufficient to lure me. They would show up at the Sunday market and particularly dominated the hills north of the city.

the Yi style in Guihua

        After a couple visits to Tanhua, where most Yi women dressed in traditional style and both sexes wore goatskin jackets and everything seemed pretty old-fashioned, I decided to go further north, where other Yi sub-groups lived.  Also motivating me was the fact that at the end of the road, such as it was, was a Dai district on the Upper Yangzi, in Yunnan called the River of Golden Sand (Jinshajiang).

       Back then that was certainly an off-the-beaten-track adventure.  The only public transportation was a weekly bus, several days off, so I had to pay for a ride with a logging truck going north of Guihua, the next major settlement and my destination 50 km away.  A couple foreigners had briefly been to Tanhua, so I was told, but no one went beyond, so I would be the first to visit remote ethnic minorities as well as rural provincial government officials.  As it turned out, the latter were more interesting than the former.

       Above Dayao the unpaved road zigzagged along the eastern slopes of Tanhua Mountain, at each turn providing views of mountains and distant villages perched on the ridges and just below the cliffs.  To make parts of this road, workers had to carve or blast through sheer walls of rock, with 70 degrees gradients on either side.  Aside from the views, I also appreciated the skill of Chinese road engineers.

Guihua town, Dayao County

       About an hour out of Tanhua the road crosses the last extension of Tanhuashan and the scenery changes abruptly.  The mountains are steeper, less forested, heavily terraced and rather densely populated, compared with the Tanhua area.  The road slowly winds down to the river valley below Guihua, visible nearly an hour before arrival.  The town sits on a ridge above the river, mainly comprising wide, mud-brick houses with wooden beams and tiled roofs, typical rural Yunnan style.

       I checked into a local cheap lodge, but before I could settle in and finish my coffee a representative of the local government arrived to invite me to stay in a private room in their quarters.  He also introduced the local middle school English teacher Li Hui to accompany me on my tour of Guihua.   That consisted of walking around looking for good photo angles, as this was the middle of the week and not much was happening anywhere, other than on the farms outside of town.

the 'family history' coat

       All that changes on Saturdays, when Guihua holds its market day and Yi from the hills stream into town.  I couldn’t stay that long, unfortunately, so couldn’t assess how popular traditional clothing might still be in the district.  Judging from how few Yi women wore it in Guihua and the villages nearby, and what Li Hui told me, it seemed to be less common than in other districts in the county, such as Tanhua and Santai.

       Two traditional Yi styles prevail in the district.  The more common one resembles that of the Tanhua Yi, the women wearing a side-fastened, long-sleeved jacket, embroidered apron, shoulder bag and plain black trousers.  Older women’s jackets are solid color and plain while the younger generation applies wide bands of colorful embroidery and appliqué on the sleeves and along the lapel.  Both the apron and shoulder bag feature bright red embroidered flowers.

       Very different is the outfit worn by the women of a small Yi sub-group north and west of Guihua.  Over an ankle-length black skirt trimmed with bands of bright appliquéd designs, they don a long-tailed jacket with wide bands of different cutout designs on the sleeves, front and back.  The patterns chosen for the back of the coat symbolically represent events in the wearer’s family history.  Thus, no two coats are identical and while they may only wear them on special occasions, every woman makes herself one because custom demands they be buried wearing it after they die.

the Yi 'chicken hat'

       For headgear, Guihua Yi women inclined to dress traditionally may don a simple black turban or a colored headscarf.  But a more common and striking choice in the area is the brightly embroidered ‘chicken hat.’  Shaped like a coxcomb and often worn sideways, with the head and tail above the ears, similar ‘chicken hats’ are popular with other Yi sub–groups in the province (Nisu in Yuanyang, Tuli in Weishan). 

       The origin of this hat is an ancient tale of two lovers pursued by the Prince of Devils.  First he killed the young man, then tried to capture the young woman.  She fled through the forest, with the Prince of Devils in hot pursuit, until she came to a village in a clearing.  A cock crowed, which stopped the demon in his tracks.  A witness to that, she guessed the demon was afraid of roosters.  So she grabbed it and ran back into the forest to where her lover lay.  The cock crowed again and the young man came back to life.  Ever since then Yi girls wear the hat in honor of the rooster, to symbolize good luck and happiness in love.

