Sunday Times 2
Memories etched in stone and in our hearts
View(s):This is the third and final part of an article based on the writer’s recent visit to China. The first two articles were published in the Sunday Times of Sept. 18 and 25.
By Ameen Izzadeen
Ashima: The rock resembles the Sani girl who, accoring to the folklore, was still waiting for her lover Ahei who she thinks will free her from the bondage of the stone god
For the first time, in our 10-day stay in China, we felt we were like a group of social anthropologists. From the time we arrived in Nuohei, a village inhabited by China’s Yi people, on a sunny morning, it was a learning process for us till we departed after a sumptuous Yi lunch.
Nouhei is situated in Shilin County in the Yunnan Province. It took nearly two hours for us to reach the village from our hotel in Kunming, the capital of the province, which is on a rapid development drive to bring its economy to the level of China’s prosperous provinces such as Fujian. Tourism plays a key role in this process.
As we arrived in Nouhei, we were greeted by a smiling village girl in purple and white traditional clothes and a red hat. The village surrounded by mountains and lakes was as beautiful as she was. Its simplicity, perhaps, was its biggest attraction. Most houses in the village were made of thick stone slabs stacked one on top of the other, with no cement or binder being used to keep them in place. Thin stone slabs were used as roofing. We thought that the houses, called slate houses, would crumble with one push. But we were wrong. They were as strong as the traditions of the Yi people, who have a more than 3,000 year old history. About 8 million Yi people live in China and are spread across Yunnan and several neighbouring provinces. They largely live in mountainous areas like Nouhei, which in Yi language means Monkey Pond. The Yi people say their ancestors followed the trail of the monkeys and founded this village by the lake.
The village’s few inns, also built in slate-house style, bespeak an attempt to promote rural tourism — Yi tourism, in this instance — among people from other areas. The alleys are paved with polished stones. The beauty of the stone village, the smiling girl and the fascinating traditions of the Yi people woke the anthropologist within us. We wanted to be like Dr. R.L. Spittle, who during the early 20th century lived among the Veddas to study their life, or the French anthropologist who spent 30 years among the Yi people to study their life and culture. Yes there is an anthropologist in every one of us because we show some inclination to study or know about the culture and customs of other peoples. This anthropologist within us is a racist, if we think one culture is superior to another. Good anthropology is beyond ethno-centrism and prejudices. It assumes that every community’s culture, which includes traditions, beliefs and practices, however strange it may seem, makes sense and is meaningful.
Yet there were no takers among us – the 17 Sri Lankan journalists on a Chinese embassy-sponsored visit to China – when we made jovial remarks about getting married to a beautiful Yi girl and settling down in the village on the pretext of studying the Yi people..
We laughed at the proposal while the Yi girl was explaining to us the life and times of her people, pointing to the exhibits in the village museum. As though she understood our banter in Sinhala, the girl who gave her name as Wang Xiao Yanmi also laughed and changed the topic to marriage and the Yi traditions associated with it.
Pointing to the two long ear pieces attached to her mitre-like hat, she said they were worn by unmarried girls. One of the two ear pieces has an embroidered butterfly. A man can propose to her by touching the butterfly. But the matter is not as easy as that. The Shilin Country Yi people are a matriarchal society. The men listen to their women who work in the fields cultivating mainly tobacco, corn and potatoes. In the past, the men stayed at home and were engaged in hunting and slaughtering animals for food. Today the men also work in the public and private sector and the houses have modern amenities, but the matriarchal tradition survives. However, the womenfolk were generous enough to set aside seven days of the year for the men. During these seven days, the men reign. They gather at a designated place in the village to make merry with no questions asked, while the women stay inside their houses.
Wang Xia Yanmi: The smiling ambassador of Yunnan's Yi people
The Yi tradition demands that a man who proposes to a woman by touching the butterfly on the hat should work for three years for the bride’s family till the marriage is solemnised – just as the prophets of the Middle East worked for their would-be fathers-in-law prior to their marriage during biblical times. If there is more than one contender for a girl, the one who is stronger gets her. The prospective grooms will have to prove themselves by enduring the weight in two baskets connected to the two ends of a pole balanced on the shoulders. The one with the longer staying power wins. Or sometimes, a prospective groom, like Ashima’s lover, will have to wrestle with other contenders to prove their manliness.
We saw Ashima not in the Yi village of Nouhei, but at the Stone Forest in the same county. Hers is a sad story. Petrified in the stone forest, she is still awaiting her lover. We visited the Stone Forest after we had our lunch at a Nouhei restaurant. There was plenty of corn, potato chips, pumpkin, green leaves, peanuts, cauliflower and meat – all cooked in Yi style. After the lunch, the girl and her aunt sang traditional Yi songs for us.
The stone forest was a short drive from Nouhei. The 500 square kilometre forest where large linear rocks take the shape of petrified trees, was bustling with people when we went there. Some 270 million years ago, the area was a shallow sea, said our tourist guide who was dressed like Ashima the beautiful Yi girl. When the water receded gradually, they exposed the limestone rocks. Tens of thousands of tourists visit the forest daily to absorb the beauty of the rock that looks like Ashima, the rocks that look like eagles, crocodiles, elephants and other things that we conjure up in our minds.
Ashima, the folklore says, was a beautiful Sani (a branch of Yi) girl. She was kidnapped by Rebubala the wicked landlord, prompting her lover Ahei to come in search of her. Ahei fights Rebubala and defeats him. He takes Ashima and rides his horse as fast as he can until they get caught in a thunderstorm. They decide to take refuge in a bee’s house in the Stone Forest. It is so dark that the lovers cannot see each other. Ashima slips and gets trapped between the rocks. She tells Ahei that the stone god would free her only if he makes a sacrificial offering of a white cock and a white pig.
Matriarchal society: An elderly lady shepherding her flock in Nouhei
Ahei goes as far as he can in search of a white cock and a white pig, but does not succeed. Visitors to the rain forest can see a petrified Ashima carrying a basket on her back gazing into the distance. Hoping against hope, she awaits the arrival of Ahei.
The story was made popular by the blockbuster Chinese film Ashima. Most young girls visiting the Stone Forest take pictures of themselves in Ashima dress. One can pay ten yuan and hire the dress.
The stories of the Yi people and Ashima are not only etched in stone but also in our hearts. Also etched in our hearts was the hospitality of the officials of the Foreign Affairs Office in Quanzhou and Kunming during our stay in China. They proved they were hosts par excellence. We say a big thank you to them for taking care of us like their own children – and also to the Chinese embassy in Colombo for organising this familiarisation tour, which turned out to be a memorable one.