Pleasures of the Black Lisu Homeland

                                                         by Jim Goodman

Fugong city

       In terms of scenery, western Yunnan’s Nujiang Canyon just keeps getting better the further north one goes from its bottom end in Liuku.  Culturally speaking, though, the most interesting stretch is that from between Fugong city, practically the center of the canyon, and the Gongshan County boundary.  This area is the Black Lisu heartland, who form the majority of the population, and while they also live north and south, in the northern part of this county lie most of the rope-bridges still in regular use, the most traditional type of houses, the most prevalent use of the crossbow, and the greatest proportion of people dressing in the ethnic style, both men and women.  Consequently, it was the part of Nujiang I enjoyed the most.  And in the early years of this century, when I conducted my research, I was usually the only foreigner around.

       The Black Lisu first crossed the Biluo Mountains, which flank the eastern side of the river, in the 16^th century and settled in Fugong and Gongshan Counties.   They soon outnumbered the aboriginal Nu people and in the end so influenced them that nowadays Nu women in Fugong County dress like Lisu and use the Black Lisu dialect in the markets.  The Black Lisu women’s outfit comprises a long, bulky white, cotton or hemp skirt with gray pin-stripes or of black velvet, with some older women preferring blue, a long-sleeved blouse, side-fastened red or black vest, bead necklaces, a string of conch disks across one shoulder and a beaded cap lined with conch disks in the front.  On market days in northern Fugong County this is the outfit that dominates the crowds. 

Lisu gentleman, Lishadi

the Black Lisu ethnic style

       Unlike other traditional minority areas, though, here the men also dress Lisu-style, mainly with a long-sleeved white shirt, with the same gray pin-stripes as on the women’s skirts, the pockets and cuffs bordered in black velvet.  Both sexes carry the same shoulder bag, red with colored bands and a black strap

the "many-legged house"

       Until well into the 20^th century the Lisu tended to site their villages high up on the slopes of the 4000 meters+ mountains flanking the river.  Where the ground was relatively level they built box-like, wooden houses of four meters per side.  But more often the houses were on slopes, elevated by 20 to 30 stilts and known as “many-legged houses” or even “thousand-legs houses.”  Nearly every family kept pigs and chickens.  Some owned cattle and ponies as well.

       This area beneath the house served as a place to store plows, troughs and other things.  The floor above was the living space, with a fireplace in the center and a bamboo tray suspended above it, where they kept household implements and the bamboo tubes and dried gourds used for carrying water. Smoke from the cooking fire permeated these items, which made them impervious to insects.

       Out of bamboo they also made cups, tumblers and mugs, chopsticks, bowls, ladles, pipe stems, crossbow bolts and cases, flutes and Jew’s harps.  After spitting the bamboo into strips, men plaited them into carrying baskets, fish traps, winnowing trays, floors and walls and the cradle-basket mothers use to carry their infants.  Women made the floor mats from straw on a primitive loom.

split-bamboo walls on a Lisu house near Fugong

       On their farms they cultivated maize, buckwheat, barley, yams and beans.  In the 20^th century rice farming initiated and now it is the most important crop.  As a result, the former slash-and-burn way of farming has yielded to terrace cultivation.  Other 20^th century innovations include the construction of roads and suspension bridges, replacing the rough caravan trails of old and many of the rope-bridges, which were formerly the only way to cross the river, and the introduction of electricity to even the highest villages, thanks partly to the harnessing of the river’s energy potential through many small-scale hydroelectric projects.  Traveling through the county now, one sees these almost as often as spectacular waterfalls.

the Stone Moon

       Throughout nearly the entire route along the Nu River, the highway runs just above the water, with the Gaoligong Mountains flanking the west side and the Biluo Range the east banks.  North of Fugong it makes one of its rare ascents high above the river, between Lumadeng and Lishadi, on the approach to the area’s most famous landmark—the Stone Moon. 

