Mosuo
Encyclopedia
Known to many as the Mosuo ( also spelled Moso or Musuo), but known often to themselves as the Na, the Mosuo are a small ethnic group
living in Yunnan
and Sichuan
Provinces in China
, close to the border with Tibet
. Consisting of a population of approximately 40,000, most of them live in the Yongning region and around Lugu Lake
, high in the Tibetan Himalayas
(27°42′35.30"N 100°47′4.04"E).
Although the Mosuo are culturally distinct from the Nakhi
, the Chinese government
places them as members of the Nakhi (aka Naxi) minority. Their culture has been documented by indigenous scholars Lamu Gatusa
and Latami Dashi (the collection of papers that he edited, published in 2006, contains an extensive list of references in Chinese, and a bibliography of books and articles in other languages [especially English] compiled by He Sanna).
. The Mosuo themselves often use this description which they believe increases interest in their culture and thus attracts tourism. The term matrilineal
is sometimes used, and, while more accurate, still doesn't reflect the full complexity of their social organization. In fact, it is not easy to categorize Mosuo culture within traditional Western definitions. They have aspects of a matriarchal culture: women are often the head of the house, inheritance is through the female line, and women make business decisions. However, unlike a true matriarchy, political power tends to be in the hands of males.
Local economies tend to be barter-based. However, increased interaction with the outside world brings greater use of a cash-based trade system. Average incomes are low (US $150–200 per annum), causing financial restrictions when cash is needed for activities such as education or travel. Electricity has recently been introduced in some Mosuo communities, but many villages still lack electric power. Running water is rare and communities rely on wells or streams. Change is apparent, though, and one can now see satellite dishes appearing in some villages.
Mosuo homes consist of four rectangular structures arranged in a square, around a central courtyard. The first floor houses livestock, including water buffalo, horses, geese, and poultry. Animals may wander through the house during the day. The main cooking, eating and visiting areas are also on the first floor. The second floor is commonly used for storage and for the women’s private rooms; other family members sleep in communal quarters.
Most importantly, males deal with the slaughter of livestock, in which women never participate. Slaughtered pigs, in particular, are kept whole and stored in a dry, airy place that keeps them edible for up to ten years. This is especially helpful when harsh winters make food scarce.
Mosuo families tend to trace their lineage through the female side of the family. Occasionally, in fact, they may not know who the father of a child is, which does not carry stigma as in Western societies. An important historical fact often missed in studies of the Mosuo was that their social organization has traditionally been feudal, with a small nobility
controlling a larger peasant
population. The Mosuo nobility practiced a "parallel line of descent" that encouraged cohabitation, usually within the nobility, in which the father passed his social status to his sons, while the women passed their status to their daughters. Thus, if a Mosuo commoner female married a male serf, her daughter would be another commoner, while her son would have serf status.
Hua (2001) has theorized that the matriarchal system of the Mosuo lower classes was enforced by the nobility to neutralize threats to their power. Since leadership was inherited through the male family line, potential threats to leadership from the peasant class were eliminated by tracing the lineage of the latter through the female line. Thus, depicting Mosuo culture as an idealized “matriarchal” culture with more freedom than patriarchal societies and with special rights for women, are unfounded. In actuality, the Mosuo peasant class has historically been subjugated and “sometimes treated as little better than slaves.”
A careful reading of the whole article, including this Adoption section, shows that the Mosuo emphasis is on the matrilineal household, not on the usual matrilineal family. To denote this "common" Mosuo difference from the norm, the term household/family name will be used in this article instead of the normal term, family name.
” (zou hun in Chinese). There is no traditional marriage in Mosuo culture. Therefore, there are no husbands or wives. The Western conception of marriage has been replaced by “walking marriages” or “visiting relations,” in which partners do not live in the same household. Children of such relationships are raised by their mothers and the mothers' families. Shih (2010) is the most sophisticated anthropological account of Moso practices of sexual union.
The Mosuo have large extended families, and several generations (great grandparents, grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, etc.) live together in the same house. Everyone lives in communal quarters, and there are no private bedrooms or living areas, except for women between certain ages (see the section on “coming of age,” below) who may have their own private rooms.
All on-going sexual relationships in Mosuo culture are called "walking marriages." These bonds are "based on mutual affection." When a Mosuo woman or man expresses interest in a potential partner, it is the woman who may give the man permission to visit her. These visits are usually kept secret, with the man visiting the woman's house after dark, spending the night, and returning to his own home in the morning. Mosuo women and men can engage in sexual relations with as many partners they wish.
