2. Nuosu Society in Liangshan
3. A Comparative Approach to Lineages among the Xiao Liangshan Nuosu and Han
Ann Maxwell Hill and Eric Diehl
A recent period of fieldwork among the Nuosu of the Xiao Liangshan area of northwestern Yunnan Province in the People's Republic of China provided convincing evidence that lineage organization was at the heart of Nuosu society and culture in the days before the Chinese Communist pacification of the area in the mid-1950s.
[1] This fieldwork was funded by Dickinson College's Mellon Student Faculty Research Fund. We wish to thank our colleague Mr. Lasha Lunuo (Zheng Cheng jun) from the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences for sharing with us his expert knowledge of the Ninglang Nuosu and for his translations from Nuosu into Han. We also are indebted to the head of the Foreign Affairs Office in Ninglang Yi Autonomous County, Mr. Su Xuewen, who accompanied us on many of our interviews and extended to us all the courtesies of his office. A special thanks to Ms. Yang Wenying, also of the Ninglang County Foreign Office, for her help with arrangements and for her enthusiastic support of our research project.
While much has been written about Nuosu kinship by Han Chinese scholars and, more recently, by a new generation of Nuosu ethnologists, generally there have been no systematic discussions of the Nuosu lineage in the context of Western anthropological conventions about lineages. Taking the first step in the direction of a fuller, comprehensive treatment, we present here some insights into the Nuosu lineage, or cyvi, derived from a limited comparison with Han (Chinese) lineages. Because the “lineage paradigm” in the anthropology of China has informed so much of our thinking about lineages—certainly for those of us studying China's minorities—and because historically the Nuosu have lived “lips by teeth” with the Han, a comparative perspective on this dimension of Nuosu and Han cultures may provide a better understanding of the internal structure of Nuosu society, as well as some facets of Nuosu relations with local Han groups.XIAO LIANGSHAN AND THE NUOSU
The area colloquially called Xiao Liangshan, or the Lesser Cold Mountains, takes its name from the place of origin of most of the area's Nuosu people, Da Liangshan, or the Great Cold Mountains. This homeland territory lies just to the east of Xiao Liangshan in the province of Sichuan. Whether the diminutive xiao refers to the lower altitude of Xiao Liangshan, roughly between twenty-five hundred and thirty-five hundred meters above sea level, or merely to the historical fact of later settlement, is not clear. The heart of Xiao Liangshan Nuosu land is Ninglang Yi Autonomous County,where there are about a hundred thousand Nuosu, roughly half the county's population.
[2] Thanks to Mr. Su Xuewen for this up-to-date estimate. An earlier figure from the mid1980s indicated that the Nuosu in Ninglang comprised about 56 percent of the county's population, or about 90,000 people (NYZXGBZ 1985, 9). According to figures based on research in 1963, there were 70,000 Nuosu in Ninglang County (Du Yuting 1984, 8).
There are other ethnic groups in Ninglang: Pumi, Mosuo, Lisu, and Han, the most numerous, but also Zang (Tibetan), Naxi, Miao, Zhuang, Bai, and Hui (Muslim).On the grounds of language, culture, and other criteria, the Nuosu in Ninglang are included in the official nationality category, Yi, a designation they share with more than six million other people living in Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, and Guangxi Provinces (Long Xianjun1993,1; see Harrell 1989 for a discussion of problems with official nomenclature). Most of the Yi in Ninglang call themselves Nuosu, as do their brethren in Da Liangshan, and speak the northern dialect of Yi. Older men among the Nuosu all trace their genealogies back to Da Liangshan, and some of their families still have marriage relations with Da Liangshan Nuosu. While written sources cite warfare among Da Liangshan Nuosu elites and uprisings among their dependents as reasons for migrations out of Da Liangshan into Xiao Liangshan (and some earlier movement of people in the opposite direction), only one of our informants, a Nuosu scholar, volunteered this interpretation (Du Yuting 1984, 1—2; NYZXGBZ 1985, 9—10). Other people said their lineal ancestors left because they followed their masters to Xiao Liangshan or were called to this area by groups that were their traditional marriage partners. More recent immigrants to Ninglang, those who arrived four generations ago or even later, said they came for the land, which they described as relatively empty.
Because the Nuosu, inveterate genealogists, reckon historical time in terms of generations of patrilineal forebears, pinpointing precise dates for settlement of Ninglang is difficult. The earliest generation count we heard in the field was ten generations ago for the Jjiggu cyvi, but this claim was hotly disputed by everyone else present. With this exception, there was some general
Although the Ninglang Nuosu are now settled in permanent villages, before 1956 they were a much more mobile population. They were swiddeners, clearing land by burning the upland forests, then planting in the ashes. The need for more land, when the fertility of some fields was exhausted, as well as the search for pastures suitable for grazing sheep, horses, and cattle, compelled some families to move to high-altitude, empty land when the opportunity arose. On the other hand, in Ninglang the Nuosu's most productive fields, where they grew potatoes, buckwheat, and oats, were fertile year after year, owing to a fairly sophisticated agricultural technology including the oxen-drawn plow and the application of animal manure. So it is not surprising that two villages among the ten in which we interviewed had long histories coincident with the earliest arrival of the Nuosu in Ninglang.
[3] But villages, as opposed to cyvi, were not a significant source of identification for Nuosu in the past, nor were they always neatly bounded, nucleated spaces, since married couples had considerable autonomy in moving to areas “outside” the village, where land was more plentiful. As far as we were able to determine in interviews, the Nuosu in Ninglang, unlike some other Tibeto-Burman groups, do not have special ceremonies for village renewal, nor are there village guardian spirits (cf. Alting von Geusau 1983, on the Akha; and Durrenberger 1983, on the Lisu, both groups in northern Thailand). It is also possible that the two villages with long histories in Ninglang maintained the same names, even as they moved around in one locality.
According to Han ethnologists writing since 1949, the Nuosu in Ninglang were a “slave society,” with small numbers of servitors attached to households as field laborers and servants. Most of these people, of whom we shall say more below, originated as captives taken by the Nuosu in raids on adjacent ethnic groups, especially the Han. When looking at individual families, through the window of genealogy, we found that Nuosu “slaves” had complex, variable relations with the rest of Nuosu society that call into question the rubric “slave society.” Nonetheless, the Nuosu in the old days maintained strict distinctions among various social strata, a system that functioned
The Nuosu cyvi was not the original focus of our research: we went to Ninglang intending to gather preliminary data on ethnic identity and the pre-1949 social stratification system of the Nuosu in Ninglang. During our first interview, it quickly became apparent that neither of these topics was accessible without some basic understanding of descent lines, genealogies, and the cyvi. Settlement patterns, local identity, social stratification, indeed, most of Ninglang's local history, were framed by our informants within the idiom and structure of cyvi. In our brief, four-week stay in Ninglang, we conducted twenty-two interviews, most of them in rural Nuosu households in Shaliping xingzheng cun, or administrative village, in Paomaoping Township, and in Shuicaoba xingzheng cun in Lanniqing Township. Conducted in the convivial spirit of Nuosu hospitality, interviews tended to last three or four hours, sometimes the entire day. Although we addressed our questions to our host, our visits usually attracted a crowd of people from neighboring households who came to eat, smoke, and chat. So our notes reflect the responses of onlookers, some of the issues of their historical and genealogical debates, and sometimes the consensus of the adults present. Interviews were conducted entirely in the Nuosu language and translated for our benefit into Chinese. Due to the brevity of our stay in the field, our work on the cyvi is far from complete, but we view this essay as an opportunity to summarize what we learned, raise questions deserving further research, and elicit critical comments from scholars whose fieldwork with the Nuosu has been of long duration.
In taking a comparative approach to the cyvi, we have implicitly anticipated the fact of its difference from the Han Chinese lineage. But what commits us, in the first place, to labeling the institution and its ideology a lineage? Drawing on British social anthropology, whose traditions most fully defined and elaborated the notion of the lineage, we find in the Nuosu cyvi the following attributes that resonate with conventional understandings of the concept among anthropologists: unilineal descent, corporateness, localization,
PATRILINEAL DESCENT, GENEALOGIES, AND SEGMENTATION
In the old days, we were told, when two Nuosu men met as strangers on the path, they recited their genealogies. Such potentially prolonged greetings were shortened by the mnemonic convenience of patronymic linking where the last two syllables of the father's name become the first two syllables of the son's name. Although actual terms of address differ from this system and only the most formal, personal name is reflected in it, the system was indispensable for locating individuals in the complex, kin-based society of the Nuosu (see Ma Erzi, chapter 5 in this volume). Genealogical recitations, demonstrating descent from a male forebear at least seven generations in the past, established in the first place whether the two strangers were of the same cyvi or, if memories were long, shared a common ancestor in the distant past. Some of the men today know a few names in the descent lines of “brother” lineages (vynyi), even if they cannot recall the shared ancestor responsible for the “brother” relationship. The same partial recollection holds for lineages with whom they have traditionally intermarried (vusa). So it was possible to claim an affinal relation, or better yet a consanguineal one, with the stranger, thus ensuring a measure of hospitable treatment at the hands of the new acquaintance. To the extent that genealogies could locate strangers within a particular cyvi, one could not only determine whether they were allies or enemies, but also whether they were one's social inferiors or superiors. Lineages tended to be identified with one social stratum, although there were cases of the same lineage having segments, or branches, in different strata. It all depended on genealogy.
It is well known, of course, that most of the large, wealthy lineages of southeastern China studied by Freedman had written genealogies (1966, 15). Cohen reports similar documentation for lineages in north China, although the information was likely to have come from scrolls and ancestral tablets or been symbolized in the arrangement of graves in a lineage cemetery (1990, 515—19). Chinese genealogies were rather remote from the everyday social lives of peasant farmers in late traditional China, most of whom were illiterate. Somewhat like intellectual property, written genealogies were the concern
Although when you first think about it, written genealogies seem to have a concreteness and historical resiliency that oral genealogies lack, in fact Nuosu genealogies may be much less abstract and much more resistant to manipulation than Chinese ones. In our experience, genealogies are in the public domain, so to speak. Men in rural areas over the age of twenty-five, and even some younger, know their patrilines for at least seven generations back. If they falter or get confused at certain junctures in the recitation, others chime in to correct or dispute. To be sure, the bimo, literate ritual specialists among the Nuosu, know more genealogies than do nonspecialists and monopolize historical knowledge generally, but their high rank does not entitle them to the exclusive possession of genealogical data. In a society where patrilineal origins, rather than the ownership of property or commercial wealth as among the Han, played such a disproportionate role relative to other factors in determining an individual's social status, it is hardly surprising that the Nuosu do not take their genealogies lightly nor cede them to the memories of a small number of specialists.
Patrilines were the bulwark or “skeleton” of Nuosu cyvi. Just as in some areas of Han society,patrilineal descent provided individuals a “natural” affiliation with a localized group of men claiming descent from a common ancestor and sharing a common identity, so too for the Nuosu the cyvi was the basis for group membership and identity. Yet behind this general resemblance between Nuosu and Han lineages lurks many differences. We have already noted the personal and social salience of genealogies for the Nuosu, a significance far exceeding the role of genealogies in Han society. So in the Nuosu case, when we speak of cyvi as localized descent groups, we need to acknowledge that the genealogical ties within them are known and demonstrable to the people who claim membership in them, even though cyvi men and their households may be widely dispersed over an area covering a thousand or more square kilometers and living among households of different cyvi. Now, it was also the case that among localized lineages in China, at least for a “substantial minority” of them, written genealogical records spelled out the lineage's male agnates and forebears (Freedman 1966, 15). But in my own experience, Chinese patriarchs do not routinely commit to memory long lines of patrilineal ancestors, and a remark made by Cohen about lineage
This difference in the relative knowledge of genealogical connections within lineages perhaps makes more sense if we consider the literal extent of localization for lineages in the two cases. We have described Nuosu cyvi as localized not only because the Nuosu themselves talk about them this way. Historically, certain cyvi have predominated in particular areas of Nuosu settlement, in Xiao Liangshan often localized on the mountain slopes surrounding a high valley. And, as we shall see below, the existence of dominant lineages in any one area has a great deal to do with sequence of settlement and the related phenomenon of lineage branching or segmentation. But at the same time, people we interviewed were quick to point out that many Nuosu cyvi were spread out all over Ninglang, or throughout Xiao Liangshan and sometimes into Da Liangshan (and at this point we would hear stories about the two strangers on the path reciting genealogies). Although we need much more genealogical data on the distribution of cyvi to lend more precision to our understanding of lineage localization, if we accept that lineages were dispersed over wide areas where communication was problematic at best, then ready knowledge of cyvi patrilines, genealogical connections, marriage partners, and so forth was essential, practical information for initiating any sort of relationship. By contrast, Han lineages were more narrowly circumscribed territorially and, one could argue, more strongly localized, especially if there was an estate. Southeastern China is well known in the anthropological literature for its single-lineage villages or single-lineage territories encompassing several adjacent villages; dispersed lineages were the exception, but even those were centered on a core village likely to have a hall and property (Freedman 1966, 1—21). Under these circumstances, where communication was much easier and face-to-face interactions more frequent, villagers were likely to know others' surnames (and hence, lineage membership) and kin relations without having to mentally climb the genealogical tree. And when matters of lineage property were at issue, lineage elites had written records to wield in interpreting entitlements.
Segmentation of the cyvi was related to localization and to other factors as well. For example, one segment or branch (nji) of the Alu cyvi is traced to an ancestor who came from Da Liangshan to Shaliping in Xiao Liangshan seven generations ago. He was the younger of two brothers, each of whom is regarded as the ancestor of a separate branch (Yan and Liu 1984, 74—75). We heard the younger brother's story from two informants, one of whom was the oldest living descendant of the branch founder. According to these accounts, the first people in Shaliping were a Han family called Wang and a few Hui, or Muslims; most of the land in the narrow valley and its hillsides belonged to the Wangs. The Alu ancestor, Alu Jjiyzu, renowned as a hunter,
We encountered several other cases where localization played a role in lineage segmentation; the depth of lineage segments, named after the firstgeneration ancestor, tended to coincide with the length of time the cyvi had been settled in Ninglang. Other evidence comes from people's general statements about cyvi branches. In Shaliping, we encountered many descendants of the area's three “brother” lineages: Jjiggu, Jjiezy, and Jjiho. These three cyvi do not intermarry, because of a common ancestor: the lineages trace their descent to three brothers who came from a union between a highstatus Nuosu and his female gaxy in Da Liangshan (cf. Yan and Liu 1984 on this point). Because of strong prohibitions against marriage between different social strata, the brothers and their descendants could not claim the highranking nuo as their legitimate father (let alone lay claim to his status). Each brother then came to be regarded as the founder of a cyvi, each in its turn producing several branches or segments. Today, Shaliping people claiming membership in one of the three brother lineages talk about their cyvi branches as if they were localized: “No one in my segment of the Jjiggu belonged to the local Bbuyo nuo, because we all came from Zhan He,” or “All of us Jjiezy here [in Shaliping] are of the Amge Pydi segment.”
