Perspectives on the Yi of Southwest China "ss2.61"

Cosmology

Yi have a strong interest in, and keep searching for, the origin of the universe and of human beings. This is manifested in Yi traditional culture in the form of myth, both in oral epics and classic literature written in the old Yiscripts. Expressions of the cosmology of Yi people vary from one subgroup to another. Some describe water as the origin of the universe. They say that “the first thing evolved from Chaos was water,” then all things on the earth were developed from it (SFAS 1960). Some suggest that the air or fog formed the sky, the earth, and all kinds of beings and items in the world (Luo and Chen 1984; GINS 1982; Guo and Tao 1981). In an Axi epic the original form of the universe and everything in the world was a cloud (HIFY 1978). A wellknown Yimyth in Yaoan entitled Meiguo describes how a tiger's body became the universe and all planets and things on the earth were gradually generated from it (CIFY 1959).

No matter how diverse the ideas about the origin of the universe are, all emphasize movement and change. The word universe is written in old Yi as two symbols, OO

e . Although Yi characters are primarily phonetic, some of them, such as these two, are hieroglyphic. O indicates the space in which all things exist; O

e is an egg, which implies life and relentless movement (Bai 1995, 67, 93; Zhu Juyuan, personal communication, 1995). As far as the origin of human beings is concerned, myths and legends express awareness

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of the close relationship between the Yi and neighboring groups. There is a myth about human origin among Yi groups living in Yao and Dayao counties in Yunnan tells that ancestors of the Han, Yi, Lisu, Hmong, and some other groups came from the same parents (CIFY 1959, 1—46). Many minzu in China, including the Yi, Hani (Akha), Lahu, Lisu, Miao (Hmong), and Yao, have similar legends about human beings coming from a gourd or squash, and usually the ancestors of several groups came out together (Liu Xiaoxing 1990). The myth of the Axi Yi group asserts that the existence and development of the world and all things in it depend on their pairing as female and male (Xia 1990, 124). Quite a few peoples categorize things into male and female, the Moso and Lahu being the groups most similar to the Yi in this regard.

Male and Female In the Yi myth of creation, uplands, trees, grass, stones, and people are all divided into male and female. Things exist and develop only as pairs, such as the sun paired with the moon, the sky paired with the earth, big stars paired with small stars, and black clouds paired with white clouds (CIFY 1959; HIFY 1978). One can still see the trace of dual cosmology in Yi daily life. For example, the Lipo subgroup of the Yi in Tanhuanshan, Yunnan, divides natural objects and household utensils into female and male according to their size: the larger objects are female and the smaller ones, male. The Yi in Ninglang had used a solar calendar composed of ten months in a year and thirty-six days in a month. The Yi named the months after five pairs of elements—wood, fire, earth, copper, and water—so they had five female months and five male months each year (Liu Yaohan 1985, 59). Yi astrology, according to the associations of sun-female bright and moon-male-dark, divides a day and night into female day and male night (ibid., 96). Some Lolopo families in Yunnan enshrine their ancestors in calabashes. Each calabash contains a couple's spirits: parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. The calabash inhabited by the souls of male and female ancestors is called nielomo. Portraits of ancestors (male and female together) are worshiped in some Yi households. The descendants call this portrait nielomo as well. Nie means ancestral spirit, lo means tiger, and mo means female. That is, they use the female ancestor to represent the ancestors of both sexes. Interestingly, the way the Yi categorize the features of male and female is very similar to that of the Moso and the Lahu, among whom women are highly respected (Du Shanshan 1992; Yan and Song 1983).

Seven and Nine The Yi use the number seven to signify female and nine to indicate male. In a Nuosu cremation, for example, they make a coarse wooden chair with two long boards on either side and a wooden plank across

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the middle—altogether, nine pieces of wood for a man and seven pieces for a woman. When a bimo (healer and ritual practitioner) makes the spirit abode of the dead, he uses cotton thread to bind together a slip of bamboo shoot (which represents the spirit of the dead) and a little wool—nine rounds for a man and seven for awoman. Then he puts them into the spirit house, which is a piece of wood split and hollowed inside for the purpose, then binds the upper outside with hemp twine—again seven rounds for a woman and nine for a man. In Yi divination, “an odd number betokens good luck, an even number, bad luck” (Lin 1961, 129, 134).

Left and Right According to Liu Yaohan, the Yi, unlike many groups in the world, see the left as positive, the right as negative, and they associate female with the left and male with the right (1985). Meiguo, a Yi myth about the universe being developed from the body of a tiger, says the tiger's “left eye became the sun and right eye the moon” (CIFY 1959). The Yi highly value the left. When a bimo holds a ceremony, he calls the souls of the ancestors with his left hand while he drives away evil spirits with his right hand. Some Yi literature recorded the ancient custom of handing things to ancestors, respected ones, seniors, and parents with the left hand, and to wild ghosts and belittled ones with the right hand. The Lolopo in Yunnan make ancestral tablets with the female on the left and the male on the right. All these data indicate that the left is considered better, stronger, and more positive than the right in Yi cosmology, and that the Yi relate the female to the left, the sun, and ancestors (Liu Yaohan 1985, 48—49).

The above discussion of cosmology may seem a digression from the subject of the Yi health care system, but it signifies the ideological and historical aspects of Yi culture. It is on this cultural ground that Yi developed their health beliefs, forged their interpretations of illnesses, and evaluated health care providers in each sector. These peoples' understanding and evaluation of different health care sectors affects what kind of health care they choose—how they make their decisions and act on them. Having examined these basic cosmological beliefs, we can now consider where the Yiseek medical help.