While a pairing may be long-term, the man never lives with the woman's family, or vice versa. Mosuo men and women continue to live with and be responsible to their respective families. The couple do not share property. The father usually has little responsibility for his offspring. "It is the job of men to care more for their nieces and nephews than for their own children." A father may indicate an interest in the upbringing of his children by bringing gifts to the mother's family. This gives him status within the mother's family, while not actually becoming part of the family. Whether or not the father is involved, children are raised in the mother's home and assume her household/family name.
Another particularly important result of this practice is the lack of preference for children of a particular sex. For example, in most cultures, a female joins the male partner's family upon getting married. The result is that if a couple has many female children, they will lose them after marriage, and have no one to care for them in old age; but if they have male children, their sons (and their sons' wives) will care for them. So, in poorer populations in particular, there is a strong preference for male children.
However, among the Mosuo, since neither the male nor female children ever leave the household, there is no particular preference for one gender over the other. The focus instead tends to be on maintaining some degree of sexual balance, having roughly the same proportion of males to females within a household. In situations that this becomes unbalanced, it is not uncommon for Mosuo to adopt children of the appropriate sex or even for two households to "swap" male and female children.
While it is possible for a Mosuo woman to change partners as often as she likes, few Mosuo women have more than one partner at a time. Anthropologists call this system “serial monogamy.” Most Mosuo form long-term relationships and do not change partners frequently. Some of these pairings may even last a lifetime.
The large majority of women know their children's fathers; it is actually a source of embarrassment if a mother cannot identify a child's father. At a child's birth, the father, his mother and sisters come to celebrate, and bring gifts. On New Year's Day, a child visits the father to pay respect to him and his household. A father also participates in the coming-of-age ceremony. Though he does not have an everyday role, the father is nevertheless an important partner.
After coming of age, Mosuo females can get their own private bedroom, called a "flowering room"; and, once past puberty
, can begin to invite partners for “walking marriages”.
Dabas and Lamas are invited to recite prayers for the deceased. Mosuo believe that if a spirit does not have assistance of a Daba, it will be lost. Without Lamas, a spirit will not be able to attain reincarnation. Caskets are small and square, with the deceased's body placed in the fetal position so that that it can be reborn in the next life. During cremation, a decorated horse is led around the fire, which Mosuo believe will help carry the deceased's spirit away. Afterwards, friends and family gather to pay their last respects and wish the deceased an easy journey to their ancestral land.
, buckwheat
, and flax
exclusively. This changed under Han
influence at the end of the nineteenth century. Since then, these farmers have also cultivated, among other things, corn, sunflowers, soybeans, potatoes and other vegetables such as pumpkins and beans. Potatoes were their main staple for a while until the mid-twentieth century when they began growing rice. Today it makes up more than half of annual production.
Mosuo also have a collection of livestock. Since the early twentieth century, they have raised buffalo, cows, horses, and goats which originated from Han and Tibetan regions. However, their preferred stock is pigs. Pork plays several important roles in Mosuo society. It is fed to guests, is the obligatory offering at funerals, and used as payment or reimbursement. Hua 2001 insists that it is “a kind of currency and...a symbol of wealth”.
Once a year, regions of Mosuo males gather for a livestock fair. They travel for miles on buses, horses, or foot to attend. Here men sell and trade livestock to supplement household incomes.
The Mosuo fish on Lake Lugu and also set land-based fish traps; however, they do not use motorboats, and catching fish in open water using their very primitive gear is not easy.
.
principles and involves ancestor worship and the worship of a mother goddess: "The Mosuo are alone among their neighbors to have a guardian mother goddess rather than a patron warrior god".
The primary tasks of the priest (or shaman), also called daba, are to perform exorcisms and assist deceased spirits. Priests drink alcohol until they go into a trance and can converse with these spirits. Since the Mosuo have no written language, there is no religious script, nor is there a temple. All Daba priests are male, and they live in their mother's house with their brothers and sisters. When not pursuing their religious duties, they engage in everyday tasks such as fishing and herding.
On a day-to-day basis, Daba plays a far smaller role in the lives of the Mosuo. The daba is mostly called on to perform traditional ceremonies at key events, such as naming a child, a child's coming-of-age ceremony, a funeral, or special events such as the Spring Festival. The daba is also called on to perform specific rites if someone is sick.