Marriage and population dynamics are other factors that may have led to segmentation. We were told that among Ninglang's nuo families, segments within one cyvi could intermarry after seven generations. This exception to the general proscription of marriage between any two people sharing a known common ancestor was necessitated because of the small size of the nuo stratum, in Ninglang probably only 4 percent of the total Nuosu population (Du Yuting 1984, 11). In other words, to produce legitimate heirs, nuo had to marry other nuo, and when marriage partners were in short supply, marriage between two people in the same cyvi was permitted, as long as
Marriage down, or a union with someone of asocial level below one's own, also may result in segmentation, as the story of the three brothers indicates. These kinds of cases, though, are difficult to document through interviews because people to this day are sensitive about downward mobility and adamant about their adherence to the proscription on marriage with people in other classes.
[4] See the discussion of social mobility, which sheds some light on the relationship of marriage to mobility.
Wewere also told that cross-cousin marriages, if conducted over two or more successive generations between two cyvi, may have created alliances between two lineages or groups of lineages over time, resulting in segmentation. Finally, we have indirect evidence that segments may have been created in response to proliferation of descendants in collateral lines with a common forebear, or conversely, when some lines died out, leaving only the descendants of one of a pair of brothers. We have people's random remarks about this line flourishing and another dying out, and about “large” segments and “small” segments, to suggest this phenomenon.When people talked about the process of segmentation within a cyvi, it was always with reference to groups of brothers, each of whom was cited as fathering a new segment. However, there was no indication that the Ninglang Nuosu regarded some segments—for example, those originating with eldest brothers—as superior in any way to the others, unlike the “fixed genealogical mode” that Cohen describes for lineages in north China (1990, 510).
[5] For the exception to the rule that elder brothers did not found “superior” segments, see the Nuosu origin story in the discussion of social mobility. But this exception is different from the “ritual” superiority granted to senior branches in Cohen's Han Chinese village.
Cyvi segments, each named after its founding ancestor, conventionally included seven, or at most nine, generations; depending on context, people could identify with segments at any genealogical level. In other words, the rhetoric of cyvi segmentation would indicate that the process was symmetrical and based strictly on genealogical reckoning, producing segments of similar genealogical depth nested in neat hierarchies. Experts on Nuosu culture, college-educated Nuosu and bimo, contributed to these conversationsThe phenomenon of telescoping, to describe the tendency to abbreviate upper-level genealogies to focus on only a few ancestors, may account for the appearance of more frequent segmentation among the moreremote patrilineal ancestors of Nuosu cyvi (Fortes 1953, 32). Some authors reserve the term clan for these larger, descent-based configurations traced back to ancestors of near-mythical status (e.g., Keesing 1975, 31). Terminologically, however, our Ninglang informants made no such distinctions, other than to acknowledge branches within cyvi called nji, discussed above, named after the branch founders.
THE CYVI: CORPORATE OR NOT?
The “lineage paradigm” developed in the study of lineages in southeastern China highlighted the importance of corporate landholdings and joint economic activity in determining the strength and cohesion of lineage organization. Land owned by the village, a lineage, or segments of a lineage often played the most important role in local economies. Lineage property and any subsequent income was used to strengthen the lineage's political power and prestige (Freedman 1966, 68—96). While often these “classic” Chinese lineages relied on economic activity, in the north lineage solidarity and strength were not limited to the scope of material resources. North China lineages lacked the large corporate holdings found in Guangdong and Fujian but were nonetheless significant in structuring village social relations and as sources of group identity. African lineages, too, of the sort described by Fortes, tended not to have corporate holdings. As political and jural structures, however, they were strongly corporate. They related to one another as single entities for marriage, political alliances, feuds, and dispute settlement. And an individual had “no legal or political status except as a member of a lineage” (Fortes 1953, 26).
Lineage affiliation, as a condition of full jural personhood, was the sine qua non of membership in Xiao Liangshan Nuosu society and, as we discuss below, an important dimension of upward mobility strategies among Han and other folks attached to Nuosu households. The cyvi was an exogamous
Elderly informants told us that the most serious crimes were those that threatened cyvi solidarity. In these cases the only honorable thing to do was for the perpetrator to take his own life. If he could not be persuaded to suicide, he faced expulsion from the cyvi. Without the support of his cyvi, a man's only option was to leave society. And by choosing expulsion, a man also left the stain of the crime on his family, which would have to seek cyvi permission in order to remain a part of the community.
[6] The circumstances of our interviewing, conducted in public and surrounded by government cadres, seemed to preclude women's full participation in the interaction. Furthermore, men's normative statements about Nuosu society, as well as their examples, invariably assumed that men were the principal actors. Common sense tells us that women also were involved in disputes, but our notes on social disruptions among the Nuosu have only one allusion to a women: she committed suicide. Her suicide resulted in a break between the two cyvi (hers and her husband's) that were party to the marriage. We have no other information.
Lineage elders were instrumental in settling cases involving members of their own cyvi, often with the help of a bimo, who was compensated for his services as part of the settlement. We were told that cyvi elders were also important in arranging marriages or deciding a move. In general, these men were from the lineage's oldest generation, although younger men who were particularly capable might also be leaders. The respect given these older men and their wives in one's cyvi was obvious through seating arrangements and how food and alcohol were served.
Cyvi leadership, though, was never authoritarian. For example, if there was a decision among cyvi leaders to move to a new territory,individual households were not compelled to comply. At marriage, sons tended to settle on land near their fathers' houses, but this was more a reflection of inheritance patterns than the existence of bounded lineage territory managed by the group's elders. To the contrary, lineage property was nonexistent. As we understand the land tenure system in Xiao Liangshan before the 1950s, land was held by particular households. They acquired usufruct rights to land in several ways, one of which was through patrilineal inheritance. Sons, ideally married in order from eldest to youngest, received a share of land identified with their fathers' household at marriage; the youngest son, the last married, took over his father's portion and his father's house. He also had the greatest day-to-day responsibility in caring for elderly parents, who usually lived in a newly built, small house in the original family compound. A daughter could also receive a portion of her father's land when she married, although
We use the term usufruct for several reasons. In the first place, land in Xiao Liangshan was not owned by anyone: there were no landlords, no tenants, and no rents because there was no private property among the Nuosu (but see note 8). In the second place, with the exception of original settlers to a particular area, such as the Alu ancestor and his descendants in Shaliping, latecomers who settled on land claimed by earlier groups gave a portion of their harvest to the original inhabitants in return for rights to work the land; this practice was precisely an acknowledgment of a prior claim, nothing more or less. Grain was paid to individual families and not to a corporate lineage.
Having said that, we frequently heard land and localities named after cyvi. Since the Alu in Shaliping are such a striking example of this phenomenon, as well as of other facets of land tenure and its relation to cyvi, their cyvi history bears further examination. Recall that one major segment of the Alu lineage traces its roots back to the first Nuosu settler to arrive in Shaliping. This Alu ancestor received some land from the Han Wang family, although the exact terms of this arrangement are not clear; other land came to him and other Alu from the Chinese government in recognition of their help against the Muslims. My guess is that this came along with some kind of frontier-pacification title or office awarded an Alu ancestor. Whatever the case, we frequently heard that all land in Shaliping was originally “Alu land.” According to the story, the Alu settlers then called their traditional marriage partners to the area and also their former nuo of the Bbuyo cyvi. These later settlers, though, were not given land outright by the Alu. They had to give a portion of their harvest to the Alu in return for usufruct rights. Even the Bbuyo nuo, of ahigher social stratum than the Alu, was obligated in the same way as lower-ranked qunuo occupants of Alu land.
We heard another story of an Alu man who lost his land because of opium addiction; he then had to pay harvest rents to his Alu relatives for use of their land.
[7] In fact, we were told that this fellow “sold” his land. The traditional land tenure system of the Nuosu in Ninglang probably was affected early on by Han encroachment and Han notions of property, especially in the several decades before 1956 when opium growing in Ninglang was at its peak.
From this and other anecdotes, we concluded that economic cooperation among families descended from the same cyvi was limited to life crisis events, the borrowing of draft animals for plowing, and occasional contributions to destitute families.[8] Yet if we are to believe Winnington's account of Ninglang in the 1950s just prior to collectivization, poverty, resulting in debt and ultimately enslavement, was fairly common (Winnington 1959, 71—72). His observations bear on the limits to mutual assistance among cyvi members.
Group ritual activity among cyvi members, of the sort that characterized the annual cycle of commemoration of lineage ancestors among the Han, was not typical of Nuosu lineages (cf. Watson 1982, 596—97, on the ritual unity of Han lineages). But it may be that funeral rituals, where lineage mates and their families gathered to celebrate the death of one of their members, provided such occasions. Unfortunately, we were not able to observe any funeral ceremonies in the field. Ancestor commemoration, as far as we could determine, was and is a domestic affair. Most of our hosts offered libations to the spirits of patrilineal forebears at a place above their beds, called hlipi, before drinking. While every household, in theory, could have a hlipi, only the household of the eldest among a group of brothers had an apukuo. The apukuo is made after the death of a father and requires offerings different from those given at the hlipi. The bimo whom we interviewed told us that the apukuo was for the spirit of the founder of the cyvi, but others, lacking apukuo, were uncertain about this distinction.
SOCIAL MOBILITY AND THE CYVI
Although landholding Alu families were generally more prosperous than their neighbors, they did not belong to the highest social level in Nuosu society. The Bbuyo cyvi in Xiao Liangshan were all nuo, and in several localities, including Shaliping and Shuicaoba, they annually received tribute from their qunuo, such as the Alu. Tribute, presented to the nuo at the New Year and at their weddings and funerals, usually consisted of meat, food, and wine; it was not necessarily an acknowledgment of nuo claims to land, though the nuo, as first settlers, could also demand harvest shares. Nor was tribute, strictly speaking, a claim on people's labor, since families in any stratum could have slaves as servants and field hands. Prestations to elite families were, in the simplest terms, symbolic expressions of deference to one's superiors. In the field, we probed for insights into the basis for people's beliefs that the nuo were superior and essential to “normal” Nuosu life. We found the beliefs so thoroughly naturalized in the rhetoric about the “old” society, and the system so taken for granted by the older people who lived in it, that our earnest questions were laughable. Ethnologists speculate on the martial origins of the rise of powerful families in Da Liangshan, or in a more Marxist vein, their economic origins (e.g., Ma Erzi 1993, 41; Li Shaoming 1992, 68), but scholarly debates about how stratification evolved bear no necessary relation to people's constructs of a system that, by their own admission, was not based on nuo coercion or the prerogatives of wealth.
Some clues to nuo superiority emerged from our interview with a bimo in Dalaba, a Nuosu village not far from the Ninglang county seat. His history of Nuosu origins, like all Nuosu histories, was framed in the idiom of patrilineal descent. Wepresent here an abbreviated version. According to the bimo,
It was perhaps inevitable, then, that one of the most common strategies for upward mobility among the “slave” groups was a successful assertion of membership in a Nuosu cyvi, ensuring a descent link to all other Nuosu (cf. Ma Erzi 1993, 39). From our interviews, we glimpsed how this process might have worked historically. One informant in Jjiggu village told us that his father was a Jjiggu, but that he was a Qiesa. How to explain this anomaly? Reaching back into family history,he said that his Qiesa ancestors in Shaliping were originally mayo to one of the Alu families. Mayo is a term commonly used in Ninglang for gaxy of the qunuo. The implication is that his Qiesa ancestor was brought in from Da Liangshan with his Alu master. Some time afterward, his forebears were sold to a nuo family, then sold to a Jjiggu household. Hence, his father was a Jjiggu man, although it is not clear how widely accepted this affiliation was. After 1956, he (our host) recovered his Qiesa patriline and cyvi. Significantly, our host claimed as marriage partners qunuo lineages, including those that were the traditional marriage partners of the Jjiggu. Others present later challenged his claims, skeptical that a gaxy lineage could intermarry with qunuo. While interviewing in Axi village, members of the Axi cyvi told us that they were descendants of a marriage between a nuo and a gaxy. After a split in the cyvi seventeen generations in the past, our host's segment had become qunuo, while the other segment had retained their gaxy status. Investigation into the historical marriage partners of our host's segment confirmed that this was indeed the case.
Histories such as these led us to believe that over the long haul, upward mobility in Nuosu society was possible. Men could claim the cyvi of their masters and, in some cases, eventually assert a new “class” status. How long they would have to wait and what figured into successful claims is not clear, beyond the fact that one's marriage partners were important sources of validation of social status. Certainly first generation slaves would not have this
CYVI AND SOCIETY
One factor we have failed to discuss in our essay, but which has much to do with the differences noted between Nuosu and Han lineages, is political economy. Nuosu lineages in Xiao Liangshan structured a society that by and large lived off a subsistence economy and had little recourse to political authority beyond cyvi elders. While Da Liangshan had powerful nzy, some of them formally recognized by the Chinese imperial government as tusi, or local rulers, responsible for their territory's tranquillity, Xiao Liangshan Nuosu had only sporadic contact with the Mosuo tusi in their area. And their own nuo were not, in people's memories, involved in the maintenance of social order. Rather, the cyvi loomed large as the most significant political and reference group in everyday life.
By contrast, Han society in the late Qing was commercialized and bureaucratized. The Han state was a class society, where family status was based on access to commercial and property wealth and to the perquisites of imperial offices. While lineages were important in particular localities, their strength and influence reflected to what degree they afforded their members access to wealth and bureaucratic position, opportunities that in turn depended heavily on a lineage's corporate holdings. In Nuosu society, too, there were differences in wealth, deriving from control of land and people and cross-cutting the castelike groups that have attracted so much scholarly attention. But restricted contact with Han markets and the relative absence of private property, as well as Nuosu ethics concerning hospitality and generosity,in Xiao Liangshan worked against the concentration of wealth in particular families and the formation of socioeconomic groups per se. The only possible exception to this generalization was the production and marketing of opium in Xiao Liangshan in the last few decades before the fifties; left unchecked, opium production and its attendant politics might have drastically altered traditional relationships, as it entailed extensive contacts with Han markets and a sudden influx of money and guns.
