7. Searching for the Heroic Age of the Yi People of Liangshan
Liu Yu
Liangshan before the revolution of 1956 was a contradictory society full of the spirit of the Heroic Age. Competition and development, conservatism and stagnation, slave levies and exploitation: all were interwoven here. Of course, most of those able to take part in competition were nuoho (Black Yi) of noble rank, and after them qunuo (commoners). As for the slaves—gaxy, people of other nationalities who had been captured—they were deprived of all rights. For them there was no equality on which they could depend, only exploitative enslavement. It is a common element of class societies that the freedom of some people is sacrificed in order to bring about other people's development; in Liangshan society this circumstance was more nakedly displayed. In discussing the Heroic Age, Qian Mingzi has stated: “This is an age of rebellion, and also an age of hope; it is an age in which boundless evil is brought about by private desires between people; and it is an age in which the human race has, from the barbarous state, entered a stage of civilization. In these times, the standard of justice and wickedness is whether or not something benefits one's own tribe. People depend on courage and force of arms to protect themselves, and warfare is an important means of increasing the wealth of oneself and one's own group. Martial prowess is seen as the highest virtue” (1982, 91).
If we ignore Toynbee's criticism of the Heroic Age from the standard of civilization, then his characterization of the Heroic Age matches Qian's. Toynbee wrote, “The sociological explanation is to be found in the fact that the Heroic Age is a social interregnum in which the traditional habits of primitive
The author is grateful for the kind help and guidance of Professor Stevan Harrell of the University of Washington, and Professor Wang Qingren and Associate Professor Leng Fuxiang of Central University of Nationality. The manuscript draft was translated by David Prager Banner.
Of course, a heroic age is a special period in which an ethnic group can concentrate its own power and stimulate its own sense of pride. It is also a turning point for an ethnic group on its way to unity and maturity. For those peoples who have experienced it, even though their heroic ages took place at different times, the patterns were quite similar. War was pervasive, and the major cause for war was pressure from both inside and outside. However, this does not mean that a heroic age can appear at any time; that is, without the occurrence of specific historical conditions. Generally speaking, a heroic age would appear only when an ethnic group was still in separated tribal society, a circumstance that could unify the group, complete its character, and make it a powerful nationality. But the warlike style of a heroic age leads to the fact that the period must be short. If a society long remained in its heroic age, it could not exist in the civilized world or, at least, could not develop sufficiently.
The Yi people of Liangshan were a typical example in this regard. Ceaseless war in Liangshan during the Heroic Age of the Yi destroyed local productivity, hampered the growth of the economy, and restricted political development. One reason that Liangshan Yi society could exist in a special environment surrounded by class society might have resulted from its heroic spirit, which became the ideological prompt that caused the Liangshan Yi people to unify consistently and fight bravely against outside invasions. For us today, it is the living scene of Liangshan Yi people that turns the Greek myths and the poems of Homer into reality and shows a lifelike picture of the Heroic Age. Reading the Greek myths and the poems of Homer I have felt this heroic spirit most deeply. But these are merely myths and old poems. The Liangshan Yi view of life seems to exhibit before my very eyes the vivid image of another heroic age. I feel the strong ethnic pride and cohesion of the Yi, and the great value of their customs, culture, ornamentation, and all the rest. These things are inseparably bound to the heroic temperament that perpetuates this age, deeply enticing me to explore.
A wealth of research has been conducted about the Yi people of Liangshan and their society as they were prior to the 1950s. By and large almost all researchers have fixed their sights on the “cruel and bloodstained” slave system. Judging from the materials in my possession, there was doubtless a significant element of “cruelty and blood” in Liangshan society, yet many scholars have never deeply explored other elements: the society's spirit of valor, resourcefulness, eloquence, and competitiveness—all of which are characteristics of a heroic age. In my opinion, it is necessary to research this aspect in detail if we want to thoroughly understand either the society or the Yi people of Liangshan.