A cultural crisis is emerging. Due to past Chinese government policies, which made being a Daba priest illegal (this policy has now ceased), there are very few remaining dabas, most of whom are old men. This leads some Mosuo to worry that Mosuo history and heritage may be lost when the current generation of Dabas are gone.
s offer prayers of thanks and prayers for the dead, offer basic religious and secular education to young children, and counsel adults. In families with more than one male child, one will most often be sent to be a monk.
The Mosuo even have their own “living Buddha”, a man said to be a reincarnation of one the great Tibetan spiritual leaders. He usually lives in Lijiang
, but returns to the main Tibetan temple in Yongning for important spiritual holidays. Many Mosuo families will send at least one male to be trained as a monk, and in recent years, the number of such monks has increased quite significantly. Update: the Mosuo Living Buddha died of old age in April of 2011.
In most Mosuo homes, a statue of some Buddhist god can be found above the cooking fire; the family will usually put a small portion of whatever they are cooking in the fire, as an offering to their god. Tibetan Buddhist holidays and festivals are participated in by the entire Mosuo community.
, a member of the Tibetan–Burman
family. While there is no question that the language of the "Mosuo" and that of the "Naxi" are very closely related (i.e. dialects of one and the same language), some "Mosuo" speakers resent the use of the language name "Naxi", which is commonly used to refer to the dialect of the town of Lijiang and the surrounding villages; a more adequate name would be "Na", which is the common autonym of the "Mosuo" as well as of the "Naxi".
Generally, since Han Chinese occupation of the region, the Mosuo today use Han script
for daily communication. The Tibetan script
is mainly used for religious purposes. The existence of Daba script is disputed. The following is the point that it does not exist. For the point that it exists, see :Zh:達巴文.
The Mosuo also have their own native religion, called Daba, which uses 32 symbols. However, there are currently efforts underway to develop a written form of the Mosuo language, most notably by the Lugu Lake Mosuo Cultural Development Association.
. Next, Mosuo accepted Buddhism into their culture but they adapted it to fit their values. Neither the Cultural Revolution or trade between different cultures fundamentally changed Mosuo beliefs. Recently, however, Mosuo society is changing quickly.
dedicated to some of them. Most films perpetuate the myth that women run the society, some even claiming that men have no say in political or household matters and do not work.
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
living in Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
and Sichuan
Sichuan
' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...
Provinces in China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, close to the border with Tibet
Tibet
Tibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
. Consisting of a population of approximately 40,000, most of them live in the Yongning region and around Lugu Lake
Lugu Lake
Lugu Lake is located in the North West Yunnan plateau in the centre of Ningliang Yi Autonomous County in the People's Republic of China. The middle of the lake forms the border between the Ninglang County of Yunnan Province and the Yanqing County of Sichuan province...
, high in the Tibetan Himalayas
Himalayas
The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...
(27°42′35.30"N 100°47′4.04"E).
Although the Mosuo are culturally distinct from the Nakhi
Nakhi
The Nakhi are an ethnic group inhabiting the foothills of the Himalayas in the northwestern part of Yunnan Province, as well as the southwestern part of Sichuan Province in China....
, the Chinese government
Government of the People's Republic of China
All power within the government of the People's Republic of China is divided among three bodies: the People's Republic of China, State Council, and the People's Liberation Army . This article is concerned with the formal structure of the state, its departments and their responsibilities...
places them as members of the Nakhi (aka Naxi) minority. Their culture has been documented by indigenous scholars Lamu Gatusa
Lamu Gatusa
Lamu Gatusa is an associate professor at the Yunan Academy of Social Sciences, in Kunming, Yunnan, China. He is also a writer, and a three-time winner of China's Minority People Literature Award....
and Latami Dashi (the collection of papers that he edited, published in 2006, contains an extensive list of references in Chinese, and a bibliography of books and articles in other languages [especially English] compiled by He Sanna).
Introduction
The Mosuo culture is frequently described as matriarchalMatriarchy
A matriarchy is a society in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership and moral authority. It is also sometimes called a gynocratic or gynocentric society....