Yi house in Guihua

       In my engagements with the Yi women I met in Guihua I persuaded a couple of them to sell me their shoulder bags.  One featured the big embroidered flowers typical of the Guihua style.  The other was cross-stitched, like the bags in Tanhua.  Li Hui apparently mentioned this while we dined with the Party officials that evening.  After a few rounds of corn liquor one of them proposed that I set up a factory in Guihua to produce Yi embroidered shoulder bags for export.  They would allow me 70% ownership.      

       I explained that traditional handicraft work was not something done in a factory, but at home and in the field whenever time was available.  Besides, I was a petty trader, at best, and in fact more of a collector, with no idea how to market Yi shoulder bags. 

Dacun village, on the road northi of Guihua

       Undaunted, perhaps ambitious to secure a business relationship with the first foreigner in Guihua, he next proposed I build a paper factory.  My first thought was the horrific effect that would have on the clean stream that ran below the town.  But I didn’t mention that.  I told him the area didn’t have the right trees.  In fact, it didn't have hardly any trees at all, of any kind.

        The conversation soon shifted to other topics and the evening was quite convivial.  My hosts tried to arrange a jeep to take me to Wanbi.  Unfortunately, the Party was having an important meeting in Beijing at that time and Party officials in districts throughout the country had to have their own meetings to discuss the Meeting.  The jeeps were busy fetching people from remote villages to attend the meetings, both Guihua’s vehicles and those of Wanbi.

the main street of Upper Wanbi

       Wanbi lies 88 km north of Guihua and the logging trucks only went to a depot about half way.  So my hosts arranged the only available transportation—a tractor-trailer (tuolache).  I had to pay 200 yuan and Li Hui would accompany me to smooth the way with the Wanbi officials.  I was familiar with these vehicles.  I’d seen them bring people to market day in Dayao, for example.  But that was on paved city streets.  The road ahead was unpaved all the way and had been pretty bumpy riding in the relative comfort of a truck up from Tanhua.  Nevertheless, there was no other choice.

       By tractor-trailer is probably the least comfortable way to travel.  The driver sits on a small, three-wheel tractor in front and passengers sit or stand in the four-wheel trailer behind.  It was too rough to sit and even standing we were continuously jolted.  Moreover, though it was a fine spring day, the wind was fierce and blew the dust from the road all over our bodies, baggage and camera.  I often had to call for a pause, just to give my bones a chance to settle down.

Lower Wanbi and the river in the morning

       The rough and rollicking journey took most of the day. The scenery was much the same as around Guihua, with farms, pastures and villages dominating the largely deforested lower mountain slopes.  We crossed the last ridge, descended to Wanbi on the river and arrived in time to check in at the government lodge and have dinner with our gracious hosts, the local Dai government officials.

       There was no shower in the building, but they arranged basins of hot water and towels for us to wash off the dirt from the ride.  The Party was holding meetings here, too, so they would be busy until Sunday, when it would be possible for me to cross the river.  Li Hui and the driver returned to Guihua next morning and I had two days to explore the vicinity on my own.

   

Dai woman in Wanbi

the Jinshajiang near Wanbi

       Wanbi has two parts.  Upper Wanbi is the original Dai village, sited on a slope above its terraced fields, with a view of the Jinshajiang and other Dai villages.  Its main street is lined with wooden shop houses, while the residential neighborhoods feature houses of wooden frames, rammed earth and tiled roofs, occasionally thatched, like those of the Yi villages south of the ridge.   They get two crops a year, wheat in winter, rice in summer, use water buffaloes as draft animals and raise goats.

Lisu girl at the Binghai ferry port

       Wanbi Dai are animist, so no temples stand in the area.  The old folks told me they think they came up from Xishuangbanna or Myanmar many centuries ago, but they also claimed that before Wanbi they lived north of the river.  I tried out several Thai phrases, but the only similarity was kin khao (“eat rice”), which they pronounced jin khao. However, those who had been to Banna said they could understand most of the Dai dialect they heard there.