       Though not one of the highest Gaoligong Mountains, it is unique for the huge oval hole, 80 meters wide, near the top of one of its peaks.  Nujiang’s Lisu attribute its creation to the divine shepherd Adeng, who was the lover of the heavenly princess Ala.  She was the daughter of the Dragon King of the East Sea, who was opposed to their affair and put up obstacles to their union.  The lovers then eloped to Earth.  The Dragon King spotted them on Gaoligong Mountain and, commanding the seas, dispatched waves of water onto the area, attempting to drown the pair.  With his magic bow and arrows, Adeng shot a hole in one of the peaks.  The water passed through this hole and rushed elsewhere, leaving the lovers high, dry and safe.

Nujiang landscape, from the Biluoshan side

       The road descends past the Stone Moon, but continuing north the mountains keep rising, some with perpendicular, fluted cliffs near the summits or snow on the peaks.  As for the river, so much of it whitewater rapids, it was a big part of the scenery, too, changing from brown to green to blue, depending on the season, and in winter, when it ran at less volume, revealing patches of white sand beaches.  It was certainly a great landscape for any kind of research and I dragged my own out an extra year or more just for the pleasure of returning to revel in it.

       That wasn’t the only excuse, though. To climb slopes to get special photographs, to hike along the river just to hear its roar, or to ride another rope-bridge—these were physical thrills.  Equally enjoyable were my encounters with the Black Lisu residents, both in Fugong and vicinity and at the market days upriver in Maji (Mondays), Lishadi (Tuesdays) and Lumadeng (Wednesdays).  Fugong stages its own every five days and offers the greatest variety of products at stalls lining several streets. Besides the usual conglomeration of goods—modern and traditional clothing, shoes, umbrellas, tools and baskets, food and animals, seed packets and orchids galore, market day in Fugong features items generally not found elsewhere in the county.  Some layouts offer freshly slain wild game, like various birds, field rats and flying squirrels.  Handmade items of wood and bamboo are more available here, too, sold by men.  These include bamboo cups, flutes, Jew’s harps, tobacco pipes, crossbows, bolts and quivers.

jungle produce in the Fugong market

       Upriver market days offered less variety, but were crowded all the same, with even more people dressed in traditional clothing.  I always went early to seek appropriate spots to photograph villagers coming down the mountains or crossing the bridges on their way to the towns.  I would try out some of the Lisu language small talk I’d learned, which always drew a positive response and often led to invitations to tea, noodles or liquor in the markets or perhaps dinner at their house in a nearby village.  I’d have to revert to simple Chinese rather soon if the conversation continued very long.  But I had the satisfactory feeling of becoming part of their family history from then on.  ‘Yes, we met a foreigner once.  And he spoke Lisu!’

Lisu women on their way to Lumadeng market day

       At least half of the Black Lisu are Christian, yet just as friendly as the traditional animists.  The only real difference in their attitude to guests is that the Christians don’t drink or smoke, so the encounter is necessarily more subdued than sharing drinks at the hearth of a non-Christian host.  Traditional Lisu have a saying, “If the guest leaves the house sober, the family failed its hospitality responsibilities.”  But before I got too intoxicated in such situations, the host always made sure I returned to my hotel safely.  It could mean strapping me up to his cable hook to ride the rope-bridge over the river together, or accompanying me on my walk down the hill to make sure I didn’t stumble.  All part of the hospitality responsibilities, I assumed.

       The biggest public events of the Black Lisu calendar fall in late December.  For the Christians, of course, it’s Christmas Day.  For the traditional Lisu it’s Kuoshi, their New Year, which in recent decades has been fixed to start 21 December, the winter solstice, and run two or three days, depending on locality. Honoring the Lord of Heaven Baijani, asking his blessing for the coming months, as well as honoring the spirits of the village and the family ancestors make up the spiritual duties of Kuoshi.  The rest of the festival is devoted to making manifest that venerable Lisu adage, “None but the dead should be deprived of the mirth of life.”

climbing the greased pole at Kuoshi

playing the bamboo mouth-harp

       I attended the daytime activities at a hillside village 2 km south of the Fugong city limits, which were under way by 10 a.m.  Several men were competing in a crossbow competition in one field, while others struggled to climb a greased pole about eight meters high.  Early efforts provoked much laughter as those who tried just kept sliding down quickly.  After a while, enough dry spots appeared on the pole that finally one young man reached the top and plucked the flag.  Just as merry were the tug-of-war contests, pitting one village against another, or one neighborhood against another, or even boys against girls.  Spectators cheered their favorites, applauded the winners and derided the losers, who had been ingloriously yanked into the dirt.