As the brief discussion of markets implies, the Nuosu in Xiao Liangshan lived apart from other ethnic groups. Most of them arrived in Xiao Liangshan later than other peoples, such as the Mosuo, Pumi, Han, and Hui, and
Whether one looks at the historical process of becoming Nuosu or the logic of the system based on descent and marriage, the cyvi takes precedence over all else as the foundation of Nuosu society in Xiao Liangshan. People became accepted as Nuosu not because of their position in the ranked social strata but through the agency of the cyvi. The cyvi themselves were, and in rural areas still are, charters for Nuosu identity. Because the cyvi offered the most immediate genealogical connections for men and their families, the identity bestowed by such descent links gave one a place in the stratification system. As individual families, having acquired a cyvi identity,made the first initiatives to move up through the stratification system, it is significant that they did so through marriage alliances with upper-level families, and that a move upward was the impetus for establishing a new cyvi segment. In effect, it was ultimately not families or individuals that were ranked in the stratification system, but cyvi.
RETROSPECTIVE QUESTIONS
As we anticipated, our limited comparison of Yi and Han lineages has left many lacunae and unanswered questions. One conspicuous shortcoming concerns rituals. While our interviews led us to the conclusion that lineages, rather than social strata, were more important in structuring Nuosu society and conferring Nuosu identity,our case would be strengthened if ritual activity among the Nuosu were better understood. As many anthropologists across a wide spectrum of theoretical orientations have noted, ritual, whether construed as mirroring social relations, reproducing them, or transforming them, speaks to people about their place in the social universe. Given the high status and high visibility of ritual specialists, the bimo, in “old” Nuosu society and their ubiquitous presence at funerals, dispute settlements, and some phases of marriage rituals—all occasions freighted with issues of lineage identity and status—we think that ritual life among the Nuosu was once very rich. Even in the absence of lineage-wide, ancestor commemoration rituals typical of the Han Chinese, we hardly expect that rituals for life crisis events and dispute settlements in Nuosu society were silent on the subject of the cyvi.
And we feel our data raise many questions about lineage branching or segmentation. This process is important because it is critical to people's identity, to their standing in the stratification system, and to social mobility. We know, for example, that the relationship between elder and younger brothers is much more central to the Nuosu than to the Han, yet the evidence that it affected ranking among lineage branches is equivocal. What we have dubbed the “seven-generation rule” is also culturally salient to the Nuosu, but data on lineage segmentation point to other factors such as localization, marriage patterns, and demographic variables that seem to work against the cultural norm. If the rule is so often honored in the breach, then does it motivate retrospective adjustments to genealogical connections that we have claimed are, in our comparison to the Han lineage, rather resistant to tampering? And can we hope to appreciate Nuosu society as anything but static, unresponsive to relations with other ethnic groups, to the Han state, to larger economic changes, if we do not understand a major frame of reference in the rhetoric of Nuosu ethnohistory, namely cyvi genealogies and the process of segmentation?
Finally, our comparison, because centered in Western anthropological discourse, has not directly confronted the implications of the legacy of Han ethnologists, who brought to the field their own culture's constructs of the lineage, for all of us as we approach the cyvi. This legacy and the medium of the Chinese language need closer scrutiny for how they have shaped our discussions of lineages and other social dimensions of Nuosu society.
4. Preferential Bilateral-Cross-Cousin Marriage among the Nuosu in Liangshan
Lu Hui
Until 1956, the Nuosu (Yi) society that we know of in Liangshan was almost completely free from control by the central government (especially in the hinterland). Yet it did not form a separate state but was a slave society divided and ruled by various nuoho clans.
At the same time, it was also a castelike social system. The hierarchical order of castes and even of clans was demarcated by the degree of “hardness of bones.” Such a social system had divided the Nuosu society into two sides: the aristocratic “hard bones,” including nzymo and nuoho (“Black Yi” or “Black Bones”) categories on one side, and on the other their subordinate castes, the three categories quho or qunuo (“White Yi” or “White Bones,” commoners), according to the region; mgajie (serfs); and gaxy galo (slaves). Marriage between castes was, and still is, considered a grave violation of social rules and punished severely, by death before 1956 and by exclusion from the clan or even caste today. The whole society, then, followed the principle of strict endogamy of caste and exogamy of clan. On the basis of this principle, bilateral-cross-cousin marriage was, and is, practiced and parallelcousin marriage was, and is, forbidden.
The principle of clan relationship applies not only among nuoho clans but also among quho clans, just as the concept of “bones” is generally acknowledged by every Nuosu caste. This fact further illustrates the hierarchical distinction in the caste system, especially the distinction between the nzymo, the nuoho, and the quho.
Nuosu society is a patrilineal society; consanguineal relatives are reckoned patrilineally. The clan consists of agroup of people descended from the same male ancestors; females are excluded from oral genealogies. Sons have the privilege of inheritance in a family; men practice levirate and polygamy; married
In patrilineal societies such as that of the Nuosu, the most common rule is to forbid parallel-cousin marriage. In preferential bilateral-cross-cousin marriage, whether preference is shown for the mother's brother's daughter or the father's sister's daughter varies according to the social conditions. In this essay, I will discuss in detail the practice of the preferential bilateral-crosscousin marriage among the Liangshan Nuosu and the factors that affect their decision making.
THE LOGIC OF CLAN COMPETITION IN MARRIAGE
From ethnographic literature recorded in Chinese, we know of two sayings in Liangshan: “The father's sister's daughter is naturally the daughter-in-law of the mother's brother” and “It takes no effort for the father's sister's family to obtain the mother's brother's daughter.” Although these sayings are recorded in Chinese, using Chinese terms, they still illustrate the marriage principle of the Nuosu. The truth of the sayings has been verified by scholarly investigations. In other words, according to this marriage custom, both in theory and in logic, the MBD is very often in fact the FZD: MBD=FZD (see Figure 4.1).
According to the kinship terminology in Figure 4.2, however, we can see that for the Nuosu assa (MBD) is not always ahmi (FZD).
[1] Ego = male or female; F = father; M = mother; Sp = spouse; H = husband; W = wife; S = son; D = daughter; B = brother; Z = sister; C = child.
The reason is that, unless father's sister actually married mother's brother (a common but not universal occurrence), father's sister's daughter and mother's brother's daughter belong to different clans. Clans are the core of the Nuosu social structure. They function like pillars in the structure, and their interrelationship crucially influences other aspects of social lives, including the marriage system.Let us examine the Nuosu clan organization by using nuoho clans as an example. I have mentioned that the hierarchical order of each caste in Nuosu society is differentiated by “softness” or “hardness” of their bones. Among them all, nzymo, or tusi (the Chinese term), have the hardest bones and have the purest aristocratic blood. Nuoho are second in the hierarchy and are in turn followed by quho or qunuo. The Han laborers, who are seized and kept as slaves, are usually considered to “have no bones.” Although the ruling nuoho clans originated from two brothers, Gguhxo and Qoni, their descendants eventually divided into hundreds of clans. The populations of these clans range from less than one thousand to ten thousand or more. The name of each clan serves as the surname of its members. These clans form themselves
Figure 4.1. The equivalency of MBD and FZD in the ideal Nuosu marriage system.
There are eight nuoho clans in Butuo County, where people speak “narrow trouser legs” dialect (Suondi). Every clan also contains segmented lineages of varying sizes extended into neighboring counties, such as Puge, Jinyang, and Zhaojue. Two clans are relatively concentrated and have resided for a relatively long time (at least fifteen generations) in Butuo: the Jjidi and the Bibbu clans. Each of the clans consists of about two thousand members. Until 1956, the two clans almost divided Butuo into two parts, using the Temuli River as the boundary. Because the two clans were evenly matched in power, they became conventional allies, although there was no prescribed rule of alliance between their lineage segments. If we further observe the alliance between their lineage segments, we will find that not every Jjidi lineage segment has a Bibbu lineage segment as its main ally; the main ally could be Mgevu, Jire, Mokui, or Moshe, or even Hma or Awo residing in other counties. On the other hand, almost every lineage segment (five were investigated) has some families that marry with the Bibbu clan. Actually, the eight nuoho clans describe the relationship among themselves this way: “All are allies and all are enemies.” When they collaborated in attacking the Adu tusi who ruled Butuo, their military alliance was formed on the basis of affinal kinship relations. When the Jjidi Acho clan in Siqie Village fought with one segment of the Mokui clan over cattle in the 1940s, the scale of the conflict and the interests involved were small enough that none of the lineage segments or allied clans on either side took part in the fight.
As to the power distribution among the nuoho clans, clan members often say, “Nuoho clans are of the same size, as chicken eggs are.” This saying
Figure 4.2. Nuosu (Suondi dialect) kin terms.
CLAN INTERMARRIAGE AND KINSHIP TERMINOLOGY
In Village A there are six households that belong to lineage segment A of Butuo Jiddi. Three households among them have been allied with the Awo clan for four generations; two among them marry daughters of the Bibbu clan; the last one marries the Hma clan. In lineage segment B in Village B, most of the males marry daughters of the Hma clan; most of the females are married into the Bibbu clan. In lineage segment C in Village C, most of the males marry daughters of the Bibbu clan. Thus, we have Lévi-Strauss's “generalized exchange” among at least three lineage segments.
The exchange pattern is also similar to that practiced by Kachin. That is, one clan or one caste provides women for another higher social stratum, which is the clan with harder bones in the Nuosu case, and obtains women from a third clan, and so on. And matrilateral-cross-cousin preferential marriage is the best way to guarantee the smoothness of this exchange cycle. Because of the vast territory and the dispersion of the Nuosu clans, however, matrilateral-cross-cousin marriage is usually performed on the basis of lineage segments or even villages, instead of among clans. For example, each lineage segment of the Jjidi clan chooses its affines according to its own interests. For the whole clan, the total range of its alliance is thus enlarged, as shown in Figure 4.3.
It should be noted that before 1956, the rugged topography and dialect differences rendered communication between widely dispersed clan branches in Liangshan very difficult. For military and political reasons, alliances were easier to form among neighboring clans through marriage exchange. Therefore, there exist complex terms in each dialect area, such as Vazha-Baqie, Sugga-Aho, Luoho-Lomu, Jjidi-Bibbu, and so on. These clans, which have formed fixed alliances with each other, practice preferential bilateral-cross-cousin marriage;
Figure 4.3. A hypothetical alliance network.
The two clans involved in this kind of exchange usually have the same degree of hardness of bones and share common political, economic, and military interests. This kind of exchange, however, does not hinder a clan's lineage segments from forming a short-range alliance with lineage segments of other clans with which the clan is not customarily allied.
The notion of bones applies not only to the nuoho and the nzymo but also to the quho. Since all are “White Bones,” however, qunuo cannot marryother white-boned castes, such as mgajie, not to mention the gaxy, who are slaves. Furthermore, the hardness of bones is also differentiated even within the same qunuo clan. At the level of the gaxy caste, those with Nuosu roots do not marry those with Han roots.
In the social hierarchy, it seems that wealth is not as important as the hardness of bones, just as an individual is less important than his or her clan. The choices that individuals make in marriage must accord with the interests of the entire clan. In choosing a partner for marriage, the hardness of a candidate's bones is first determined, and then political and economic interests involved are considered.
Now let us look back at kinship terminology of the Suondi dialect, using Ego, a male, as an example. From the terms, we know that the mother's brother's daughter is called assa and the father's sister's daughter is called ahmi.
There are two major kin groups in Nuosu society: cyvi, or consanguineal kin, and vusa, affinal kin. There are also two terms in Suondi for the wife's parents: onyi=MB, onyinyi=MBW, ipo=FZH, abbo= FZ. Obviously, the aunt and the uncle might belong to different affinal kin, so they are assigned different terms. The fact that there are different terms also suggests that their children are not necessarily regarded as equally suitable marriage partners.
Let us now compare the status of the mother's brother with that of the father's sister. The mother's brother is not only paired with the father in terminology but also lives in the territory of the affinal kin. Until Ego gets married, the mother's brother is the closest affinal relative. In contrast, the father's sister is from the consanguineal kin of Ego. She does not become a member of the affinal kin until she is married. She is in a situation similar to that of Ego's mother. The latter comes from the affinal kin, but after she is married she becomes consanguineal kin to Ego, as his mother. The kinship term abbo (FZ) does not change after she gets married. Even though she becomes the cross-cousin's mother, she still remains Ego's consanguineal relative to some extent. As an affinal relative, however, her status is not as clear as that of the mother's brother.
In Nuosu society,the status of the mother's brother is very important. This is reflected in many Nuosu legends, folk tales, and sayings. When he comes to visit, his seat by the hearth is the place of honor. In the marriage, the person who accompanies the bride to the groom's home is her brother, the future maternal uncle of her children. Since Nuosu society is established on the basis of an egalitarian ideal with the clan as the basic unit, far more significant than the nuclear family, the mother's brother is most important as the representative of the mother's clan, Ego's affines. At the same time, he and his clan are important political and military allies. Especially when we understand the significance of warfare in traditional Nuosu society, we can see the importance of the affinal clan, symbolized by the mother's
My and others' investigations have shown that it is more common for Ego to marry his mother's brother's daughter than his father's sister's daughter, when they are not the same person. Although Nuosu people usually think that the FZH (ipo) is equal to the MB (ipo= MB = FZH) and emphasize that there is no difference between the two, in real life, however, the mother's brother has another name, onyi. That is to say, the FZH belongs to the category of mother's brother but is not absolutely the same. Some examples below may help us understand the way this expresses the flexibility in marriage alliance among the Nuosu.
SOME CASES OF CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE
Case 1
According to Ego, his parents started to think about arranging his marriage when he was twelve years old, in 1954. At that time, an elder in his clan advised his parents to form an engagement with the Jienuo clan of Jiao Jihe Village, which is twenty kilometers away. The elder said, “The Jjidi clan shouldn't always intermarrywith the Bibbu clan. Bibbu also marrywith the Jienuo clan in addition to Jjidi; so we should have marriage relations with other clans as well. Otherwise, if we have war with Bibbu someday, and they get help from the Jienuo clan, then who can help us? In addition, one family of our Jjidi clan in the village gave one daughter to Jienuo many years ago. Thus, we ought to get a wife from the Jienuo clan.” See Figure 4.4.
In 1963, after the Democratic Reforms were instituted, Ego married a daughter of the Jienuo clan. In 1980 Ego's son married uxorilocally into his mother's brother's house. In 1989 he got divorced and returned to his natal village. In the following year, he married another daughter of the Jienuo clan, and then died of an overdose of heroin in 1994. On the day of his funeral, his clan members decided that his widow would marry his younger brother, who was fifteen at the time, after the latter graduated from high school. The young man's widow, however, was not willing to marry her husband's brother, and she ran back to her natal home. A local member of the Jjidi said, “Well, that's OK if she is not willing to marry him, but the Jienuo family should repay us our money.”