I. THE HEROIC AGE—ANOTHER ASPECT OF THE YI, SEEN THROUGH THEIR SAYINGS
Toynbee wrote:
From the scientific standpoint, it is a mere accident of no scientific significance that the material tools which Man has made for himself should have a greater capacity to survive, after they have been thrown on the scrap-heap, than Man's psychic artifacts: his institutions and feelings and ideas. Actually, while this mental apparatus is in use, it plays a vastly more important part than any material apparatus can ever play in human lives; yet because of the accident that a discarded material apparatus leaves, and a discarded psychic apparatus does not leave, a tangible detritus, and because it is the métier of the archaeologist to deal with human detritus in the hope of extracting from it a knowledge of human history,the archaeological mind tends to picture Homo Sapiens as Homo Faber par excellence. (1939, 156)
In the case of the Liangshan Yi, it is merely a result of certain historical circumstances that their transition from a clan society to a political society was especially drawn out. It is exactly for this reason that the psychic artifacts of the Heroic Age—institutions and feelings and ideas—are not only preserved by Liangshan Yi society but also, as Toynbee said, play a more important role than any material tool in the society. The great numbers of proverbs in the Yi language, along with the patriclan system, are the psychic artifacts of the Liangshan Yi Heroic Age that do remain. The Yi people are a nationality with aprofound culture, and the Liangshan Yidemonstrate this profundity in their corpus of proverbs, full of wisdom, experience, and customs. These proverbs are the crystallized life experience of the Yi, the flower of the Yi language, the very measure of their life and deportment. Many proverbs fairly overflow with heroic sentiments.
[1] Translator's note: These proverbs are all translated from the Chinese shown in the author's draft, not from the original Yi.
In battle one thinks not of life; in the field one thinks not of death.
One thinks not of thrift when entertaining a guest; one thinks not of one's life when fighting or killing enemies.
No one gives way when wrestling; no one flees when caught in a hold.
There is no boy that does not wish to be brave; there is no girl that does not wish to be beautiful.
When one goes into the forest one does not fear leopards; when one guards the crops one does not fear bears.
When one climbs high cliffs one does not fear vultures; on the battlefield one does not fear sacrifice.
― 107 ―Yi men from the mountains are brave; Yi women from the mountains are beautiful.
To wrestle is to want to win; to win is to want to be famous.
If I am not strong, other people are not weak.
What these deceptively simple expressions of heroism show is the very soul of the Yi. Once you remove the pettiness and degradation of the people involved in the slave society, what are revealed are the value and pursuit of life.
Scholars in the past have paid attention only to certain particular features of this slave society,have researched only the four castes of this society within the framework of class oppression; naturally, what they have seen is the misery of the gaxy and the overbearing character of the nuoho nobility. But if we take the Yi clan system as our viewpoint, we will see that within clan society the nuoho and qunuo are actually living in a society of egalitarian competition, and that within their clans not only does oppression not exist, but there is no personal authority above that of the clan as a whole. In fact, up until the beginning of the 1950s, there were no administrative divisions equivalent to the township (xiang), district (qu), or county (xian) among the Yi; much less had they evolved a unified regime. Of the Lolo Xuanwei Authority set up under Mongol rule—and even the Jianchang tusi (local ruler) who was the highest authority in Ming-era Liangshan—it was said that “although in name he is the administrator in chief, he doesn't even have fixed fortified village sites” (Gu 1831, chap. 65, 26a). That is to say, the famous Lili tusi who served as Jianchang headman did not even supervise property and people by zhai (village) territorial units; he imposed levies and exacted tribute not by geography but by the traditional system of clans. For instance, he exacted tax and tribute according to the social position of the various nzymo and nuoho clans of Adu tusi, Azhuo tusi, Jiejue tumu (local government officers), Alu, Aho, Ezha, Hma, Ga, and so on. If even the Lili tusi did things this way, then there is no question about the other tusi and tumu. Actually, the titles tusi and tumu applied only to the people who lived near Han areas, the so-called familiar, or cooked, barbarians (shouyi). As for the uncontrollable Nuosu in the heart of Liangshan, the so-called alien or raw barbarians (shengfan), the Annals of Mabian Sub-prefecture written during the Jiaqing period of Qing Dynasty has this to say: “Although the Black-Bones [heigutou] family belongs to the same clan as the tubaihu[local government officers], it looks to the strength of its own people, it has its own subdivisions, and it governs its own clansmen; the tubaihu cannot give it orders.”