the "one-heart drink"

       Meanwhile, ring dances commenced in another area, accompanied by women on bamboo mouth-harps, boys on flutes and three-stringed lutes and much drinking by both participants and spectators.  I was literally dragged into this scene, not so much to dance as to enjoy the local custom of the ”one-heart drink,” wherein one drinks cheek-to-cheek with the woman from a single large tumbler or bamboo mug.  After accepting several insistent invitations, being the only foreign male there, I was already quite drunk.

       The activities were winding down and folks heading home.  I hadn’t eaten yet, saw that it was two o’clock, and decided to stop at the first noodle shop on the way to the city.  My next conscious thought was of waking up sprawled out beside a partly demolished wall of a building two blocks past the turn-off to my hotel and one block from the main road, in a not particularly interesting residential neighborhood, oblivious as to how I got there.  A glance at my little clock informed me it was 4:30 p.m.  I still had my camera, money and other valuables and if any local people had passed me they probably just stepped over me, like they did with their own drunks who fell asleep on the street.  I later learned that Fugong had the lowest crime rate in all of China’s thousands of counties.  So if you are going to fall into a drunken stupor anywhere in the country, it’s safest to do so in Fugong.

rice-beer on sale in Lishadi

       Fortunately, I still had time to recover before the evening show.  The previous night marked the passage of the old year, with a stage show in a primary school courtyard of songs, comedy acts and dances, including a particularly lovely number by a Lishadi troupe, named after the Stone Moon, with girls periodically forming the famous oval with their arms.  This night’s show, welcoming the New Year, was held in a hillside field in the city’s northern suburbs.  But aside from getting the bonfire going, there was nothing organized about it.  No stage shows entertained the people. 

       Instead, they entertained each other, with music and dancing, spontaneous antiphonal singing, flirting and the free flow of rice-beer.  Pretty young women in their best traditional gear went around to all the guests to share “one-heart drinks.”  Because the crowd was larger than the one I had joined in the morning, I didn’t have to quaff as much beer this time and wound up in a state of inebriation I could handle.  I was a bit worried that I would overdo it again and not remember any details of the party.

       How the girls could consume so much I never did figure out.  Only some months later I learned that the Lisu ferment the brew for thirty days and thus it tastes like ordinary beer but it’s practically as strong as whiskey.  Until then I had never believed people who said they got so drunk they didn’t remember a thing.  But now it had happened to me.  I still cannot recall what happened those two and a half lost hours.  To this day I don’t know whether I ate noodles or not.  My Black Lisu hosts and hostesses had definitely carried out their hospitality responsibilities.

Black Lisu woman iLishadi for market day

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Calling on the Wa in China

                                                        by Jim Goodman

    The easiest place to meet China’s fascinating Wa minority is the southwestern Yunnan county of Menglian, just west of Xishuangbanna.  The county capital itself, pleasantly sited astride the Bin River, hosts its regular open market every five days.  Wa villagers, mostly women, from hills in all directions stream into town with baskets of mountain herbs and vegetables to sell, joining their hill neighbors the Lahu and Aini, as well as local Dai and Han.  If they haven’t rented one of the stalls in the official market square they simply set up shop under a shady tree somewhere between the river and the market square, or anywhere along a street, if it’s not raining.  They still prefer their traditional hand-woven wraparound, striped cotton skirt, heavy on the red and black, along with chunky silver jewelry, shoulder bags studded with Job’s tear seeds, and peaked cotton caps held down by multiple strands of silver.  Aini and Lahu women also don colorful traditional outfits and ornaments for market day.