One informant told me, “Marrying fathers' sisters' daughters is certainly good, but it would cost 1,000 to 2,000 yuan more to marry daughters of fathers' sisters' families than daughters of mothers' brothers' families. Furthermore, when a clan is in need, the mother's brother's clan is more inclined to help. The mother's brother may give us money or liquor. But fathers' sisters' families are outsiders; it's not easy to ask for their help.”
Figure 4.4. Alliances between the Bibbu and other nuo clans.
The fact that the betrothal gifts to the MBD and to the FZD are different in value also proves that the FZH is not necessarily the same as the MB. This is to say that if the bride does not come from the mother's clan, more betrothal gifts are needed. The bride is worth more in this case because she has harder bones, although she comes from a clan that is more distant in relationship than that of the MB's. When she for some reason does not marry the son of the MB, she has to symbolically give part of her betrothal gifts to her MB.
In a society with such a strict caste system as that of the Nuosu, an ideal marriage would be one that would increase the hardness of the bones of the family and consolidate its social position: in consequence, the FZD is the best choice. However, in reality, a family often marries a son to the MBD for political or strategic reasons, sometimes even to the daughter of other non-usual affinal clans. In the latter case, the wife's father is called onyi= MB, and the wife's mother onyinyi= MBW. That shows that the wife's father is considered or classified as the mother's brother, not as the father's sister's husband.
There is a clear boundary between the territory of one's own clan and the territory of one's mother's brother's clan, also the clan of alliance. In times of peace, both areas would be open for the best use, whether agriculture, herding, water sources, or hunting; a dispute over a stream, piece of land, or slave could turn the two sides into enemies and be cause for war.
Case 2
Figure 4.5 demonstrates the marriage alliance between the Long and Lu clans, which is traced as far back as possible based on the oral genealogy. The Jjidi clan (which adopted the Han family name Lu) moved from Butuo
Figure 4.5. Alliances between Lu (Jjidi) and Long (Hxi and Lajie).
Until 1949, the Lu and the Long clans were the biggest landowners and the only nuoho clans in Yanshan. Their alliance kept their land from falling into the hands of Han people. In addition, transportation in Yanshan was very inconvenient due to the high mountains and deep valleys. It would take several days for one to get to the nearest town, Zhaotong, on foot or by horse, and it was no easy thing to come down the mountains to cross the Jinsha River, either. Geographic isolation helped promote the alliance between the Lu and Long clans as they sought to consolidate their status and counter local Han families. However, because the number of members in the two clans was very limited and the sex ratio was unbalanced, they still had to find spouses from outside. They married the An clan of nuoho, who originated from Guizhou, and the Hma clan from Liangshan.
Early in this century, members of the Lu and Long clans started to leave Yanshan to join the army and government in Zhaotong and Kunming. Eventually, they ruled all of Yunnan province. After they left Yanshan, they were influenced by the outside world. They were disturbed to hear such comments as “A is not as smart and healthy as B, because A's parents are cousins.” There
Case 3
Ego A left his home village at the end of the 1950s to study in the county seat. Later he became a teacher. According to the tradition, he married a daughter of the Bibbu clan in the village; he had three daughters and two sons. After several years, his wife brought their children to the city to live with him. The children received a Han-language education in school. Later, his two sons both worked in government institutions. The oldest daughter was engaged to a son of the Bibbu clan in her childhood. A had accepted one-third of the betrothal gifts—one thousand yuan. Later, liberal-minded A decided to break offthe engagement so that his daughter would not marry back to the countryside to become a farmer, but could have her own career in the city, instead. His decision enraged the Bibbu clan. They found it hard to accept A's family's withdrawal of the commitment as a nuoho family. In addition, it was even more unacceptable that A looked down on villagers once he had moved to the city. However, A had made up his mind, and his daughter did not want to get married and live in the countryside either. Therefore, A initiated a difficult negotiation with the Bibbu clan. Finally, the conflict was resolved by A paying back double the betrothal gifts and thus incurring great debt. He sighed at the peaceful resolution of the conflict: “If this had happened in former times, the Bibbu family and I would probably have become enemies.”
After this problem was over, A began to worry about the marriage of his oldest son, B. B had a secondary school education and a nice job. Certainly there were a lot of marriage proposals. Although all the girls proposed were from nuoho families, they all lived in the countryside and were considered “uncultured.” A did not think that they were fit for his son. B agreed that the gap between his lifestyle and that of those women was too big, and said he would like to find a nuoho woman who had job in the city. B did not want to marry a Han woman, let alone a quho woman. However, there were really very few nuoho women who were both educated and had jobs in the city. After many inquiries made by clan members, a year later they finally found a daughter of the Elu clan in another county, which was hundreds of li away. B was successfully married. A did not incur great expense on the betrothal gifts because the bones of the bride's family were not hard enough to merit that. Many Jjidi clan members brooded on this marriage, and they said in
The political and social life in Liangshan has radically changed in the last few decades. The Nuosu castes consciously or unconsciously followed along with the process of social transformation. But this does not mean that they have gradually given up their traditions completely. On the contrary,not only do the Nuosu not depart from their own history in the face of these new changes and the pressure of Sinicization but they also reinforce their relationship with the Nuosu tradition through various means. This is manifested in their marriage practices. The nzymo and the nuoho, who are of the aristocratic stock and who have lost their privileges, still preserve the custom of complete caste endogamy so as to maintain their aristocratic characteristic in today's world. The quho also stick to their own marriage rules. The qunuo clans, which have harder bones, are still reluctant to marrywith other clans, let alone with other castes, such as mgajie or gaxy. In Liangshan, we still hear government officials, intellectuals, and farmers from qunuo clans say, when they comment on their marriage rules, “We don't marry with other quho at random.”
The story in Case 3 illustrates the difficulty and dilemma in spouse selection that many nuoho and quho officials as well as urban residents commonly encounter and the compromises that they often have to make. On the one hand, the concept of bones is still the same as it was in the past and is still the decisive factor in spouse selection; on the other hand, the concepts of power, prestige, and status have changed. The degree of Sinicization and the level of education and professional success have replaced the old signs of wealth and power—land, livestock, and slaves. In addition, these factors act to contend with the notion of bones. Nonetheless, the notion of bones, as the basis of the Nuosu caste society, always reminds every Nuosu that one of the markers of his identity is his obedience to the rule of the Nuosu ancestor—one can marry only within the caste and with a family with equivalent bones.
CONCLUSION
The Nuosu society, which was a forest of clans, was never organized into a state. The egalitarian relationship among the clans, where there was no domination and subordination, was a means to coordinate the clans in order to attain political balance. Nuosu history showed that, as an aspect of ethnicity in the social system, this coordinating relationship was manifested in frequent military confrontations and conflicts among clans, on the one hand, and in the relatively stable alliance relationship among clans, on the other hand. Such a system seems paradoxical but was in fact logical: although the ideal of warfare and equality led the clans to competition, conflicts, and wars, the flexibility of choosing the MBD or FZD in marital decision making offered
Since the clan is so important, the marriage choice of a clan member is far from being a choice pertaining only to his or her individual life: it is part of the larger interest of the clan. It is clan members who collect the betrothal gifts, hold the wedding, and build the new house for the bride. On the other hand, when a clan chooses spouses for its members, its considerations include not only the desire to increase the hardness of family bones through the marriage but also the overall political alliance of the whole clan. That is to say, if a man does not marry the daughter of his MB because her bones are not sufficiently hard, he may incur dissatisfaction of the MB's clan; if it is serious, it might cause military conflict or even war.
Another characteristic of Nuosu society is its mobility. The wide area of Liangshan provided space for the expansion of victorious clans, and it also offered alternative space for clans that lost wars and had to leave their own territories. Following this geographic mobility were changes in social spaces. A clan and its customary affinal clan might not only become distant in the geographic sense, their political interests also might not correspond. Therefore, a new alliance might be necessary. But a clan's oral history and genealogy always remind its offspring of the place of the clan's origin, the route of its migration, the lands it conquered, the places it settled, and the alliances it had. Oral history and genealogy also ensure that all clan members will find their consanguineal kin, cyvi, or affinal kin, vusa, in every corner of Liangshan. Mobility, which results from wars and changes in livelihood, injects a certain degree of flexibility in spouse selection and promotes changes and expansion of the political alliances of migrating segmented clans. In wars fought between nuoho clans, they had cooperation from their allies in combating their enemies; in dealing with the nzymo or the Han, all the Nuosu clans (including the “White” quho clans) would be united.
Marriage choice is not fixed, just as the interests of any clan are not always stable. The choice between the ideal marriage, the daughter of the FZ, and the actual preference, the daughter of the MB, is conditioned by the political and economic interests of the family or the clan. At the same time, as a system of exchange of gifts, marriage plays an essential role in balancing the social relationship among clans in a society constantly engaged in armed conflicts.
5. Names and Genealogies among the Nuosu of Liangshan
Ma Erzi
The Yi of Liangshan, who call themselves Nuosu in their own language, have a complex system of clan, birth-order, and personal names; terms of address; and clan genealogies. Research into names and naming, using Yi and Han language written sources, personal knowledge, and even archaeological data, can open an important window to understanding Yi history. This is a huge subject, one that cannot be treated comprehensively in a short essay. Here I will simply offer a classification of the Nuosu system of clan names, the various methods of choosing personal names, terms of address, and the topic of genealogies.
THE SYSTEM OF FAMILY AND PERSONAL NAMES
The Nuosu system of names is made up of three levels of organization: clan names, birth-order names, and personal names.
Clan Names and Surnames
In Liangshan there are only a few tens of large clans, but the clan names belonging to these large clans are innumerable. Naturally there are a few clans that have an all-clan surname, with no branch surnames below them, such as the Jjike clan. In the long course of history, the Jjike clan has produced a great many branches, and its steps have expanded to cover the whole of Liangshan, but historically and presently it has only the one surname, Jjike. The great majority of clans are not like this, however, and many large clans have produced within them a large number of branches that, because of natural, geographic, and environmental changes, have themselves become clans. The
The names of birds and other animals, and their characteristics, that once were used to identify tribes have provided one source for all-clan surnames. For example:
Pohle Ssenge: Pohle is an onomatopoeic word for the sound of a bird's wings when taking off, and it represents a bird; ssenge refers to five sons, and the whole name means the five sons of the bird clan.
Mugu Sseggu: Mugu originally referred to a blue sky, but it was often suffixed by the term for eagle to denote “an eagle in the blue sky.” Sseggu refers to nine sons, and so the full name means the nine sons of the eagle clan.
Amo Sseggu: Amo means “invisible,” that is, flying very fast. It stands for a bird, and the full name denotes the nine sons of the flying bird clan.
Jjizze Sseshy: Jjizze means a wasp, clever and fierce. In Yi custom, it is not included in the category of insects, but rather in the category of winged creatures. Sseshy means seven sons, so the full name means the seven sons of the wasp clan. (There is another definition for jjizze:“noontime”; the story explaining this interpretation is too long to go into here.)
Hxiezzy Ssesuo: Hxiezzy means bird, and ssesuo means three sons, so this name means the three sons of the bird clan.
Bacha Sseshy: Bacha is an onomatopoeic word for the sound of an animal who is surprised and flees; this name denotes the seven sons of the animal clan.
Lahuo Sseshy: Lahuo is a gray tiger; this name means the seven sons of the gray tiger.
Asy Sseggu: Asy is the name of a particular kind of bird; this name means the nine sons of the bird clan.
In ancient times, when superior hunting weapons were not yet available, people had to rely on their quickness and bravery, and their catch was very small. Because of this, people disguised their arms as wings and walked as if flying. That some clans took their names from flying birds and running animals reflects their desire for such physical characteristics during a time of hunting and gathering. Branch clans evolved as the natural environment changed, developed as the forces of production developed, and chose appropriate
Birth-Order Names
In Yi names, the birth-order name is an intermediate name that stands between the clan name and the personal name. Men's and women's birth-order names are different, and traditionally were counted separately: the two sequences were not mixed together in the order.
This custom of birth-order names has been preserved intact in Tianba and other areas of Ganluo County in Liangshan. The order goes like this:
| Male Birth-Order Names | Female Birth-Order Names | ||
| Amu | First brother | Ayi | First sister |
| Munyi | Second brother | Aga | Second sister |
| Muga | Third brother | Azhy | Third sister |
| Mujy | Fourth brother | Agge | Fourth sister |
| Munyu | Fifth brother | Anyu | Fifth sister |
People in quite a few areas have destroyed this custom of birth-order naming by putting brothers and sisters together in ordering, and in fact the order
Personal Names
Usually Liangshan Yipersonal names are chosen by adults not long after the child's birth, and the names chosen bear the stamp of the development of Nuosu society, culture, and religion. The Nuosu proverb “If you raise a son for a whole generation, don't choose an improper name” shows the importance of naming children; the names given to children express the hopes and aspirations of the elder generation for the younger. For this reason, from ancient times to today Nuosu names have reflected definite aspirations and a definite timeliness, and are more than just a system of terms of address. Classifying and categorizing some names in actual use will, like the prismatic effect of seeing the sun in a drop of water, give us a different perspective on many aspects of Nuosu society.
1. Names taken from domestic animals:
| Yonuo: | Sheep, black | Nyinji: | Cattle foundation |
| Yoga: | Sheep, rich | Nyiha: | Cattle, a hundred |
| Yoha: | Sheep, a hundred | Nyiddur: | Cattle, a thousand |
| Yopo: | Sheep lord | Nyibbu: | Cattle, many |
| Yose: | Sheep spirit | Nyiga: | Cattle, rich |
| Yuobbu: | Sheep, many | Nyida: | Cattle, strong |
| Nyipo: | Cattle lord | Nyijjo: | Cattle, has |
2. Names that relate to slaves owned:
| Lurbbu: | Slaves, many | Lurpo: | Slave lord |
| Lurda: | Slaves, strong | Lurha: | Slaves, a hundred |
| Lurshy: | Slaves, commander of | Jjiha: | Slaves, a hundred |
| Lurnji: | Slaves, origin of | Jjinu: | Slaves, a lot of |
3. Names taken from gold and silver:
| Shybbu: | Gold, a lot of | Shypo: | Gold lord |
| Shyqi: | Gold leaf | Quqi: | Silver leaf |
| Shynzy: | Gold lord | Qupo: | Silver lord |
| Shydu: | Gold digging | Quka: | Silver leap |
| Shyda: | Gold bars | Qubbu: | Silver, much |
| Shyvie: | Gold flowers | Quda: | Silver bars |
| Shymo: | Gold sand | Quvie: | Silver flowers |
| Shyha: | Gold, a hundred | Quha: | Silver, a hundred |
| Shyji: | Gold origin | Quji: | Silver foundation |
A characteristic of names taken from livestock, slaves, or gold and silver is that after these nouns comes a descriptive or quantifying adjective, expressing the desire for even more of these things. Putting a verb after the noun expresses the hope of obtaining these things in the future. Using livestock as the root word for a name given to the next generation demonstrates that the Yi had entered the period of nomadic herding, and also that livestock had come to occupy a place in their consciousness. Having slaves as the root word for a name given to the next generation proclaimed the emergence of a Yi slave society; when gold and silver appeared in names, it demonstrated that Yi had already entered the period of metallurgy. Incorporating livestock, slaves, and precious metals into names clearly indicated some of the particular characteristics of Liangshan Yi society: its standard of wealth was generally determined by the quantities of slaves, precious metals, cattle, and sheep owned. If a family had a lot of slaves but no other wealth, people would still naturally count them as among the wealthy. In the same way, if they had a lot of gold and silver or a lot of cattle and sheep, this would also mark them as wealthy. Because of this, in Liangshan, slaves, stock, gold, and silver all belonged in the category of wealth. The masculine suffix sse can be put after boys' names; the corresponding feminine mo can be used after girls' names.