       Lower Wanbi is the administrative town, full of drab concrete buildings.  But it is on a knoll close to the river, the main attraction.  Rice fields lay beside the town all the way to the riverbanks, but on the other side the steep hills are practically barren of any kind of vegetation.  The river is in places turbulent, but at other sections placid enough for fishermen in small boats to cast nets.  Huge boulders bank the river periodically, while in other places it laps along stretches of white sand.  Colors on the river and the hills vary throughout the day and are richest in late sunny afternoons.

crossing the river at Binghai

       After breakfast noodles the district chairman drove me to Binghai, 10 km upriver, where several small boats ferried people across the river that day to attend the weekly market on the other side.  The crowd on both banks was mostly Dai, but also Han and Yi, with some Lisu from settlements high up in the hills on both sides of the river.  Except for a few older women in dark, side-fastened jackets and black turbans, the Dai wore modern clothes.  Older Lisu women dressed similarly to older Dai women, but some of the younger women wore a distinctive, brightly colored jacket. 

          The regular ferry had engine trouble at the time, so people were taking rowboats instead.  We wound up paddled across in a dinghy made from inflated tire tubes.  Beside the marketplace several tractor-trailers were parked and I fretted I’d have to ride one of those to the nearest highway.  But my host, who insisted on paying for everything, found a truck to take me instead.  I departed thanking him for his hospitality and in particular for the final service of securing me a truck to take me to the highway.  One tractor-trailer adventure was quite enough.

Jinshajiang--the River of Golden Sand

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The Terraces of Baishuitai—Divine Prototypes

                                                      by Jim Goodman

first view coming from Shangrila

    The southwest Chinese province of Yunnan can boast of a greater geographical variety than anywhere else in the country.  Ecological zones range from the tropics of Xishuangbanna in the south to the slopes of the snow-clad mountains in the northwest and everything in between except a true desert and a seaside.  Even so, it has a few rain-shadow areas that all but qualify as a desert, with hills and cliffs carved by erosion into various fascinating shapes, as well as Fuxian Lake, the northern part of which has a beach just like southernmost China.  Other physical attractions of the province include mountains, rock formations, waterfalls, lakes, gorges, caves, geysers and hot springs that, of course, a traveler also finds in other parts of the country.

Milefo rock

    The sole phenomenon that is unique to China in Yunnan, and exists nowhere else in the world except for a spot in Turkey, is Yunnan’s Baishuitai, a set of natural white stone terraces in Shangrila County, in the northwest part of the province.  The county is known for its Tibetan villages, temples and architecture, but around Baishuitai the people are Naxi, the same minority nationality living across the Jinshajiang  (the Upper Yangzi River) in Lijiang County.

    Though it’s possible to walk there from Daju, in Lijiang County, in about two days, most journeys begin from Shangrila, from where a bus makes the 5-6 hours journey to Sanba, the largest of the Naxi villages. The road runs southeast, passing out of the Tibetan area after an hour or so and entering an area of heavily forested hills and scattered Yi villages. Haba Snow Mountain is barely visible from the pass over the last ridge before the descent to Sanba. Baishuitai (Chinese for White Water Platform) is first espied after winding down the hill several kilometers, looking like a great white blob of a rock, roughly 150 meters wide, lying on the slope of a hill a few hundred meters above the road. About one kilometer before this hill is the first of the villages, with Sanba five kilometers further on.

Baiushuitai terraces

    A closer inspection of Baishuitai reveals that the rock is full of terraces, pools and a shallow but constant flow of water. The local Naxis claim that the terraces were built by their gods as replicas of the rice terraces in Heaven. The Naxis thus learned to make terraced fields themselves for their own rice, wheat, corn and barley. The basic white color, as well as the terrace formations, are due to the deposits left by the waters of the spring above them, which punches through the soil at a cluster of holes above the rock, just below the forest line. As the water flowed over the slope it left behind carbonate of lime, which gradually built up and created little walled basins that trapped the water. Everything on the ground is swathed in lime, even plants and the trunks of bushes and trees.