Wa woman,Menglian County

 

Wa in Menglian on market day

     For eye-catching jewelry, though, it’s hard to beat the Wa earplugs, intricately designed silver crowns on tubes about 3 cm in diameter, inserted through enlarged holes in the ear lobes.  It takes over a month to gradually expand the original hole by inserting another toothpick-sized bamboo splinter every two or three days.  Women also wear inscribed silver disc-pendants, strings of beads, several bangles each wrist, and wide bead belts.  Long-stemmed silver pipes, which women of all ages seem to favor, serve as ornaments when not in use, as they are then tucked in the cap or belt.
   

Wa jewelry in Menglian

Wa smoker in Gengma

    Townships to the north and west, mostly Wa-inhabited, can be reached by regular mini-vans out of Menglian town.  The Wa traditionally live in houses of bamboo and wood, on stilts, with roofs of thatch and an adjoining open balcony.  Women often hook up their looms on this balcony, especially in the dry season, and are oblivious to the stranger’s fascination with the process of weaving.
    Menglian’s Wa are quick to welcome the rare foreigner who wanders into their villages.  I could hardly walk a hundred paces without hearing friendly greetings, sometimes even in English, nor be more than five minutes into my exploration without someone inviting me inside for tea.  In one village my excursion coincided with a wedding.

Ximeng County Wa girl

    Between the harvest and Lunar New Year is the Wa wedding season.  In a large village marriages occur almost daily and, buoyed by the joy of the occasion, the people are especially hospitable.  No grand ceremony or dance takes place, just a bit of divination with the thighbones of the sacrificial chicken.  But as Wa youth choose their own partners, Wa custom is not to allow a negative prognosis to overrule affairs of the heart.  They just slay another chicken (or more, if need be!) until the thighbone reading is favorable.  Following this comes a grand celebratory feast, with lots of pork and rice-liquor.  And the stranger is the guest of honor, with whom everybody wants to share a personal, bottoms-up toast.
    The first words I learn to say in Wa were nyu bre—drink liquor.  Now, inspired by the alcohol, I asked my hosts for more words and phrases, jotted them down, and soon had enough to try speaking with the nearest unmarried Wa girl in her own language.  “How are you?  Are you enjoying yourself today?  What’s your name?  Don’t be shy.  I love you.”  My hosts, and the girl as well, found this uproariously amusing.  When shortly afterwards it was time to return to Menglian, half the village came out to see me off.

     Yes, a foreigner wanders alone freely and safely through remote Wa villages nowadays.  Two or three generations ago, travelers needed armed escorts.  The villages were very large, stockaded settlements, fortified all around, with a single entry passage via a tunnel through thick thorn bushes, which ended at a heavy gate.  The Wa were notorious head-hunters until the mid-1950’s, when the government finally launched a campaign to eradicate the practice.
    Spring was the prime head-hunting season, for the Wa believed the head contained the human soul-force needed to provide spiritual protection for the rice crop about to be planted.  One or two fresh skulls were required every year or two, mounted on tall poles on the village perimeter, replaced and buried when their soul-force was considered depleted.  Wa warriors generally took heads from relatively distant villages, so that the soul-force within the skull would not wander off, trying to find its way back home.  Non-Wa strangers were thus also vulnerable, and in general steered clear of the Wa-inhabited areas.

old village in Awashan

    Life wasn’t much more secure for the Wa themselves, as the system inherently generated blood feuds among villages.  Hence, villages were huge, containing sometimes over 300 households, for it was safer to live in big, defensible settlements.  The whole area, loosely called Awashan, or the Wa Hills, was so insecure for so long in its history that the border between Burma and China was not fully demarcated until the 1960’s.
    Most of Yunnans’ 350,000+ Wa live in one or another mountain range along the Burmese border in Pu’er and Lincang Prefectures.  In Ximeng and Cangyuan they are the majority ethnic group, far outnumbering the Dai and Han.  How long they have resided in Yunnan is unknown, for the Wa have no written history.  But cliff paintings of typically Wa activities like hunting, festival dances and buffalo sacrifices, which contemporary Wa claim to be the work of their ancestors, adorn a cliff face at Ai Hua, near Menglai township in Cangyuan County.  They are said to be 2000 years old.
    Not all Wa in the old days were headhunters.  Outsiders used to classify them as Wild Wa and Tame Wa, both in China and Burma.  The former were the true warrior societies, who took heads regularly and were much feared by people in the plains.  The Tame Wa either purchased heads from Wild Wa warriors or substituted wild animal or buffalo skulls instead.
    A turning point in Wa history came with the British annexation of Upper Burma in 1881.  British expeditions into the hills close to China were taken to establish administrative control and pacify as much of the area as could render ordinary commerce possible.  The proportion of Tame Wa began to grow, especially in those areas close to major routes.  Christian missionaries, mainly Baptist, penetrated the Wild Wa domain in Ximeng and Lancang Counties in the first decades of the 20th century, as I was to discover exploring the Wa area around Ankang district, in Lancang County.