4. Names taken from mountains, rivers, and plants:
| Ssuhuo: | Fir forest | Shuhuo: | Pine forest |
| Ssuha: | Fir, a hundred | Shuha: | Pine, a hundred |
| Ssuda: | Fir, strong | Shuda: | Pine, strong |
| Ssuqi: | Fir needles | Shuqi: | Pine needles |
| Ssusse: | Fir seeds | Shusse: | Pine nuts |
| Vahxe: | Cliff, surrounding | Yyke: | Water rushing |
| Vada: | Cliff, high | Yygge: | Water's edge |
― 86 ― | |||
| Vahuo: | Mountain reared | Yybbu: | Water, grand |
| Vasa: | Mountain content | Yyga: | Water, rich |
I believe that there is not a people anywhere that is disinterested in landscape and forest, but at the same time I do not believe that every people's expression of their love of landscape and forest is the same. Some like peach forests and mountains full of orchards best; some are most fond of magnificent, limitless forests; some prefer little brooks and creeks; others are particularly respectful of great torrents. The Nuosu think that it is best to live at the foot of great cliffs in endless forests of verdant pines and luxuriant firs; only there can they nurture even greater good fortune and happiness. A Nuosu song expresses this:
| We come to raise sheep on the mountains behind our house; | |
| the sheep are like massed clouds. | |
| We come to the plains in front of our door to grow grain; | |
| the piles of grain are like mountains. | |
| We come to the stream at the side of the house to catch fish; | |
| the fish are like piles of firewood. |
The names recorded above are a particular expression of this kind of thinking. The masculine suffix sse can be put after boys' names; the corresponding feminine mo can be used after girls' names.
5. Names taken from wild animals:
| Jonuo: | Eagle, black | Ssybbu: | Leopard, many |
| Josse: | Eagle chick | Ssypu: | Leopard lord |
| Jomo: | Eagle, big | Ssyda: | Leopard, strong |
| Joddur: | Eagle wings | Ssyhuo: | Leopard, raising |
| Joha: | Eagle, a hundred | Ssyshy: | Leopard, yellow |
| Jojji: | Eagle flight | Ssymo: | Leopard, large |
| Laji: | Tiger foundation | Wonuo: | Bear, black |
| Lahxa: | Tiger's roar | Womo: | Bear, big/bear mother |
| Labbu: | Tiger, many | Wosse: | Bear cub |
| Lada: | Tiger, strong | Woke: | Bear leaping |
| Lapu: | Tiger lord | Woda: | Bear, big |
| Larry: | Tiger tooth | Woji: | Bear foundation |
| Lasy: | Tiger flower | ||
| Ssyhxa: | Leopard, a hundred | ||
| Ssynuo: | Leopard, black |
There are not many animal names that Nuosu like to take for their own; those commonly used are eagle, tiger, bear, and leopard, but many compounds
6. Names derived from religious occupations:
| Bimo: | Bimo |
| Bisse: | Bisse (apprentice) |
| Biti: | Bimo's chant |
| Bihxa: | Ceremonies, a hundred |
| Biga: | Rich in ceremonies |
| Biqu: | Bimo companion |
| Sunyi: | Sunyi |
| Susse: | Susse (child of sunyi) |
Nuosu call the priest a bimo; bimo usually understand astrology, history, and law and can read Yi language religious texts. Sunyi are shamans. Choosing one of these names indicates two things: the first is respect for the bimo and hope that one's descendants will inherit the bimo's profession. The second has to do with people who have had many children die as infants: they believe that evil spirits are afraid of bimo and sunyi, and that by bearing one of these names the child can avoid misfortune. The masculine suffix sse can be put after boys' names; the corresponding feminine mo can be used after girls' names.
7. Names derived from compass directions:
| Bbuddur: | East | Yyvu: | North |
| Bbujji: | West | Yyhmu: | South |
| Nyisi | Northeast | Keddi: | Northwest |
| Yosi: | Southwest | Luddi: | Southeast |
The Nuosu in Liangshan have a kind of passive astrological outlook. Believing that life, death, and prosperity are to a large extent predetermined by heaven, they look at the mother's age and the birth animal of the child and thus determine the astrological direction the child could be expected to take. Accordingly, they give the child a name based on one of the compass points, which correlate with the cycle of twelve animals, thinking that this will bring contentment and good fortune. At the end of the name can be added sse for boys' names and mo for girls' names.
8. Names derived from power:
| Nzypo: | Lord of power | Nzysa: | Power, content |
| Nzyda: | Power, great | Nzyhxa: | Power, a hundred |
| Nzyke: | Power leap | Geda: | Power, great |
| Nzyshu: | Power, recorded | Gehxa: | Power, a hundred |
Putting a verb after the word power expresses the ability to exercise power; putting a quantifying or modifying adjective after the word expresses the greatness or breadth of the sphere of power. The appearance of this kind of name demonstrates respect for power in the society. The masculine suffix sse can be put after boys' names; the corresponding feminine mo can be used after girls' names.
9. Names derived from clans:
| Vipu: | Clan lord | Vilur: | Clan included |
| Vihxa: | Clan, a hundred | Viji: | Clan foundation |
| Viqi: | Clan branch | Vimo: | Clan, big |
| Vika: | Clan leap | Vihxuo: | Clan, surrounding |
| Vidu: | Clan gathers |
The clan system of the Nuosu divides clan mates according to kin relationships into cy and vi. In general, those within seven generations are called cy, and after seven generations they are called vi. Intraclan marriage is strictly prohibited. Cyvi has become an enormous clan organization, but internally determined rules protect the equal status of every clan member. Nuosu say that, to a member of a clan, “It doesn't matter if you use a gold rod as a walking stick, or whether you use a wooden branch as a walking stick, your relative worth as a person is the same.” This kind of internal solidarity of the clan pervaded Liangshan in the days before Liberation. Internal solidarity was uniform, as was reciprocal aid in troubles and difficulties; externally clan members formed a united force against invasion by outside forces. A Nuosu proverb says:
| That which you must rely on is the clan, | |
| that which you must raise is livestock, | |
| that which you must eat is grain. |
10. Profane names:
| Keqie: | Dog shit | Yoqie: | Sheep shit |
| Kenjy: | Dog skin | Voqie: | Pig shit |
| Vosse: | Piglet | Vaqie: | Chicken shit |
People whose names are taken from animal skin or excrement almost always have been born after several elder brothers or sisters have died. Nuosu
11. Borrowed names:
| Changmao: | Long hair |
| Minguo: | Republic |
| Hongjun: | Red Army |
| Jiefang: | Liberation |
| Mingai: | Democratic Reforms |
| Chaoying: | Surpass England |
| Ganmei: | Catch Up to the United States |
| Jieyue: | Save |
| Geming: | Revolution |
| Wenge: | Cultural Revolution |
| Guoqing: | National Day |
| Sihua: | Four Modernizations |
| Baogan: | Land to the Household |
| Chaosheng: | Exceeding the Birth Quota |
12. Names from weights:
A child who is born weighing a certain number of jin can be given that number of jin as a name, as in, for example, Ngejisse, Five-jin son. At the end of the number, the suffix sse is added to a boy's name and mo to a girl's.
13. Other names: Many people use geographic names to name children. This occurs in two kinds of situations. The first has no hidden meaning to it: a child who is born at a certain place can conveniently be given the name of that place as a per sonal name in commemoration. In the second case, choosing the place of birth as the personal name indicates that this is a child of that place whose father is unknown. One might also ridicule or show prejudice toward an
In sum, the overall clan name and the branch clan name, along with the birth-order names, are the fixed portion of the system of naming; after a particular overall clan name becomes the name of a clan, it can, over the long course of history, spawn a lot of subordinate branch clan names; but all these branch clan names, as “little surnames,” are subordinate to the overall clan name, the “big surname.” In all of Liangshan society, the “big surname” is used in big contexts, and the “small surname” in small contexts, or the two are used together as a set. The birth-order names are fixed, though in some areas the order is no longer strictly followed.
In the case of the third level of the Nuosu system of naming—the personal name—if we compare the names used over the generations, as noted in the genealogies of various clans, as well as the names now in use among Nuosu people, we can easily discover that ever since the old days people have used this kind of name. If we investigate the repository of names, we can see roughly the general routes that Nuosu society has traveled: gradually evolving from a hunting and gathering to a nomadic pastoral society with an economy incorporating household slavery, in which money, slaves, and livestock occupied people's vision, to a society that is a peripheral part of the People's Republic of China. Nuosu names thus form a rough, simplified Nuosu history.
Terms of Address
A name is a term of address, and the three-level system of personal names examined here also forms the basis of asystem of terms of address that clearly expresses the nature of hierarchy in personal relations in Nuosu society. For example, the full name of the late representative to the National People's Consultative Conference, Aho Lomusse, was Aho Vuga Lomusse. Aho is the name of his clan; Vuga shows that he is the second son, and Lomusse is his personal name. According to the rules, his grandfather's and father's generations, as well as elder brothers and cousins of his own clan, could directly call him Lomusse, but men and women of his own generation could only call him Vuga (second brother)—the birth-order name becomes a term of respect among his own generation. If people of the same generation called him Lomusse, it would be a serious discourtesy. (Naturally, expression of animosity is another matter.) The generation of his nephews would take the ga of his birth-order name and put an a in front of it, and call him Aga. The a put in front of the name is the a of abbo (father), so Aga means “second father.”
The various terms of address for a woman are basically the same as those for a man. For example, in the case of a woman called Aho Aga Quvie, the older generation would call her by her name, Quvie, while men and women of her own generation in her own clan, as well as children of her mother's sisters, would call her by her birth-order name, Aga. Children of her mother's brother's family would add Assa in front of her name, calling her Assa Aga, meaning mother's brother's daughter. Nieces and nephews of the same clan would have to add a ba before her birth-order name and call her Baga, with the ba being a phonetically altered simplified version of abo, or “father's sister.” The children of her sisters, as well as the nephews' generation of her husband's clan, would put a ma in front of her name, calling her Maga, with ma a phonetically altered short version of amo, or mother, indicating a mother's sister. This term of address is related to the Nuosu marriage system, which is a preferential bilateral-cross-cousin marriage system, in which there is clan exogamy and prohibition of marriage with the classificatory mother's sister's children. So the terms of address used by mother's sister's children are the same as those used by members of her own clan.
To sum up, if a Nuosu person did not have a birth-order name, then there would be no way to express these kin relations. In the Liangshan Yi society, in which the clan corporation is the main structural form of society, terms of address have to fit with it, and the three-level system of naming—clan name, birth-order name, and personal name—realize it in a comprehensive way.
THE SO-CALLED YI FATHER-SON LINKED NAME SYSTEM
The idea that the Yi practice the system of father-son linked names has become a standard formulation that has made its way into a large number of authoritative reference works. On page 1495 of the Concise Ci Hai published by the Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House in 1979, it says, “Father-son linked name system (fuzi lianming zhi
): A system of naming in which the name of the father and that of the son are linked over the generations.
In the system of father-son linked names practiced by the Yi, the sound of the last character of the father's name becomes the sound of the first character of the son's name; in the same way, the sound of the last character in the son's name is used as the sound of the first character in the grandson's name. In this way, as names repeat themselves and continue for generations, the great interlinked genealogies of clan names have formed. In order to express a Yi person's birthright in the kinship system, and that person's place in the society of the Yi, the complete name of a Yi person is formed of the clan name (the original name of a tribe), the branch clan name (the name of a clan), the father's name, and the person's own name—four parts. Take, for example, the name of the deputy to the fifth National People's Consultative Conference Aho Bbujji Jjiha Lomusse (already seventy years old at the time). In this name, Aho is the original name of an Aho tribe; Bbujji is the name of his clan, Jjiha is his father's name, and Lomusse is his personal name; linking them together, the name says: Lomusse the son of Jjiha of the Bbujji clan of the Aho tribe. Within the Bbujji clan he is just called Lomusse. Within the Aho tribe, he is called Jjiha Lomusse (father's name and his own name). (Wang Quangen 1985)
Until now, all books that have referred to the naming system of the Yi have said that the Yi strictly adhere to the father-son linked name system, and thus that a Yi name is composed of the four levels: clan name, grandfather's name, father's name, own name. This is incorrect, and since it touches on the systematic evaluation of Yi society and culture, it is quite important that the mistake be corrected.
Why have so many experts and scholars stated that the Yisystem of names is the father-son linked name system? This is connected to the genealogical system of Nuosu clans, in which father's name and son's name are linked across the generations. In the case of Aho Ddezze, the genealogical order is: Zuluo—Jjiha—Lomusse—Shuogge: when one recites the genealogy, one ordinarily leaves out the clan name and the birth-order name and uses only the third level of the system to link names together. In order to make the recitation easier and prevent omissions, one can change this to a recitation in a linked fashion: Aho Ddezze—Ddezze Zuluo—Zuluo Jjiha—Jjiha Lomusse—Lomu Shuogge. The example given in the Ci Hai is just this sort of genealogy. In addition, when Liangshan Yi are at war or in a formal situation, in order to amplify their ancestors and exalt themselves they often link together a relatively famous grandfather's name, father's name, and own name in a single recitation; for this reason people have mistakenly concluded
The Nuosu naming system thus provides us with insight into several facets of their society. The importance of clan organization is seen in the ubiquity of clan names and the pride of place taken by the clan name in the individual naming system. The importance of generational and age hierarchy is clearly reflected in the birth-order names and in the complex system of terms of address. And the economic and ecological bases of society are highly visible in the personal names people choose for their children.