[2] Tubaihu means a low-ranking tusi or native official.
Again, “those that live in the Han area and are under the administration of the tusi and tushe[local government officers] are the friendly barbarians, numbering some three or four thousand households; those in [the heart of] Liangshan are alien barbarians,For example, two hundred years ago, the Alu and Hma clans joined forces to defeat the Jiejue tumu, driving the Shama tusi from Meigu district to Wagang and dividing the land and slaves they captured. Only a generation before this, the Aho clan had crushed the Xinji tusi (Sichuan Sheng bianji zu 1987, 67). That the nuoho dared to rebel and attack the tusi and tumu was no doubt because they could not bear the heavy taxation and because they were greedy for the slaves and land of the tusi and tumu. This illustrates even more fully the true feeling of the Yithat “Nuoho have no masters; they speak and act of their own will.” This feeling is a psychological portrait of a heroic age.
The experiences of the Yithrough history have taught them that “a strong clan can defeat a strong enemy.” Indeed, their strong clans, linked by blood bonds, became the “hundred-armed giants” of Greek myth. In the face of these hundred-armed giants, the 93 percent of the population that was ruled (including ordinary quho and true slaves) had no means of resistance. One nuoho has described things this way: “If a gaxy belonging to a nuoho household ran away or did something serious, the household merely got in touch with the head of their branch of the clan, and the news quickly reached the heads of all the individual families of relatives. All the branches could get in touch with each other to coordinate or research means of dealing with the problem. No matter where the gaxy was sold, just like a frog that has fallen into a basin he or she would have great difficulty going back.” Imagine if the Nuosu clans had not had this clan blood bond—it would have been much easier for slaves to abscond, and the nuoho would have lost their mighty network of rule. By governing separately, using only the chain and the whip, it would have been impossible for the minority nuo (nuo means noble; nuoho indicates a specific group of nobles) nobility to rule the slave majority. That is why the Yiproverb says “The horse's strength is in its waist, the ox's strength is in its neck; the nuoho's strength is in his clan.”
Nuoho clans, linked by blood ties, could not only deal with slaves who were ideologically shackled, whose clans had dispersed, or who lacked a clan altogether,
It was precisely this summoning of clan power that allowed the nuoho to rule within and resist attack without. The clan system was a powerful social organizing force for them, whether politically, economically, or militarily. Under the flag of one's own blood clan, everyone had a common enemy and everything was directed outward. And so a Yi saying compares the clan to indispensable necessities of life like food and clothing: “What you must own are cattle and sheep; what you must eat is food, what you must have is your clan.”
The clan could also make a stand for the sake of one member or for the benefit of one family. For instance, when the Ssehxo subclan of the Vulie clan killed Aho Sseha, Sseha's elder brother sought help from the subclan to take revenge for the dead. At the clan meeting, it was agreed that if one person's murder were not taken seriously, then the safety of the whole clan could not be guaranteed, and so they launched a revenge party. In another example, Aho Degie was so poor that he didn't have enough to eat. People in the clan pooled grain to give him, while others invited him to eat with them. After he died, all his burial expenses were paid by people in the clan (Sichuan Sheng bianji zu 1987, 68). Conversely, the clan demanded the willing sacrifice of individuals for the benefit of the whole clan. Take the example of the Suxie and Ashy branches of the Jjidi clan, which were having a feud. For the sake of peace negotiations, the Suxie forfeited the lives of two of its own members, which put an end to the feud (ibid., 152). By doing so, the Suxie branch preserved itself from the brink of destruction and upheld the entire clan's rule of the qunuo and the castes below them. A proverb says “If you fail to protect one household, the whole clan is in danger; if you fail to protect the clan, the whole thing will be picked bare.” On this basis stood both the protection of an individual and the demand for sacrifice of an individual—both were done for the sake of the whole. Otherwise, both the clan and its individual members would have been weaker; they were bound together, sharing whatever life brought, for better or for worse. Because every Nuosu grasped this, there were countless souls willing to volunteer to die for the good of the clan. In autumn 1931, for example,
It is true that the clan system of the Nuosu of Liangshan offered protection to each member; therefore Liangshan people sigh, “For Yi to have kin is more important than anything; lack anything, but do not lack kin” (Sichuan Sheng bianji zu 1987, 69). In Liangshan, clan heads merely attended to common activities of the society when required or at the request of clan members. In daily life, Liangshan people attended to their own affairs—nuoho ruled their slaves of different classes, using the power of their blood bonds within the district where they lived. And so the saying goes: “The nuoho have no master; the clan is their master.” Indeed, one single phrase sums up the true meaning of Liangshan society—the individual belongs to the clan.