Baishuitai terraces

    Although from a distance the creamy white base color stands out, particularly against the dark green of the forests, on closer inspection it is rather the streaks and runnels and the differences of hues over various sections of the rock that catch the eye. At the top the water flows into a large pond with inkblot-shaped islands.
    Then it spills out over a spacious flat section while the flow on the upper right section passes through several shallow turquoise pools with gray and white walls. This latter water flows down the entire right side of the rock, where the terraces are usually a pale shade of green. On the left side of the rock they are bluer, with streaks of yellow.

Sanba Valley from the edge of Baishuitai

    From the flat top one can see the whole valley, even past Sanba, to villages perched on the hills on the other side of the Jinshajiang. Terraced farms surround the settlements, some of which cling to the slopes, others lying on the top of small hills. Looking down on the rock itself one sees lines of mauve, green, purple and ocher wiggling across the surface. Except for the pools the ever-flowing water is only a couple of centimeters deep.

    It's very easy to walk across Baishuitai. Never is the surface of the rock so smooth as to be slippery, for time has left little encrustations everywhere. Besides the pleasure of being able to walk anywhere on the rock and examine its subtle colors, there is the added sensual awareness of the gentle sound of flowing water. Sometimes it falls 2-3 meters over a terrace wall into a waiting pool. The largest of these bulging rocks even has a name—Milefo, after the fat-bellied Chinese god of wealth.

dongba dance for Saimamie in Shangrila

    Naxis have captured this endless source of running water by digging a trench at the foot of the rock and channelling the water to other villages. A small stone shrine stands at the end, similar to those found around Lugu Lake. No Chinese or Tibetan-style temples exist here, for Baishuitai's Naxis, utterly isolated from outside religious influences, have retained the aboriginal faith. The dongbas still play an active role and old rituals abandoned elsewhere continue to be performed in the Sanba area.
    The most famous aspect of Naxi culture was its dongba tradition.  The dongba was the village ritual specialist, carrying out his duties with the aid of pictographic manuscripts.  These contained the instructions for several dozen complex rites dealing with a wide variety of spiritual problems, as well as Naxi history, mythology, folk tales, medical advice and other subjects.  Naxi tradition ascribes the creation of both the pictographic script and the rituals to a Naxi resident of the Sanba area named Dongba Shilo.  He is supposed to have lived in a cave near Baishuitai, where he meditated and conceived his system. 

Sanba Naxi woman in Shangrila

    Living in a cave for spiritual edification was also an ancient tradition of the Naxi people.  Until 1949 devotees would live in a hole in the ground near Wufeng Temple, near the summit of a mountain just south of Lijiang, for three years, three months, three weeks, three days and three hours before emerging.  Fed by the faithful, but otherwise engaged in meditation or sleep, success in this endeavor was supposed to enable them to fly. 
    No written evidence exists as to whether anyone actually achieved this, and the claim is not made for Dongba Shilo.  His chosen cave was actually more of a sub-surface grotto, accessible through a hole in the ceiling.  Until recent times dongbas from other Naxi-inhabited areas would visit this spot, lower themselves inside and take away one of the rocks, believing them sacred.  The dongba tradition was pretty much suppressed in the Lijiang Plain after 1949, but survived in outlying areas like Sanba.  Active dongbas from here perform at Shangrila’s Horse Races Festival and continue doing the traditional rites in their communities.  But no more pictographic manuscripts are left to guide them, for they were all destroyed by Tibetan marauders even before 1949.

         Sanba Naxi troupe at the Horse Races in Shangrila

    While the Baishuitai phenomenon is the primary reason to visit the area, the local Naxi are also worth getting to know.  Physically, the people strongly resemble the Naxi of Lijiang, especially in contrast with the predominant Tibetan and Han faces in Shangrila. Their dialect differs enough in vocabulary, though, that they have difficulty understanding the Lijiang dialect. The women wear a different kind of cape—a rectangular woven cloth, one meter by two meters, of wool or cotton, in no particular style or color. They also wear a sheepskin of about the same size and at festivals the boys wear white tunics and trousers, the women long black coats and sheepskins, braiding their hair with coloured yarn like Tibetan girls. The villagers are poor but self-sufficient for all their necessities. They are not often visited but are polite and reciprocate any interest in them. And they are the contemporary bearers of the original Naxi tradition.

natural models for Naxi terraces

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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

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