6. Homicide and Homicide Cases in Old Liangshan
Qubi Shimei and Ma Erzi
Everybody who has done research on Yi society knows that in old Liangshan there was no organization holding coercive power and no military, police, courts, or jails to enforce social control, but nevertheless members of the whole society both strictly preserved internal social order and maintained social control in an orderly manner. What methods were used to effectively control social order and preserve it for hundreds or thousands of years? Few articles have discussed or investigated social control in Liangshan before the Democratic Reforms, and most of them have looked at this question from the standpoint of classes and social strata. Furthermore, although some of these articles have mentioned clan customary law, most have treated the issue only superficially.
This essay will examine customary laws used to settle cases of homicide within the patrilineal clan, along with a few case histories, in order to explain the stabilizing function of such customary laws in old Liangshan Yi society.
INTERNAL CLAN HOMICIDE CASES
Nuosu call homicide coquo, which means “smashing a person.” Customary law defined a whole set of rules for settling homicide cases, which in Nuohxo are called coquo dijie, meaning “laws for settling homicide cases.” These can be divided according to kinship relations into laws that settle cases of killing a clan mate, an affine, a woman, a maternal nephew, a husband or wife, or a nonrelative. According to occupation, they can be divided into laws that settle cases of killing a ndeggu (mediator), a bimo (priest), or a jjojjo (ordinary person). Homicide laws can also be divided according to social stratum into those that govern cases of killing an nzymo, a nuoho, a quho, a mgajie, or a
Historically, it was absolutely necessary to carry out these laws according to astrict standard of justice. These were different from other kinds of homicide cases, in that other cases had definite temporal and spatial constraints on their settlement, and more lenient results could be sought through employing the power of the clan as a group or though various economic measures. Even those guilty of the most serious types of homicide could, if they had power or money, arrange a behind-the-scenes way to be spared. Homicides internal to the clan vitiated the usefulness of power or money and transcended the limits of space and time. It was just as the Nuosu proverb said: “Anyone who on earth has killed a clan mate will not be received in heaven by the ancestral spirits.”
In the process of determining the legal rules for settling an intraclan homicide according to Liangshan Nuosu customary law, people did not think systematically about the justice of the rules. Nuosu believed that as long as they employed the principle of “those who hold the child do not cause the child to cry,” that was satisfactory. When homicide occurred among members of the same clan, and a settlement was reached through negotiation between the close relatives of the killer and the victim so that there was no further trouble, then afterward people would naturally respect this method of settlement. Like a legal precedent, it would be transmitted from generation to generation and would gradually become a general and systematic rule. This is what is meant by the Nuosu proverb “If there are no precedents, how can there be legal rules?” In many respects Nuosu in Liangshan did not settle cases according to concrete legal statutes, but rather settled them according to like precedents. Still, the application of such precedents gradually extended until they became habitual customary laws or compacts, which everyone was compelled to obey through customary, moral, and religious strictures.
Liangshan intraclan homicides were divided according to their severity into anuo, azzi, and aqu: respectively, “black,” “colored,” and “white.” Black refers to very serious cases, colored to semiserious cases, and white to not serious cases.
Black Cases
Cases of clan mates who, due to lack of respect for each other or for other people's lives or safety during quarrels or other discussions of differences,
If the killer was an only son, and his parents were already past reproductive age, and he was either unmarried or without sons, and he was not willing to kill himself, claiming destitution, in a few cases the death penalty could be voided by a meeting of clan members, and blood money paid as a penalty instead. Every clan had its own specific standards for blood money; there was no universal level for all of Liangshan. There were local and social stratum differences. Even so, the amount of blood money paid in compensation was basically the same everywhere and had to come entirely from the murderer's direct relatives, with no contributions allowed from other clan members.
For all of Liangshan, the commonly paid amounts of blood money in a black case varied according to stratum. A nuoho killer was required to provide three large pieces of good land, three large households of agricultural slaves, a horse to carry the ashes, a person to carry the ashes on his back,
After all the above-mentioned compensation was paid, the killer knelt on the ground and used a drinking vessel made of a pig's foot or an ox or ram's horn to drink to the close relatives of the deceased. After the settlement was made, the killer and his generation could not live together with the other members of the clan, but had to move to a place near their mother's brother or to some other place. Nuosu called this “having enmity with their own clan, and so living with the mother's brother.” After the killer died, if his children wanted strongly to return to the original clan home, recover their original clan membership, and receive the protection of the clan, they could do so—if they obtained the permission of the leaders and elders of the clan who discussed the matter—after undergoing a solemn religious ceremony. They would ask a bimo to perform the ceremony of “exorcism and reconciliation of a parricide,” kill an ox, buy some liquor, offer them to the clan members living in the original home, and give some money to the relatives of the original crime victim; this was called drinking reconciliation liquor, eating reconciliation beef, and giving reconciliation money. Only after these procedures were carried out could the children of the killer be restored to their full clan membership. Otherwise it was said that misfortune would come to both sides. At the same time, the relatives of the original victim could still seek revenge, because in Nuosu thinking, the saying “If the grandson is strong, he will avenge his grandfather” describes a dignified way to behave. However, through the performance of religious ceremonies of reconciliation, people could eliminate this layer of enmity left by previous generations.
The blood money paid for a black-case homicide in a quho clan was a little bit less than that paid by nuoho. Usually the killer was required to provide 1,700 ounces of silver, a horse to carry the ashes, a man to carry the ashes on his back, and a piece of silk cloth to wrap the ashes. In addition, he gave 1,200 ounces of silver to the victim's mother's brother's family and a horse to the victim's father's mother's brother's family. If there were small children, he was required to give enough money to cover the cost of raising them, and if there were children not yet married, to contribute to wedding expenses. When a bimo was called to read scriptures to send off the soul of the deceased, he was given 9 ounces of silver. The murderer would kneel on the ground and, using a cup made of a pig's foot or an ox or ram's horn, drink individually to each relative of the victim and to each member of the ascending generation
Colored Cases
If members of a clan ordinarily had no disputes between them, but one slipped unintentionally—for example, if a gun went off accidentally, or if one killed another accidentally during a battle, or if while working one rolled a rock or felled a tree that killed a fellow clan member, or if after a quarrel one committed suicide by jumping off a cliff, hanging himself, jumping into a river, or taking poison out of spite—then the perpetrator was guilty of a colored case. In a lot of colored cases, the perpetrator killed himself voluntarily at a time he himself decided, but generally not more than a month after the original death. During this time relatives and close friends could entertain him as much as they liked and encourage him to visit friends and relatives and to call together relatives and friends to make a parting statement. Everyone would praise his resolution and call him a man of courage. If the victim had said any last words expressing the fact that the two sides were the best of friends or exhorting the members of the clan to exercise lenient treatment or not to pursue the affair, then a meeting of the clan could authorize the loosening of certain conditions. But usually someone who had previously had this degree of closeness with the deceased would be determined to follow his friend to death without hesitation, so there would be no need for anyone to apply customary law.
If someone guilty of a colored-case killing did not want to take his own life, then usually the members of the clan would not coerce him to commit suicide, and he could pay blood money to compensate for the death. But in a case like this, people would not respect his actions. The amount of blood money paid varied from place to place and clan to clan. In general, among Nuosu in Liangshan there were two kinds of situations, as the following describes.
First, in a case of accidental death of a clan mate among nuoho living in the core areas of Liangshan, the blood money was 1,700 ounces of silver, plus the killer provided a horse to carry the ashes, a man to carry the ashes on his back, and a piece of silk to wrap the ashes. In addition, 1,200 ounces of silver went to the victim's mother's brother, a horse to the victim's father's mother's brother, and 9 ingots of silver to the bimo. The killer would pay a portion of the cost of animals sacrificed at the funeral. The blood money for
The blood money for a colored case among the quho stratum in the core areas was 1,200 ounces of silver, plus the cost of a horse to carry the ashes and a man to carrythe ashes on his back, 900 ounces of silver for the mother's brother's family, a horse for the father's mother's brother's family, 9 ingots for the bimo, and part of the cost of funeral sacrifices. For one who killed himself by hanging, taking poison, or jumping off a cliff, the blood money was 700 ounces, along with 500 ounces for the victim's mother's brother's family, a horse for the father's mother's brother's family, 9 ingots for the bimo, and a portion of the cost of sacrificial animals at the funeral. Another horse was added in cases of poisoning.
In the second variant for colored cases, the accidental killing of a clan mate among nuoho in peripheral areas where the Nuosu were in contact with other peoples, the blood money was 1,200 ounces of silver, along with 600 ounces for the victim's mother's brother's family, 9 ingots for the bimo, and a portion of the cost of the funeral sacrifices. For one who committed suicide by taking poison, hanging, jumping into a river or off a cliff, the blood money was 600 ounces, along with 300 for the victim's mother's brother's family, 9 ingots for the bimo, and a portion of the cost of the funeral sacrifices. Hanging added an extra horse. For quho in these areas who accidentally killed a member of their clan in a colored case, the blood money was 600 ounces, along with 300 for the mother's brother's family, 9 ingots for the bimo and a portion of the cost of funeral sacrifices. For a suicide who jumped into a river or off a cliff, took poison, or hanged himself, the blood money was 300 ounces, along with 150 to the mother's brother's family, a bimo's fee of 9 ingots, and a portion of the cost of funeral sacrifices. Suicide by poisoning added a horse to the compensation.
White Cases
These usually referred to cases in which an individual committed suicide by jumping into a river or off a cliff, took poison, or hanged himself, and in which—even though no particular clan mate was directly implicated in provoking the suicide—a certain clan member might have indirectly participated by maligning or insulting the victim or by some other activity. The regulations
CASE HISTORIES
Cases in Nuoho Clans
In the Hxobulieto area of Meigu there was a man named Aho Gezuo Lahxa. Ordinarily he cared for nobody, and he was known for selfish behavior, which gradually developed to the point where he traveled around irresponsibly creating trouble, causing his close relatives to apologize right and left, pay fines left and right, and be extremely ashamed of his behavior. One time he was dragged back home by his nephew Aho Tidu Lati, who used iron fetters to lock him up in his house, where people had the idea that they could gradually educate him and cause him to give up his bad habits and become a moral person again. But a few days later, he took advantage of his attendants' lack of attention and managed to secretly unlock the fetters and flee. When he was discovered by Tidu Lati, and Lati yelled at him to come home again, he did not listen. Lati chased him but could not catch him, and in anger took up his gun and shot him dead.
Leaders of the Aho clan quickly gathered at the scene from all over. At their meeting they decided, after going over all angles of the case, that Lahxa's misbehaviors were real, but that an action must be requited with a like action, and a death with a death. They determined that for Lati, a member of a younger generation, to shoot to death his uncle Laha should surely be classified under the precedent of “plucking the feathers to kill the bird,” and for this reason Lati would have to compensate with his life. When this decision was made, Lati was unwilling to commit suicide and he immediately fled. All the members of the clan chased him, but they were unable to catch him and he got farther and farther away from them. They decided they would all get their guns and shoot him simultaneously (so that if he were hit, the whole group, rather than an individual, would be responsible). But after a few volleys of shots they quickly lost the resolve to shoot, and Lati again fled into the distance.
After a short time, they heard that Lati had come back to settle at his mother's brother's house. The Aho clan gathered together again from an even wider area to hear the opinions of clan members. All agreed that Aho Lati had seriously violated clan rules, and that they could only allow him to take his life, that the case could not be settled by other means. After a few years, Aho Lati had no other recourse but to return to his original home and take his life. Before he died, they held a feast for him and prepared his funeral
In another case, the Hma clan living in Meigu sent out fighters to battle the Alu clan. On the road they ran into Alu Ggehxa, who took up rocks to pelt the Hma fighters. When Hmasse Shyha arrived to mediate, he was accidentally killed by Hmasse Zhybuo. The two were cousins twelve generations removed, so Zhybuo was not willing to take his own life to atone for this. The Hma clan who discussed the matter decided that “a hen laid an egg by mistake; it's not the case of the hen eating her own egg; it's a sow mistakenly giving birth to a piglet, not a sow eating her own piglet.” Zhybuo mistakenly killed Shyha while he was serving his clan in a confusing situation, and because of this if he were unwilling to take his life, then it was permissible to pay blood money in compensation. In the end, he paid 1,700 ounces of silver in blood money, along with 1,200 to Shyha's mother's brother's family, a horse to his father's mother's brother's family, and 9 ingots to the bimo. In addition they killed a reconciliation ox, drank reconciliation liquor, and paid reconciliation money. Zhybuo knelt and drank to each member of the senior generation one by one, and so this case was resolved.
Cases in Quho Clans
At Hxtobulashy in Meigu, there was a conflict between Jjiemu Lyhuo and Jjiemu Abi, and one day during a quarrel Lyhuo killed Abi. After killing him, Lyhuo was not willing to kill himself, so his relatives built him a simple leanto and killed an ox for him to eat. After this, his brothers and his children all urged him to commit suicide, telling him clearly that, since he had killed a clan mate, if he did not give his life they would give their lives in his place. They asked how he could go on living after that. After five days, Lyhuo took poison to kill himself, and after this the relatives on both sides got along very well. This case happened four generations ago.
In 1939 at Zala Shan in Yanyuan, in the ordinary course of discussion between Ddisse Shuosse and his uncle Ddisse Nyinyi, both of the Bacha clan, there had emerged a few small conflicts. One day Nyinyi's son Xifasse was out looking for a stray ox, carrying a gun on his back, and when he was partway there he ran into Shuosse's two sisters digging potatoes by the roadside. When their dog came over and bit Xifasse, he asked the sisters several times to chase the dog away. Perhaps because the two of them did not hear him, he became angry and picked up his gun and shot the dog dead. When Shuosse heard about this, he quickly ran after Xifasse, threatening to kill him. Xifasse, thinking he was no match for Shuosse, kept running in fear of his life. After running for quite a long stretch, thinking that Shuosse was too much of a bully, Xifasse turned around and shot Shuosse dead with one shot, after which he fled to his mother's brother's house to hide.
