ETHNIC ORIGIN AND MIGRATION STORIES
In the distant past, ethnic origins for both Han and Sani Yi were claimed to have occurred in places far from Lunan. These two peoples' histories mark both as immigrants to the region. In their own stories the idea of being a Lunan native is not based on some autochthonous origin, but rather on having generations of family claims to places in Lunan. Ancestral native place as a site of group origin is part of the distinction made between ethnic groups who are now co-positioned in local space.
Much of Sani early history has been transferred over the generations by bimo, Sani male religious leaders, through their writing system and oral records. By the mid-twentieth century, warfare and some Western missionaries endangered the written records of many Yi groups. One effort to save various Yi texts was made by the renowned linguist Ma Xueliang,
[5] Ma's essay “How Imperialism Destroys Our Brother Nationality's Culture” (1951, 381—85) recounts his efforts in the 1940s to preserve Yi books in the Jinsha area, acting before missionaries destroyed the books. Ma argued that the missionaries had destroyed local culture by creating foreign language alphabets so the natives would learn quickly and convert their souls. Missionary bible myths also took away their history. “Some people even say they are not Chinese now, because of the story of Adam and Eve taught to them by the missionaries. This story which told people that they are all descendants of one family or all the same people is typical of the kind of poison missionaries spread,” wrote Ma.
who shipped documents off to Beijing for safekeeping. Ma subsequently wrote a detailed study of Sani Yi language (1951) and encouraged publication of Sani folklore, such as the flood epic Nimishi that he translated from Sani texts with the Sani scholar Ang Zhiling (Ma 1985). The poem recounts the creation of Sani ancestors, and their relationship to other nationalities, in a story of how three generations of protohuman beings survived various disasters including ice, drought, and floods. Ultimately only a brother and sister, Aher and Ahshe, were left, and they reproduced. The final lines of the[6] The use of the term “Yi,” a PRC state-constructed ethnic-linguistic group, unhooks and elides local manifestations, developments, and expressions often masking political suppression of local names. The choices of Chinese and English translations of Sani writing made by the Sani scholars cited here reflect current state policy rather than the Sani original, written from a Sani (not “Yi”) point of view. If we look at the Sani writing system originals and compare Chinese and English translations, we can see that the character pronounced ni, meaning the selfname of Sani people, is also translated as “Yi.” The Sani character pronounced vi, meaning family (jia in Chinese), is translated as zu (nationality) and “Yi,” while nivi is translated as “Yi Zu” and “Sani” in various English stanzas. There is a parallel of colonial essentializing in nineteenth-century Euro-American reports, including Vial's, that use the gloss “Lolo” to mean both the larger language group in general and specific groups like the Sani (as in “my Lolo”). Vial was aware of derogatory meanings attached to the term but felt its general use, much as “Yi” is used today, was necessary because there was none in the language system itself to indicate linguistic and cultural ties between groups. In this essay, instead of “Lolo” I use the term “Yi” when referring to Vial's and others' writings about the classificatory macro group, and “Sani” when referring to the local “Ni” people in Lunan, whom Vial called “Lolo” or “Gni.”
The sister gave birth to a large flesh ball that the siblings then chopped into pieces and cast into many directions. The flesh of the ball ran down to a flat plain [pingba] where they [sic] became the Han nationality who live there; the blood flowed into a big river and became the Dai nationality who live by the riverside; and the bone of the ball went into the forest where they [sic] became the Yi nationality who live in the forest:
There are six places in the forest. Six places became six villages. One village is for Black Yi, who speak Black Yi language. One village is for White Yi, who speak White Yi language. One place is for Red Yi, who speak Red Yi language. One village is for Gan Yi, who speak Gan Yi language. One village is for Sani, who speak Sani language [as in 1985 Chinese version, no Yi attached to Sani or Axi]. One village is for Axi, who speak Axi language. Year after year, generation [follows] generation. The population has flourished, the world has been lively, and all things on earth have come back to life. [7] In his introduction, Ma (1985, 1) remarks, “So, this poem highlights that all people today come from the same source. Even though there is no theoretical evidence, it is a good wish for humanity's childhood. After all, it is what binds together a union of nationalities.” This sounds like the reverse of his critique of the missionaries. The long narrative “Ashima” has been interpreted by Ma to be a continuation of Sani history since Nimishi times, making them “sister poems” (Ma 1985). In most popular retellings, Sani life is portrayed through this story of a young woman of renown called Ashima, who is stolen away by the evil landlord Rebubala. Her companion Ahei, who is identified as either her brother or her lover, rides to her rescue. After surmounting many trials, tricks, and tigers, they are trapped in a raging flood that sweeps Ashima way from Ahei. She returns as an echo heard in the karst stone forest of Lunan.