II. UPBRINGING AND LIFE AMONG THE LIANGSHAN YI
In Liangshan, nuoho clan structure was a tool for protecting the privileges of the nuoho nobility and oppressing the ruled ranks. Common hero worship stimulated individual ability and molded the spiritual vigor of those who possessed the talent needed by society. As for the ruled quho ranks, they depended on clan structure for protection and took nuoho hero worship as their model. Both nuoho and quho wanted their own clans to be powerful and to produce heroes, generation after generation. To achieve this, the society formed a whole set of norms for raising and training the young, including the following.
1. Reciting One's Family Tree
“All Kachins recognize the existence of an elaborate system of patrilineal clanship elaborately segmented. The lineages of this clan system ramify throughout the Kachin Hills Area and override all frontiers of language and local custom” (Leach 1954, 57). Similarly, the Nuosu also understand their genealogies and use them to confirm their kinship relations. Nuosu, regardless of whether they are nuoho or quho, must have from a young age a complete understanding of the environment in which they live. This environment consists foremost of a network of blood relations, on one hand, and interpersonal relations, on the other. Children come to comprehend their place
Even in contemporary Liangshan society these functions of genealogy continue to play vital roles. In the early 1990s, when my father Liu Yaohan was doing a survey in Lesser Liangshan on the Sichuan-Yunnan border, Ma Xudong, a cadre of Ninglang County, paid him a courtesy visit. It was chilly weather in early spring, but Ma came wearing only an unlined jacket. It turned out (when my father inquired) that Ma had run into someone on the way, and upon reciting their genealogies they discovered that they were kin. The other man was in difficulty and had come to ask for help from his relatives; Ma not only gave him all the money and property he had on him but he even took off his coat and gave that to the man. If the man had not been able to recite his genealogy, things would have turned out as described in a Nuosu saying: “If you can't say your father's genealogy, your clan will not acknowledge you; if you can't say your mother'sbrother's genealogy,your kin will not acknowledge you.” It is without doubt that in the Liangshan of forty-odd years ago, with all its incessant conflicts, genealogies linking the names of fathers and sons—serving as the direct manifestation of the blood ties in one's patrilineal clan—bore a heavy responsibility for the social security of every single person in this society. To put it another way, the network of connotative blood ties of a genealogy had in fact already become a social insurance system. Genealogies could even serve as individuals' “safe conduct,” because with them, they could “carry no provisions when traveling among one's clan, and [still] have safety for one's parents, children, and spouse by relying on the clan.”
2. Cultivating Intelligence and Physical Prowess
Liangshan did not develop specialized schools for training youth like those in Sparta, but Liangshan children were cultivated by their fathers and elder brothers, knowingly or not. When nuoho Guoji Kenyu was young, his father
There is one more skill they learned from an early age: wrestling, a form of exercise that Nuosu take when they are happy. It is also a game played when male cousins of different surnames meet, to vie with each other in strength. Nuoho not only stressed the training of the bodies and wills of their children but also took great care in training them in ideology and self-expression. In their view, “If one doesn't guard the clan, the whole area will be robbed bare.” The supremacy of the clan was something over which they brooked no doubt, and it is for this reason that elders often exhorted the young to recognize that “toward family members one must be obliging, toward relatives by marriage one should smile effusively, toward kin and friends one must be kind, toward enemies one must be malicious.” Thus they constructed in the minds of children and youths a firm sense of clan. In this mindset, someone who stole slaves or livestock from a rival clan became the subject of laudatory tales, while someone who stole property from his own clansmen was viewed as lacking in moral values. Therefore a saying warned that “one who deceives his own kin will be fined nine armloads of arrows; one who deceives his own family will be fined good horses.”