Ai Hua rock paintings

   Ankang proper is disappointing:  all buildings concrete, nobody in Wa clothing and the only sign of a typically Wa connection with nature was a huge moth mounted on the door of an apartment.  Everyone there was Christian.  One of the villagers invited me to see their church, in a slightly more picturesque village halfway down the mountain. It was a simple, long wooden building on stilts, with virtually no interior decorations, other than a picture of Jesus, remarkably similar to those one might find in Tennessee or Kentucky.  I arrived just before their late afternoon services. 
    Perhaps as many as half the adults in the village started streaming into the church.  I was not the first foreigner they had ever met, just the first non-missionary.  The village was converted about 80 years ago and had resident foreign missionaries until 1949.  Besides a new religion, they also introduced Ankang’s Wa to another Western tradition—shaking hands upon making acquaintance.
    As soon as villagers saw me in the church they came up to shake my hand.  This was interrupted by the services, but resumed afterwards, continuing until the moment our tractor-trailer left at dusk.  The services themselves were short, comprising a brief sermon by one of the men, followed by the singing of two hymns.  As many men as women attended, the latter mostly dressed in Wa costume, here mainly black garments and big turbans.  Both used hymnals with the lyrics translated into Wa, using a Romanized script devised by missionaries in Burma during its colonial days.

Christian Wa services

    Christian Wa had already been the tamest of the Tame Wa before the Chinese government in 1956 established authority in the last of the Wild Wa areas and decided it was time to tame them as well.  The last recorded headhunting incident occurred in 1958, motivated by a feud and not a desire to protect the rice crop.  It was resolved in the traditional Wa way—by compensation rather than incarceration.  But the system, even the belief that sponsored it, was dead, and as a result Wa villages dismantled their fortifications.
    In some villages in southern Gengma and western Cangyuan counties, the Wa became Buddhist.  Getting off the bus at Ban Hong, 45 km northwest of Cangyuan town, I discovered monks walking around, and young Wa novices in yellow robes playing in the courtyard of a temple in the Wa style, with two roofs like Dai village temples, but covered in thatch.  Near the center of the village stood a small shed housing the sacred village pillar, modeled on those in Buddhist Dai villages in the plains.

Buddhist Wa temple in Ban Hong district

    Stopping at the village temple to chat with the head monk, I was importuned to have lunch.  As one might expect, it was a vegetarian meal, served with tea and not rice-beer, consumed inside the temple proper.  When the monks learned I lived in Thailand they nodded, yes, a Buddhist country.  Their own quarters were in a single-roofed adjoining building.  The Wa of western Cangyuan and southern Gengma Counties became Buddhist after the eradication of headhunting.  Dai monks then campaigned in the hills and quickly converted scores of villages.
    In the hills east of Gengma, as well as east of Cangyuan and south along the border to Menglian County, Wa villages gave up head-hunting, but retained other aspects of their culture and animist religion. Wa traditions, minus the bloodthirsty ones, still animate the lives of a good portion of the Wa population.  Many of the old festivals survive, or in some cases were revived.  But no general rule exists on such a phenomenon.  What survived in one area lapsed in another.  What was revived in one county was ignored in the next.  Only in recent years, influenced by the revivalism affecting most Yunnan ethnic minorities, have the Wa begun relating more to each other, seeking common cultural denominators among the Wa sub-groups or, in the case of the traditional and exuberant Hair Dance, adopting new ones.  Other affinities will be found in the domestic lifestyle and village architecture.
    From various vantage points on the road from Mengsheng south to Cangyuan one can easily see traditional Wa villages on slopes of the nearest hills, their antiquity evident by their great size—like rural metropolises.  Very few modern buildings mar the otherwise uniform pattern of peaked, thatched roofs that reach nearly to the ground.  A niche-like opening cut into the thatch enables one to ascend the small staircase in front and enter.  Interiors are dark, with a central hearth.  Houses in the western part of Wa-inhabited areas do not have the adjoining balcony, though some have a crude raised porch in the yard.