The Nimishi can be understood as a metaphor for the beginning of each new family, and in the past it was chanted at Sani weddings (Vial 1898,
Various Sani histories relate how their ancestors descended from three brothers and amalgamated into two groups. Later some descendants of one group migrated over three distinct routes into the Lunan region (Vial 1898, 1—2). In a version collected by Vial in the 1890s, the details are as follows: ancestors of all Yi peoples formed into two major tribes, with the families of the youngest brother mixed into both groups. The second brother's family became the conquerors (the Black, “Na”) of the eldest brother's family (the White, “Tou”), who became their serfs. The Black married only among themselves, controlled all the territory, and as local lords (midzemou) demanded rent from the White, who worked the land. There were many civil wars, as the White Yi peoples' (Vial 1905, 335—36) population grew and they expanded their need for territory. Over time the White subdivided into many groups, becoming the Sani (gni), Axi (ashi), and so on.
In Vial's analysis, little by little each White group has formed a tribe with its ethnographically distinct costume, customs, and dialect, and with territorial claims. Some groups emigrated under the conduct of a “minor chief” to look for new lands. Thus, some Sani recollected to Vial places where they stopped en route from the Dali region to where they are now settled. They migrated to Lunan under the leadership of three powerful men, whose house sites were still memorialized in Vial's day.
[8] “Mais il est vraisemblable qu'ils étaient conduits par les chefs de familles ou tribus; peutêtre méme n'étaient-ils que deux, l'un appelé Blanc (tou), l'autre appelé Noir (na); c'est, pour moi, le seul moyen d'expliquer cette tradition qui divise les Lolos en deux especes, les blancs et les noirs. D'apres une version indigène, ceux-ci seraient descendus de trois frères; mais les descendants du plus jeune se seraient confoundus avec les deux autres frères. Ce qui est constant, c'est que le blanc était l'ainé et le noir le cadet; mais par une inversion inexpliquée, les descendants du noir ont formé la tribu patricienne appelée napou, et les descendants de l'ainé sont devenus les serfs de l'autre, tout en se subdivisant en un grand nombre de tribus (naseu, ko, hotou, gnisou, gni, ashi, adje, etc.).... Les Lolos éraient soumis a dix-huit seigneurs ou midzemou à qui le peuple payait une redevance annuelle; quant au bien foncier il appartenait à celiu qui le cultivait. C'est encore actuellement le régime de la propriété chez cette race; en sorte qu'un seigneur peut aliéner la redevance qui lui est due, mais il ne puet pas aliéner le fond qui ne lui appartient pas. ...Les Chinois, en s'emparant plus tard de ce pays, n'ont fait que mettre des mandarins où habitaient les signeurs; et dans les parties conquises, mais non soumises, ils ont donné le titre de mandarin aux seigneurs indigènes, c'est ce que on applle de les ‘tusiguan.' . . . Les Lolos en se multipliant débordent de leurs anciennes limites et forment de nouveaux noyaux indépendants des seigneurs, mais encoure il se trove au milieu d'eux des hommes audacieux qui les dominent. Ansi, la tribu gni, que j'évangélise, se souvient des étapes qu'elle a du faire pour arriver de Tali jusqu’ici; elle garde la memoire de trois hommes puissants qui se sont fait un nom: Adle, Joke, Dzeshi.”
As we can see, Vial perceived the Sani as an indigenous people who were in the Lunan region first and had claims to the soil that perhaps neither their own Black Yi overlords nor the Chinese rulers could abrogate.Another understanding of Sani history is provided in the late twentieth century by Sani scholars (Ang Ziming 1996, 10) studying local variations in
Who might have been the aboriginal people of Lunan and what happened to them are questions taken up in contemporary government histories. Recent discoveries of Paleolithic artifacts and art in several Lunan sites indicate early human habitation (Lunan Yizu Zizhixian 1986, 27—29). Cave paintings have been interpreted by He Yaohua (1994, 41) to be the cultural heritage of “primitive Lunan indigenous people” who then mixed with inmigrating non-Han peoples from the northwest and Chinese from central China, creating ancestors of the Sani people. A Lunan County gazetteer (Lunan Yizu Zizhixian 1996, 120) states that most Sani are descendants of the “Luomengbu,” a tribe who had settled in Lunan (and actively fought and negotiated with the Chinese), but there has also been a blending with immigrant people settling from the outside. Chinese language patronyms used by Sani clans can be linked to specific locations outside of Lunan (including Nanjing, Guizhou, and Kunming) and the routes that their ancestors followed to Lunan before merging into the Sani people.