Elders often narrated to the young the deeds of their ancestors on the battlefield and boasted about their own battle prowess: how many people they killed, how much loot they plundered from the enemy. This sort of informal education could take place at any time and in any circumstances. For example, at a funeral, people would always sing about the glorious deeds of the departed person: “When you were alive, Grandfather, none could rival you in swift riding on the battlefield, and you exposed yourself to danger without fear. In charges you were at the very front, and in withdrawals you were at the very rear” (Butuo County n.d., 275). This manner of taking advantage
The Nuosu were not alone in using these methods. The method of training children in ancient Sparta evolvedinto an entire system. Although Liangshan Yi did not yet have the same system as ancient Sparta, the goals and many of the training methods of Yi were very similar to those of Spartans. To the Spartans, only by becoming an out-and-out warrior could one fully be a Spartan. To this end, newborn infants were subjected to strict inspection, which only the fit survived. Spartan children stayed with their mothers only until the age of seven. Even though the mother and child weretogether only a short time, the mother never pampered her child but instead used every means to cultivate a brave and cool-headed character in her child that would be uncomplaining, not picky about food, not afraid of the dark, and not afraid to be independent. At the age of seven, a boy would leave home and join a national corps of children, which would receive a strict, unified education. This education stressed physical training, mock battle, and debate. Sparta actually encouraged children to steal from a young age, with the aim of fostering in them craftiness and bravery. Aside from making children into fit warriors by training them in strength, courage, discipline, and deceit, elders also inculcated them with the stories of heroic figures and boasted about their own deeds (Liu Jiahe 1963, 26—28).
Compared with the Nuosu, though, the Spartans were almost cruel to children; and they were openly threatening to the helots. This is because at that time, Sparta was already a highly developed country with a slave system; the main reason it trained its children in this way was to suppress the resistance of the helots. But though the original heroic spirit of the Spartans had already been utterly sullied by the slave master's cruelty,they had only recently passed through a heroic age, and through selfless training they were still able to demonstrate a heroic spirit. The training the Nuosu put their children through also had an aspect aimed at slaves; but in Liangshan, bursting as it was with the glory of the Heroic Age, the slaves utterly lacked the ability to put up resistance and were certainly not the main targets of the heroism demonstrated by the nuoho. The nuoho saw slaves as their property, indeed as their subjects of their guardianship. For example, since they expected the slaves to do their bidding, should anyone cheat their slaves they had the responsibility to take vengeance, lest they fail to be good masters and their slaves run away or be stolen. The nuoho nobility had to be like “the stout tree on
Naturally, in Liangshan talent was not limited to military prowess; this society valued resourcefulness and eloquence even more, and people with these qualities were even more greatly esteemed and respected. There are Nuosu proverbs to prove this: “A fist can break through one layer; the tongue can break through nine”; “Property can fill a cubbyhole; the tongue can fill nine cubbyholes.”
It was just for this reason that in Liangshan society everyone—men and women alike—were articulate and eloquent, and plenty of women became ndeggu (mediators). A proverb says, “Ten people without brains cannot beat one with brains.” That a society values intelligence to such a high degree is one indication that it is experiencing a vigorous heroic age. By contrast, consider the endless stifling of human talent in feudal societies, which deprecate knowledge by saying things like “Three stinky tanners are better than one Zhuge Liang.” All in all, the young were trained by participating in society: they looked to heroes, or indeed became heroes themselves, whether by using intelligence—that is, eloquence and ability to mediate quarrels—or skills, such as riding and archery.