Wa woman in Zuodou

    Looking for a typical traditional Wa village near Xuelin, in northwestern Lancang County, I was advised to go to Zuodou, 17 km by winding road, but only half that by a short-cut, w-like trail.  Zuodou lies high in the hills.  Its few modern buildings—school and administrative offices—stand on flat land beside the road, several Wa homes to their side.  But walk past these and the old and (relatively) new parts of Zuodou sprawl across the hilly terrain.  Perhaps 300 or more households make up Zuodou: houses close together, elevated slightly, with steeply-sided roofs, a few in corrugated iron or asbestos, all the rest in thatch.  Villagers grow rice, maize and vegetables on dry terraces, supplementing this by hunting with crossbows and long-barreled rifles, trapping, and the gathering of wild edibles and medicinal plants. 

    Cotton is another local crop, used for spinning thread to weave their wraparound skirts and the cloth for their jackets and turbans.  In the dry season women are often at work in cloth production, by spinning, dyeing or winding thread and by weaving on simple back-strap looms that can be hooked up anywhere.  Unlike Xuelin, where modern styles are the rule, Zuodou women mostly prefer their traditional clothes.  Whether walking around in the thatched neighborhoods or sitting outside at the loom, they give Zuodou an almost timeless atmosphere.   
    I arrived with a Chinese friend on what I expected to be an ordinary winter morning. Instead, with the first invitation to come inside and have a drink, I became acquainted with a Wa custom I didn’t know existed, as well as the proper way to quaff rice-beer.  My host family was in the process of celebrating the castration of their buffalo that morning.
    The Wa here castrate the buffalo when it has reached 14 years of age, though on no particular day in the lunar calendar.  The deed is done to render the animal gentler and easier to handle, as its prime reproductive days are over.  Yet it’s an important occasion, for the family that carries it out then must invite the heads of all families in the same clan to a feast featuring several pork dishes and an abundance of rice-beer.

older woman in Zuodou

    The castration took place shortly after sunrise.  As the other guests arrived and the women prepared the food, the men gathered around the hearth inside the house and commenced drinking rice-beer.  Now this is not a particularly potent drink but the men began drinking quite early this day and by the mid-morning meal a degree of intoxication was affecting every one of them.  Some were singing old Wa songs, but independently of each other, while those next to them paid no attention and just upped the volume of their conversations.
    Meanwhile, as fresh guests we were given a few preliminary, pre-dinner drinks and then, after the meal, most of the beer in the single communal mug was served to us, as if they wanted us to catch up to their level of inebriation.  The rice-beer is stored in a large ceramic pot and the host ladles it into a large bamboo mug, without handles, and, holding the mug with both hands, gives it to the guest.  Taking it with both hands, the guest drinks a little bit of the brew then, again, always, with two hands, passes it back to the host.  He takes it, with both hands, has a small drink and gives it back to the guest.  This custom is designed for the guest to show respect to the host.  After receiving the mug again the guest may drink the rest of the contents, or just a portion and offer the mug to another guest.
    This is a slow but steady way to get drunk.  The cacophony of the party hardly abated the next hour or more while our host served us mug after mug.  We toasted everyone and everything that came to mind and finally persuaded them to cease serving us beer so that I could photograph them.  So we finally made it outside, took portraits, wrote down their address to post them the results, and departed for other quarters of Zuodou.  And while I have my photos, as well as a couple of nice Wa shoulder bags, my favorite souvenir of the Wa Hills will be my memory of the Wa way of drinking.

Wa village, Cangyuan County

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