As early as 109 b.c.e. there are historical records of Han dynasty damand canal-building projects in the region now called Lunan County, according to an official state history (ibid.). By a.d. 225, the famous Han leader from the north, Zhuge Liang, used wealthy local officials to control the area. As war waged in the middle of China, a Luomengbu family named Cuan became very powerful in central Yunnan, including Lunan. During the Dali
Various attempts by government historians to link ancestors of Lunan Yi people to the Luomengbu build on language clues. The Yunnan Sheng Lu nan Yizu zizhixian dimingzhi (Lunan Yizu Zizhixian 1989) relates that in Sani language, a word that sounds like luo means tiger and a word like meng means very great, powerful. In a.d. 1270 three tribes including the Luomengbu, totaling about thirty thousand households, united in the middle region. One leader of the Luomengbu became the prefecture administrator, and the Yuan government appointed another one the military leader of Lunan. When the three tribes merged, the name “Lunan” came into use. In Sani language this name was pronounced lu, meaning stone, and nai, meaning black. Throughout all of these histories, written down by Sani intellectuals, government officials, and a French missionary, there is a repeated emphasis on the number three to explain local Sani variation: three brothers, three leaders, three routes, three tribes, and three sources of Sani ancestors from other places.
Sani ancestors became incorporated into the state under the Ming, in 1383, when a hereditary land administrator (tusi) was appointed in Lunan (Lunan Yizu Zizhixian 1989). Meanwhile in 1382, some 2,627 Han soldiers were sent into Lunan with their families to guard the city and cultivate agricultural land. Prisoners from central China were also sent down for agricultural work (He Yaohua 1994, 41). In the Lunan plain, Han people continued to settle, but in Guishan and other remote areas, the tusi system dominated non-Han people, in some cases until liberation in 1949.
Groups called Black Yi and White Yiby the Han were once different strata in one society in various mountain regions (ibid., 30). The County Annals reported that in some places Lunan people called White (Bai) Yi were dominant and owned a lot of land and forest, while Black (Hei) Yi depended on working for landlords.
[9] Of course it could also be argued, as Vial (1908, 22) did, that even if these groups were once one society, they have become separate ethnic groups over time.
Feudalism dominated Lunan, where whole forests, water systems, plants, mountains, and hamlets were owned by landlords. The landlords were tianzhu, masters of the fields, while peasants were dianhu, or tenants. Tenants had freedom and permanent rights to fen, or units of land—for planting, forestry, and housing—that they could sell or rent out. According to government research, before Land Reform some 7 percent of the population were landlords, who rented out 59 percent of the land (ibid., 31). In some areas landlords experimented with improvements in agricultural and working conditions, and elsewhere coal mining developed. The Lunan area has been administered in various districts since Han dynasty times into the present. In 1956 the Lunan Yi Autonomous County was founded,Han and Yi groups in Lunan have moved for water, conquered, rented or purchased lands in areas controlled by another ethnic group, and migrated for cash employment out of their home communities.
[10] Vial interpreted ethnic relations between the Sani and other local groups as being shaped by their sociocultural “character” differences, as well as by the dynamics of political inequalities and their physical proximity to each other. The relationship between Sani and Chinese was his primary emphasis. He rarely noted Sani relations with neighboring indigenous groups such as the Noeso (Nuosu) Lolo, Ashi (Axi) Lolo, or Miao. Muslims allied with various indigenous groups, including the Sani, during their grueling twenty-year revolt, but they often became enemies, according to Vial. He cites Muslim treachery as the reason why there was so much postrevolt enmity between them, despite their common Chinese oppressor (1898, 4).
The oldest Sani communities in Lunan are believed to be in the eastern remote areas of Guishan district, where the Sani subvernacular (one of four) spoken there is the standard for Southeastern Yi (Bradley n.d.). Locally, Lunan Han and bilingual Sani speak a regional variation of Southwestern Mandarin Kunming vernacular called “Hanhua.” Lunan communities have distinct histories that detail when the ancestors arrived and how families became rooted there. As we have seen, in general ethnic enclaves migrated for new resources and/or in response to dominant groups.Ethnic distinctions between Han and Sani societies beyond language and material culture differences were well marked in Lunan. In their relationship to the landscape, Sani ancestors established sacred groves and rocks in each community,venerated immediate family ancestors for two generations, and kept long genealogical chants. While Han have portable ancestor worship and lineage systems, they also have tudigong, local minor deities invested into the local landscape, and practice geomancy (fengshui) to understand the influence of regional natural forces. Sani society is kin based, with rotating community leadership, multicommunity clan affiliations, cross-cousin marriage, and relative gender equality in contrast to hierarchical Han society directly incorporated into the state, as well as regional patrilineage systems and exogamous marriage practices. Sani like Han however were also inserted into the Chinese state political economy with their tenant status, taxation, and cash employment.
What seems critical to note in this discussion of native-place and ethnic identities is that Sani ancestors stopped migrating into the Lunan area and settled there about five hundred years ago. Meanwhile Han people have continued to move from various places into Lunan through time, and the region has been controlled to some degree by a Chinese state system since the Han dynasty. The presence of Han in Lunan County over the centuries was a direct result of the Confucian civilizing project, while French missionaries brought in a competing Christian civilizing project.