3. Counting Time by Battles
In olden times, the frequency of armed feuds made going into battle one of the main elements of life. This was because “the enmity of the Nuosu cannot be forgotten, and the joints of the fir will not rot.” And it was because “only the son who seeks revenge for his grandfather counts as number one; only the son who seeks revenge for his father counts as number two.” Thus wars and pillage took place incessantly and over a long period of time. The eminent late-Ming thinker Gu Yanwu wrote that the Nuosu “think of battle as an everyday occurrence and of pillage as a way of farming” (1831, chap. 68, 25b). And this epitomizes perfectly the whole heroic air of Yi life. Up to the sixth decade of this century,warfare continued to play an important role in Yi life. Their behavior and attitude in battle fully expressed their heroic mettle. Before going out to fight, men ate the best foods and put on their
Lowie said, “Primitive man wants, above all, to shine before his fellows; he craves praise and abhors the loss of ‘face.’ . . . He risks life itself if that is the way to gain the honor of a public eulogy” (1929, 156—58). And these hallmarks have been extremely prominent among the Liangshan Yi. A nuoho injured on the battlefield “must clench his jaws shut and not let out so much as a gasp, lest he be ridiculed by the other nuoho. Losing face in view of slaves—for instance falling captive to the enemy—is worse still, and he will by all means rather commit suicide than surrender.” When quho clans fought their enemies, both sides invited their masters, who professed to be the “protectors” of the quho; not to take part would mean being laughed at, being thought timid. In battle, the masters would display valor in order to win over slaves and make themselves look good. Someone in the Buji clan once said, “He is nuoho; I am nuoho; why should I fear him?” This kind of thinking is precisely why Liangshan was the stage of so many wars—armed feuds! And so Qumo Zangyao has said, “Within the 360-odd days of one year, there is no one in all of Luoyi who will not take up arms and do battle” (1933, 55). The idea of “taking up arms and doing battle” had a high aesthetic appeal to Nuosu. A Nuosu saying goes, “Nuoho are most beautiful with the smell of gun smoke all around them; women are most beautiful with the smell of gold and silver on their bodies.” Clearly, courage and wealth were what Liangshan society esteemed. And courage had to be embodied—wealth had to be obtained—through “the smell of gun smoke.” So Liangshan society was one in which “the land does not have feet, but masters are often changed; the enemy does not have wings, but the sky is filled with them in flight”; and “there is no kin who is not enemy; there is no enemy who is not kin.”
4. Peacemaking
In a political society, war is the highest form of politics. In Liangshan, however, war was the bread of everyday life, and peacemaking was the “highest form of politics.” In Liangshan, the way to bring an end to a matter was not
During peace talks, the cost of death compensation was an enormous monetary burden. But, as Aho Lomusse said, “If there are too few people in this branch of the clan and they cannot shoulder the cost of paying death compensation, what kind of clan branch are they?” By implication, a clan like this lacked the ability to hold its own in Liangshan society. Having a feud meant paying compensation: without paying compensation there could be no peace. Hence, for a clan, being unable to bear any and every function was ignominious. Compensation and the ending of a war had to be mediated, thus the saying “Peace talks lay a foundation, concluding the peace saves lives.”
5. The Headman
A proverb says, “For drying grain we have the sun; for resolving problems we have the headman.” Headmen were obviously key players in Liangshan society. Liangshan Yi call them suyy, ndeggu, and ssakuo. Actually, these three terms do not mean “headman” at all, but merely express the intelligence, talent, and courage of these three kinds of people. Nor were there hereditary headmen; people won these titles by exhibiting certain qualities. Headman is not an office of power, but one of honor—a kind of honor highly valued by the Yi of Liangshan—and it embodies the Liangshan idea of a hero. A person's courage and wisdom are fully displayed spontaneously in living practice, and only people who are valued and trusted by the clan membership can obtain these honors. Otherwise, not even the son of a headman can be a headman; as the proverb says, “The elder was wise and became a
Today, the Liangshan Yi have entered a new stage of development. As China's reforms continue and the country opens further, more and more people will win the opportunity for equal competition. As for research on Yiculture, people have done a great deal of analytical research from a macroscopic angle and obtained gratifying results. But far less research has been done from a microscopic angle. Research on Liangshan Yi society as one experiencing a heroic age is precisely such microscopic research. The present article is merely a first attempt with inevitable biases; I look to the learned scholars who read it to give me guidance and correction.