Upon hearing this, members of the Bacha clan from all over gathered at Nyinyi's house. Some felt that Xifasse would have to kill himself, because if he did not, order in the Bacha clan would be ruined. Others felt that since Nyinyi had just one son, and because he was already old and unable to have more children, it would be best if they paid blood money according to custom. One of the leaders of a nuoho clan, Luoho Nyidu, used his long-standing good relations with Nyinyi to urge the leaders of the Bacha clan to settle the case by paying blood money according to custom. After going back and forth considering the question, it was settled that blood money appropriate to a black case would be paid. All of Nyinyi's family's land was given to the relatives of the deceased, and half their oxen, sheep, horses, and domestic slaves were given to the relatives of the deceased (at that time, Nyinyi's family was among the first rank of wealthy families in this area, and thus the amount given was not small). The family also paid 333 ounces of silver, a rifle, sacrificial goods for the funeral, and the fee for the bimo. Every one of the leaders and elders of the Bacha clan who took part in the settlement of this case got an ingot of silver. At the time of the settlement, Xifasse knelt on the ground and drank to all the elders out of an ox-hoof cup. He killed a settlement ox, bought settlement liquor, and feasted members of the clan. As soon as the process was completed, Nyinyi's whole family immediately moved to live at a place about ten kilometers away.
CONCLUSION
The clans of the Nuosu in Liangshan are organized kinship groups based on patrilineal descent through genealogical links from father to son over the generations. These lineages are called cyvi in the Nuosu language and are divided into two kinds of relationships—cy means relatively close descent relations, usually within seven generations; vi refers to relations separated by more than seven generations. Whether between the cy within seven generations or between the vi separated by more than seven generations, there is a strict prohibition on intermarriage. In the Nuosu society of old Liangshan, the clan organization guaranteed the basic social existence of the individual; in customary terms, an individual who was not a member of a clan in old Liangshan would not survive long. The strength or weakness of a clan usually was closely connected to the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the individual. A Yi proverb says that in being a man, “it is best to be a tree that forms part of the fence protecting the clan; next best is to be part of the earth that supports this fence; after that one wants to receive the attention of clan members.” This means that if one cannot be one of the organizers of his own clan, he will still want to be one of its vanguard. In the Nuosu language Hmamu teyy (The Book of Knowledge), it says, “For nine generations you
We can say that a particular social environment produced a particular social system, and the customary law of the Liangshan Nuosu developed continuously and completely on the primary basis of clan law. The warp of clan customary law extended to produce the law for settling disputes between affines; the woof extended to produce the law on settling disputes between elders and juniors according to generational position and the law of relations between social strata on the basis of descent relationships. The enforcement of these various customary laws was carried out by the clans; apart from the clans a lot of customary laws would become worthless checks, not excepting the law of social strata. By examining the laws governing intraclan homicide and several case studies, we can broadly discern that paying with one's life and compensating with blood money were, ultimately, ways of unraveling the myriad threads of vengeance woven into the term relative.
In the discussion of how a case would be settled, there appear around the central figure of the victim two kinds of kinship relations: the inner circle consists of clan relations (close relatives and clan mates); the outer circle consists of affinal relations (the mother's brother's family and the father's mother's brother's family). The mother's brother's family referred to here is not just the mother's brother himself: for the Liangshan Nuosu, all men of the mother's clan are considered part of the mother's brother's family. The blood money paid to the mother's brother's family is equally divided, so that collateral uncles also get a share.
Many clans' internally determined customary laws are continuously legitimated versions of cases that have settled disputes within the clans. Their style of management is democratic, in that nobody is allowed to take his own measures against the wishes of the majorityof clan members. The autonomy of the clan is very strong, as is the autonomy of the individual. Commonly, in the course of regular life, many able individuals have emerged and established their own particular reputations, such as the ndeggu and suyyi, who had an acute sense that allowed them to settle disputes; the ssakuo, who bravely stood at the vanguard in war; and the suga who accumulated great wealth without setbacks. But none of them could act arbitrarily within the clan group. The clan determined customary law, and customary law united the group very closely. Within the warp and woof of clan customary law, a whole set of Nuosu customary laws was developed, and this set of customary laws made an overriding contribution to social order in the Nuosu area of old Liangshan.
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.
8. On the Nature and Transmission of Bimo Knowledge in Liangshan
Bamo Ayi
In the mountain fastness of Liangshan, the traditional clan society, which had no centralized government, adopted a slaveholding system that persisted until 1956; the efforts of successive dynasties to control the area ended in failure. Because of the geographic barriers and the special characteristics of the slave system, foreign scholars referred to Liangshan as an independent area and to the Nuosu people as the “Independent Lolo.”
In 1956, Liangshan began to undergo the Democratic Reforms and the slave system was abolished. Since then, there have been great changes in politics, economy, and culture, particularly during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966—76), when traditional Nuosu culture and religion became targets of campaigns to “smash the Four Olds” and “root out superstition.” Clan leaders (suyy), respected mediators (ndeggu), and priests (bimo) were scorned, and all were subjected to socialist reeducation. Clan meetings and other clan activities were forbidden, religious texts were confiscated and burned, and all kinds of ritual activity were prohibited. Nevertheless, in remote mountain villages in the core area where Nuosu are concentrated, Nuosu people preserved many aspects of their original way of life, and traditional religious beliefs and rituals continued in secret at that time.
Since the early 1980s, when minority policy turned away from promoting assimilation of Han ways, Nuosu people from the countryside and the cities have been spontaneously working toward the revitalization of traditional Nuosu culture. In the villages, the movement for cultural revitalization is characterized by the resurgence of the clans and the revival of traditional religious activities. With the redistribution of the land to households in the early 1980s and the administrative reforms of the 1990s, government power in the villages has been severely weakened. Agricultural cooperation is now undertaken
The bimo are religious professionals who guide the spiritual life of mountain Nuosu villages. In the Nuosu language, bi means to recite or chant a scripture or to perform a ritual; mo is a person of knowledge or accomplishment. Bimo are the bridge between people and spirits. They perform and direct all kinds of rituals, perform ceremonies to spirits and ancestors, exorcise ghosts and evil spirits, and cure illnesses. In the course of the historical development of Nuosu religion, the ranks of the bimo have developed their own system of reproducing themselves and of recruiting and training new members through a combination of inheritance and education.
BIMO AND THEIR PLACE IN SOCIETY
As religious professionals, bimo perform and direct all kinds of rituals to propitiate gods and ancestors, exorcise ghosts, call spirits, appease spirits, and cure illnesses. In traditional Nuosu belief, the human life course, wealth and poverty, peace and conflict are all the result of the influence of gods, ghosts, ancestors, and spirits. Bimo are the mediators between human beings and these supernaturals, representing their clients in their ceremonies and prayers to the supernaturals and even controlling people's access to health and wealth through supernatural intervention. As a Nuosu proverb says, “Where the crane flies over, the sky will be clear; where the bimo arrives, people will be fortunate.”
As village intellectuals, bimo wereformerly the only literate group in Nuosu areas; even today, they are the only ones who can read and understand traditional scriptures and old documents, compile historical scriptures, and write new texts relating to philosophy, literature, history, astronomy, medicine, agriculture, arts and crafts, rituals, religion, and ethics. There is a proverb that says, “The knowledge of a bimo is limitless.” The bimo are the
Suyy, ndeggu, and bimo are like the three stones that hold up the cooking pot over the fire pit in a Nuosu household: they are the triple pillars of Nuosu traditional society. Suyy are secular political leaders; ndeggu are like judges, specialists in mediation and dispute resolution between individuals and between clans (Ma Erzi 1992). But bimo are both leaders and mediators. As spiritual leaders, bimo deal with people's faith and guide the spiritual life of mountain Nuosu villages. As religious mediators, they are the bridge between people and supernaturals. Because of their complex role in Nuosu society, bimo became a distinct professional stratum very early in history. Their professional activity was not subject to control by secular authorities, but they sometimes joined forces with secular authorities, using the power of gods and ancestors to help solve or deal with otherwise insoluble questions; they thus became an important bulwark of the Nuosu clan system. For example, if a clan wants to divide into two because it is too large, or so that distant clan mates may marry, it is necessary to have a bimo perform the ceremony called nimu ajie; if two clans who have divided want to combine again after their strength has been reduced by natural disasters or wars, a bimo must perform the ceremony called nimu ate. When two clans form an alliance, a bimo performs the ceremony called lendu (bashing an ox) to consecrate the alliance and emphasize its permanence; when someone who had committed a serious violation of customary law is expelled from the clan, a bimo will perform the ceremony of loyycy (expulsion from one's clan), which calls on the ancestors to witness the expulsion. And when a case is so difficult that a ndeggu cannot solve it, a bimo may be called upon for an oracular solution.
Because of the services they offer to the population, bimo have a distinct and honored place in society. In the past, there was a custom described as nzy la bi a de, or “even when a tusi arrives, a bimo does not have to get up,” and even today when a bimo arrives the best seat is given up for him. In the course of Nuosu history, the ranks of the bimo have developed their own system of reproducing themselves and of recruiting and training new members through a combination of inheritance and education.
SUCCESSION TO BIMO STATUS
The status and social role of bimo, particularly in relation to religious activities, are inherited. It is a natural law that senior bimo will become old and eventually die. To whom will the bimo pass on their status and social roles? Who may qualify for the bimo profession to receive training and to carry on the tradition? Let us look at the principles and customary rules for the succession of the bimo.
Succession by Males Only
The bimo social stratum is a male social group, one whose inheritance is passed on to males only. Females have neither the right nor the opportunity to receive bimo education or engage in bimo professional activities. The notion of “polluted females” is internalized in religious beliefs of the Nuosu people, so females are prohibited from becoming priests, touching religious instruments and texts, or participating in certain religious ceremonies. Thus, the bimo, as sacred interlocutor between humans and supernatural beings, naturally exclude the “polluted” females. The Yi classic The Origin of Ghosts links the origin of ghosts to a beautiful girl. And it is said that there was only one female bimo in Yi history—Lazzi Shysi, a daughter of the eminent bimo Ashy Lazzi.
Even though Lazzi Shysi learned the highest-level magic from her father, understood the most powerful and complicated classics, had unusual talent—a horse she painted could fly; a bird she painted could sing; a dragon she painted could dance—and was able to suppress demons, banish ghosts, and rescue people from dangerous accidents, she still had to dress in male clothing when she performed as a bimo, so that no one knew she was female. This example shows the principle that the inheritance of the bimo excludes females.
Two Ways of Transmitting Bimo Status
The Primary Method: Inherited Status. Some Nuosu clans—for example, the Jjike, the Shama, the Ddisse, and the Jynyi—have produced bimo for many generations, as indicated in their genealogical documents, which demonstrate that their clans have practiced the rituals of bimo for dozens or even more than one hundred generations. In my own fieldwork, I discovered one clan in Meigu that claims to have practiced bimo arts for about 136 generations. According to customary rules of bimo succession, bimo status is inherited within one clan, particularly among nuclear family members, usually patrilineally from father to son. This kind of inheritance is conservative and thus has some limitations.
This type of succession within a clan that has traditionally produced bimo is statistically much more common than extraclan inheritance, for several reasons. First, hereditary bimo retain privileges when they offer services in the religion of ancestral worship. Nuosu people believe that ancestors are the source of disaster, fortune, prosperity, and disease, and thus they often require that ceremonies be performed to propitiate the ancestors. They cannot do these ceremonies themselves; the bimo must perform them. Usually a hereditary bimo will be asked to accept the honored and privileged position of performing such a ceremony. In addition, a hereditary bimo also dominates in other major ceremonies, such as calling souls, pronouncing curses, and ghost-cursing. In contrast, any nonhereditary bimo, no matter how
Second, because hereditary bimo are protected by their bimo ancestors and possess inherited ceremonial books and instruments, the Nuosu people believe them to have powerful abilities, and they trust them. They, as a dominant force in the bimo social group, are also very influential in Nuosu society generally.
Finally, hereditary bimo receive the highest compensation for performing a ceremony. They are the most authoritative, and their position in the bimo social class is the highest.
In order to preserve the status and the profession of the bimo within one's clan, a hereditary bimo is responsible for training younger generations; every male who is born in the nuclear family of a hereditary bimo is also responsible for learning bimo knowledge and associated skills and engaging in the bimo profession. Normally, if there is a bimo in the father's generation, there should be at least one bimo among the sons' generation. Thus the profession and status of bimo are continuously transmitted according to this customary rule.
A Secondary Method: Apprenticeship. Nonhereditary bimo are apprentices, called zzybi in Nuosu, of hereditary bimo. Zzy means “mixed” and “impure”; bi means bimo. Zzybi indicates that apprentice bimo are not pure and not authentic. There are two ways of becoming an apprentice bimo: the path may be determined by oneself or determined by divination. When a son is born, if his mother's rotating horoscopic compass currently points toward the east or the west, this indicates that he meets the bimo spirit and the bimo's protective eagle spirit, and thus is qualified to become a bimo. In fact, he should become a bimo, otherwise the bimo spirit and bimo eagle might become angry with him and cause diseases and disasters. If he becomes a bimo, the spirit will protect him and ensure his success in learning and performing ceremonies. Some parents voluntarily send their son to a bimo family to study; others do so after they get sick or after a disaster occurs: these parents, by means of divining, realize that the bimo spirit and the bimo eagle have caused the disease or disaster. This seems to imply that every Nuosu male has the opportunity to become a bimo, but because nonhereditary bimo or apprentice bimo can perform only small-scale ceremonies and have limited income, and because these bimo are not protected by their ancestors and do not inherit ceremonial books and instruments, they are not completely trusted and authoritative; thus they can perform only certain ceremonies. Apprentice bimo do not play an important role in transmitting the bimo status.
What accounts for this pattern of succession by males but not by females, and of limited powers for those who learn their skills by apprenticeship? It seems to me that the system of bimo inheritance is determined by blood relationships
From the Nuosu point of view, the bimo profession is sacred: the profession and its social status can be inherited only within one clan so that the clan will maintain its respected status as a hereditary bimo clan. The respected bimo status cannot be transferred to one's affines. This is the essential reason for the rule of male inheritance.
The bimo social status group is partially open to those males whose do not come from hereditary bimo clans, but this is only possible under the condition that it does not cause any damage to the principle of agnatic relationships. There is a clear line between hereditary and apprentice bimo. An apprentice bimo cannot be in charge of ceremonies such as ancestral worship, human-cursing, ghost-cursing, or soul-directing. Furthermore, an apprentice bimo cannot have his own bimo genealogy and transform his family into a hereditary bimo family. In Liangshan, we can often hear hereditary bimo families distinguish themselves by saying, “We have proof of being a bimo family” or “Our ancestors were bimo.” An apprentice bimo does not pass his status on to his sons. In my own fieldwork, I found that the greatest number of bimo generations in an apprentice bimo family occurs in the Hielie family in Chengmendong Village, Yanyuan County, which has four bimo generations. Even this family, however, still lives in the shadow of inauthenticity and cannot perform ancestral worship ceremonies, and each generation must acquire priestly knowledge anew from a hereditary bimo. Therefore, the bimo—as a self-perpetuating professional stratum—are limited to blood relationships.
In sum, not only does the system of bimo form its own inheritance mechanism, but it also clearly shows its conservativeness and exclusiveness. This
THE CONTENT OF BIMO EDUCATION
If the system discussed above regulates succession to the bimo's social position and roles, the bimo education constitutes the process of transmission. Bimo education aims to produce qualified bimo to take charge of religious ceremonies in order to avoid disasters and bring fortune. As we know, Yi religion is a complicated system that focuses on ancestral worship and incorporates nature worship, spirit worship, and belief in ghosts. Because of the numerous sacrifice and magic rituals, the complicated nature of ceremonial procedure, and the difficulty of ritual texts in the Nuosu language, in order to become a qualified priest one must have specialized knowledge and the ability to communicate with supernaturals. Let us examine the bimo education.
Bimo education focuses on the specialized knowledge and skills of bimo practice. As a professional priest, a bimo is in charge of practicing sacrifice rituals, medicine, and divination. He conducts ceremonies such as peacemaking with ancestors, escorting ancestors, preventing disasters, expelling ghosts, treating disease, asking for fertility,guiding souls, praying for fortune, divining, making alliances, passing judgment in the name of the gods, and so on. As an intellectual, a bimo is the repository and disseminator of ancient Yi history and cultural heritage. In order to ensure that a bimo is able to perform his duties, bimo education covers the following subjects.
Knowledge about Ancestors, Gods, Spirits, and Ghosts
Nuosu generally believe that everything has a soul, or yyrhla, and commonly believe in apu abo (ancestors), mulumuse (nature gods), jjylukuhxo (spirits), and nyicy hamo (ghosts). Belief in the ancestors is the most important. Nuosu believe that anyone, male or female, who has sons becomes an ancestor after death, returning to the world of the ancestors, where they should receive offerings of their patrilineal descendants in perpetuity and where they take on the responsibility of protecting their descendants. People who are childless or have only daughters become only ghosts after death, cold and hungry without a permanent abode. Gods are primarily the spirits of the natural world, such as spirits of heaven, earth, mountains, bodies of water, rain, cliffs, and so on. Different gods influence people's livelihood in different ways. Spirits belong to particular individuals or households, and they influence them in different ways.
Because bimo mediate between humans and supernaturals, they must know great amounts about these supernatural beings, and they often portray them as having diverse images. The hero-ancestor Zhigealu, who assists a bimo in treating insanity and in cursing humans or ghosts, is portrayed as wearing an iron helmet, carrying the sun and the moon on his shoulders, holding an iron bag in one hand and an iron fork in the other. The ghost Tusha, who haunts domestic animals until their death, is portrayed as having a long jaw, carrying a cutting board on the top of his head, wearing sheepskin, holding a small ax in his hand, and carrying an old bamboo basket on his back. In addition, spirits and ghosts have diverse personalities. The spirit Gefi, who is in charge of fertility, enjoys playing in forests and on lakes, which sometimes permits difficult birth and early death. Thus the ritual for directing Gefi symbolizes calling the spirit back from forests and lakes. The rheumatism ghost loves to dress up. In the ceremony of deporting the ghost, the ghost will not leave until he receives colorful clothes, a comb, hair pins, and a pretty triangle wallet. A bimo student should understand the images of supernatural beings, their personalities, and the disasters, diseases, and benefits caused by them in production, life, and health. As a result, a bimo can make his religious service smoother and control gods and ghosts in rituals when he prevents disasters and brings fortune.
Knowledge about Ceremonial Texts
The Nuosu have their own variety of Yi writing and have produced numerous classic documents. The bimo control Nuosu-language documents and ceremonial books. Although most books are religious, some of them deal with philosophy, literature, ethics, and morality. These books tell a bimo how to perform a ritual. “Narrating the origin” is an important part of aritual, based on The Book of Origins (Hnewo teyy) (see Wu Jingzhong, chapter 2 in this volume). This book discusses many issues, from the formation of the universe to the creation of the sky and the earth, from the origins of objects to the origin of humans, from the development of a society to the formation of human activities, from natural phenomena to human ones, and so on.
As a key to the bimo's education, his ability to understand ceremonial books is related to his cognitive ability and knowledge structure. The content of a bimo's recitation in a ceremony determines how the ceremony is arranged and how it progresses. That is, a ceremony is performed during the process
Knowledge about Genealogies, History, and Geography
A bimo must be familiar with genealogies of all families, lineages, and clans, the migration direction of their ancestors, and all associated important events, as well as the natural environment and topography of the Liangshan region. During a large-scale ancestral worship ceremony, a bimo usually has to narrate the origin of the group and its history. All bimo conducting ancestral worship rituals in different Yi regions have to narrate the history of their remote, original ancestor, Apudumu, and the history of the tribes of the “six ancestors.” In addition, historical documents such as The Division of the Six Ancestral Tribes and The Enlightenment of the Six Ancestors' Souls are important in bimo education. During a death ritual, a bimo has to narrate the text Soul-Directing in order to lead the soul of the dead to pass all places the family (and their ancestors) lived and eventually to arrive at the original ancestral home. In order to lead the soul to pass places easily, a bimo must describe the natural environment and typology of every site the family has lived in; he also has to tell the soul of the dead about important historical events associated with each place and its name, and about achievements of ancestors. In addition, a bimo, in every ritual, has to narrate the text Inviting Gods to assist his performance. Most spirits in this text are mountain spirits, each of whom is associated with one particular natural environment.
Knowledge about the Calendar and Astrology
The bimo excel at controlling supernaturals in a given time and space. The Yicalendar and the Yipeople's knowledge about the universe are very closely related to the cycles and rules of religious rituals. The Yi calendar is clearly shaped by the ritual calendar. When Yi people observe the universe, they in fact predict what happens in the world of humans. Knowledge about the calendar and astrology, as an important aspect of the bimo education, provides a powerful means for a bimo to communicate with supernatural beings in ceremonies.
Knowledge about Medicine and Disease
Bimo medical practice is characterized by a combination of treatment and divination. Nuosu believe that diseases are caused by disease ghosts. Diseases are
Knowledge about Arts and Crafts
One important aspect of bimo education is arts and crafts: drawing, straw weaving, sculpture, carving, and paper cutting. Yi books usually include drawn images of ghosts and illustrate the skills of gods. In some books, drawings illustrate text, while in others text explains drawings. Straw weaving and sculpture are normally used to portray the ghost to be displayed in rituals such as escorting ghosts and cursing ghosts. Paper cutting is a basic skill used to make images of objects to be sacrificed symbolically, such as the sun, moon, stars, animals, plants, objects used in everyday life, and domestic animals. When a bimo makes religious instruments and ancestral totem figures, he also needs to be a skilled wood carver.
Knowledge about Ritual Procedures
The ultimate goal of bimo education is to train a student to take independent charge of a ritual. One characteristic of Yi religious ceremonies is the combination of sacrificing and controlling, or the combination of sacrificing and black magic. The procedure of aritual is formalized; all customaryrules must be strictly followed. Choosing the time for a ritual, for example, one must pay attention to the year, month, date, and specific time. A sacrificed animal must be chosen according to its sex, hair color, age, and quality. An animal used in a sacrificing ceremony may be living, slaughtered and cooked, slaughtered but not cooked, and with or without blood or horns. A qualified bimo should know all the rules and procedures of rituals.
Knowledge about Folklore
In order to perform rituals, a bimo should know Yi folklore and oral traditions included in rituals, such as mythology,traditional songs, epics, folktales, and proverbs. Many bimo in Yunnan and Guizhou, as well as in Nuosu country, are famous for their singing; they are very knowledgeable about Yi folklore and oral traditions. They absorb folklore and oral traditions in order to enrich the content of their narration in rituals.
In sum, the content of bimo education derives fundamentally from Nuosu rituals and includes knowledge about supernatural beings, Nuosu language and texts, genealogies, history,geography, the Yicalendar, astrology,arts and crafts, ritual procedures, and folklore. Such systematic knowledge is required for a bimo in conducting rituals.
PEDAGOGY
There is no formal institution for bimo education in traditional Nuosu society. A junior bimo is trained by a senior bimop.
[1] The term bimop (with the last syllable pronounced mop, in the low tone) refers to a master bimo who can teach students, as opposed to bimo or bimox (middle or middle-high tone), which is a generic term.
A senior bimop is an experienced and knowledgeable elder who knows how to conduct a ritual, while a junior bimo, or bisse, is an inexperienced student. A bisse can be called bimo only when, after a few years, he completes his study and can independently run ceremonies. A bimop may teach either one or many bisse at one time. Whether or not one comes from a hereditary bimo family, one has to study under a bimop. The relationship between a student and a teacher or between learning and teaching has the following characteristics.First, there are no fixed time and place for teaching and learning. The most important duty for a bimo is to conduct rituals. Other duties cannot interrupt religious activities. Rituals are numerous in Nuosu regions, and a bi mop, when summoned by a host family, takes his bisse with him, from one family to another and from one village to another, to conduct rituals. Thus the time and place are not fixed for a bimop to teach his bisse.
Second, teaching is mixed with performing rituals. A bimo often has to teach his student(s) at intervals between rituals, but more important, he teaches his student(s) during ceremonies, when a student may become his teacher's assistant. As a student, a bisse should ask questions of his teacher, observe the procedure of a ritual, understand the meanings of a ritual, and practice it sometimes. Not only does each ritual become an opportunity for a bimop to teach, but it also becomes a process of learning for a bisse.
Third, the relationship between teacher and student is also shaped by other factors. In the Yiregion, some students take the initiative to study from a particular teacher; some learn from their fathers, grandfathers, or uncles. A bimop teaches without being paid. A teacher takes care of his student, while students respect their teachers. The quality of a student's work affects the future of both the student and the teacher. Therefore, both teachers and students work very hard in teaching and learning.
In such a master-apprentice relationship, a bimo normally teaches on an individual basis; he does not have formalized pedagogy. He teaches according
Bimo texts are also important in the bimo education. Learning them starts with the Nuosu script. Each Yi character represents both one word and one sound. There are many variations for a word in traditional Nuosu writing, making it difficult to learn.
[2] This refers to the traditional script used by the bimo. The new, standardized script is based on a one-to-one correspondence between the sound of a syllable and the sign used to write it. See David Bradley, chapter 12 in this volume.
An experienced bimop trains his students to show interest in discovering the relationships between a written word and a sound, between a written form and the meaning, and between one written word and another. After learning some basic writing, a student begins to study bimo texts. The study of a bimo text includes reading, reciting, and copying. There is no punctuation, and there are many specialized and archaic religious words and phrases in Nuosu texts. Literary words used in texts are different from words used in ordinary speech. These make reading a bimo text quite difficult. Therefore, when a teacher performs a ritual he usually reads a text first, then his students follow. Recitation is very important because it makes communication between a bimo and supernatural beings smoother and easier. If a bimo cannot recite everything from a text, the ritual is ineffective. After a student can read and recite a text, he copies the text so that he can learn the format and writing style. At the same time, he also has to learn how to make a brush and ink and how to make a scroll-style notebook. Because what he reads, recites, and copies is what he will use in the future when he conducts rituals by himself, a student usually is very serious about his study. One major problem for bimo education today is that some teachers require their students only to recite texts and do not pay enough attention to the explanation of their contents and sociohistorical contexts. This has caused some students to learn to read and recite texts without understanding their meanings clearly.In addition to the religious scriptures are some textbooks written especially for students, which have emerged in the course of bimo education. These include the Suosi teyy, a compilation of the names, natures, and characteristics of various ghosts and spirits; the Bijie teyy, which narrates the order of various rituals as well as the ritual instruments texts and charts use, and the Mguvangeyima, which is a collection devoted especially to charts of the ritual space of various ceremonies. These textbooks are designed especially for students and are concerned with the effectiveness of pedagogy. Taking language as an example, religious texts are usually written in poetic language,
Some bimo teachers are good at using proverbs and pithy formulas in teaching. In their long history of ritual practice, the bimo have accumulated many proverbs and formulas of bimo knowledge and used them in education. For example, in selecting animals for sacrifice, we have “For exorcising ghosts, a black hen; for calling souls, a brown hen”; “For cursing ghosts, a black billy goat; for presenting offerings, a white ram”; and so forth. In these sayings, “exorcising ghosts,” “calling souls,” “cursing ghosts,” and “presenting offerings” are all different steps in the ritual of sending off the ancestral soul; the sacrificial animals used in each stage are different species and different colors. In another example, in planting spirit branches, there are sayings such as “A spirit branch has to be peeled at the base; if you don't peel it, it can't become a spirit branch”; “In mge ndi[the name of aritual], seven bimo[plant seven spirit branches to represent seven bimo ancestor spirits]; in chy ke, twelve bimo[plant twelve spirit branches] above the Heavenly God White Father, below the Earthly God Black Mother, in the middle of all the Star Ancestors,” and so forth. There are also formulas for choosing auspicious days for rituals: “Sending off the ancestor in the first half of the month; wedding in the second half of the month”; “Send off the ancestor on a dragon day; conduct a wedding on a rat day”; “On a horse day, don't build a house; if you build it, don't move in”; “On a sheep day, don't perform a cure; if you perform the cure, the sickness won't be over with”; and so forth. Proverbs are also a way of educating students in the principles of bimo education, such as “No matter how poor the person who invites you to perform a ritual, you must still go happily”; or “The rule of a tusi is the same inside and outside the city walls; when bimo perform rituals, it is the same for relatives or nonrelatives”; “You can kill a bimo who fails an appointment to perform a ritual”; and “A bimo should listen in back of him for three days [after a ritual]; is there really peace and content?” Using proverbs and aphorisms helps students more effectively master bimo knowledge and ethics.
Demonstration and practice are often a part of bimo education. A teacher demonstrates how to carve a ghost statue, cut paper, make mud figures, draw ghosts, and sing different tunes. During his demonstration, a teacher explains key skills and procedures. A student practices: under guidance he copies and repeats what his teacher did. When a student is skillful, he will be allowed to perform and practice in a real ceremony. Demonstration and practice are essential for students to apply what they study.
In sum, the bimo educational style and its pedagogy are based on the master-apprentice relation. Bimo education is practice-oriented. In teaching, not only does the method focus on the guidance of the teacher, but it also pays attention to the participation of the student. This method deals with both knowledge and its application. This practice-oriented, master-apprentice education is an effective way of training younger generations to succeed elder bimo and is essential to reach the goal of bimo education.
In the course of historical development, the persistence of the bimo—as both practitioners of a religious profession and as intellectuals among the Yi—is possible only through inheritance of the bimo's religious status and social roles, and through teaching successive generations the bimo knowledge and skills. It is in their educational and religious activities that the bimo preserve and disseminate their indigenous religion and, at the same time, enrich the traditional Yi culture.