. The Mosuo themselves often use this description which they believe increases interest in their culture and thus attracts tourism. The term matrilineal
Matrilineality
Matrilineality is a system in which descent is traced through the mother and maternal ancestors. Matrilineality is also a societal system in which one belongs to one's matriline or mother's lineage, which can involve the inheritance of property and/or titles.A matriline is a line of descent from a...
is sometimes used, and, while more accurate, still doesn't reflect the full complexity of their social organization. In fact, it is not easy to categorize Mosuo culture within traditional Western definitions. They have aspects of a matriarchal culture: women are often the head of the house, inheritance is through the female line, and women make business decisions. However, unlike a true matriarchy, political power tends to be in the hands of males.
Daily life
Mosuo culture is primarily agrarian, with work based on farming tasks such as raising livestock (yak, water buffalo, sheep, goats, poultry) and growing crops, including grains and potatoes. The people are largely self-sufficient in diet, raising enough for their daily needs. Meat is an important part of their diet and, since they lack refrigeration, is preserved through salting or smoking. The Mosuo are renowned for their preserved pork, which may be kept for 10 years or more. They produce a local alcoholic beverage made from grain, called sulima, which is similar to strong wine. Sulima is drunk regularly and usually offered to guests and at ceremonies and festivals.Local economies tend to be barter-based. However, increased interaction with the outside world brings greater use of a cash-based trade system. Average incomes are low (US $150–200 per annum), causing financial restrictions when cash is needed for activities such as education or travel. Electricity has recently been introduced in some Mosuo communities, but many villages still lack electric power. Running water is rare and communities rely on wells or streams. Change is apparent, though, and one can now see satellite dishes appearing in some villages.
Mosuo homes consist of four rectangular structures arranged in a square, around a central courtyard. The first floor houses livestock, including water buffalo, horses, geese, and poultry. Animals may wander through the house during the day. The main cooking, eating and visiting areas are also on the first floor. The second floor is commonly used for storage and for the women’s private rooms; other family members sleep in communal quarters.
Role of women
As soon as a Mosuo female grows old enough, she learns the tasks that she will perform for the rest of her life. Mosuo females do all the housework. This includes cleaning, tending the fire, cooking, gathering firewood, feeding the livestock, and spinning and weaving. In the past, due to isolation, Mosuo women produced all their own household goods. Today, due to increased trade with surrounding villages and cities, it is easier to attain goods. Nevertheless, some Mosuo women, especially those of older generations, know how to use looms to produce goods.Role of men
According to some, men have no responsibility in Mosuo society—they would have no jobs, rest all day, and conserve their strength for nighttime visits. However, Mosuo males do have important roles in their society. They are in charge of livestock and fishing, which they learn from their uncles and older male family members as soon as they are old enough.Most importantly, males deal with the slaughter of livestock, in which women never participate. Slaughtered pigs, in particular, are kept whole and stored in a dry, airy place that keeps them edible for up to ten years. This is especially helpful when harsh winters make food scarce.
Matrilineality
Mosuo families tend to trace their lineage through the female side of the family. Occasionally, in fact, they may not know who the father of a child is, which does not carry stigma as in Western societies. An important historical fact often missed in studies of the Mosuo was that their social organization has traditionally been feudal, with a small nobility
Nobility
Nobility is a social class which possesses more acknowledged privileges or eminence than members of most other classes in a society, membership therein typically being hereditary. The privileges associated with nobility may constitute substantial advantages over or relative to non-nobles, or may be...
controlling a larger peasant
Peasant
A peasant is an agricultural worker who generally tend to be poor and homeless-Etymology:The word is derived from 15th century French païsant meaning one from the pays, or countryside, ultimately from the Latin pagus, or outlying administrative district.- Position in society :Peasants typically...
population. The Mosuo nobility practiced a "parallel line of descent" that encouraged cohabitation, usually within the nobility, in which the father passed his social status to his sons, while the women passed their status to their daughters. Thus, if a Mosuo commoner female married a male serf, her daughter would be another commoner, while her son would have serf status.
Hua (2001) has theorized that the matriarchal system of the Mosuo lower classes was enforced by the nobility to neutralize threats to their power. Since leadership was inherited through the male family line, potential threats to leadership from the peasant class were eliminated by tracing the lineage of the latter through the female line. Thus, depicting Mosuo culture as an idealized “matriarchal” culture with more freedom than patriarchal societies and with special rights for women, are unfounded. In actuality, the Mosuo peasant class has historically been subjugated and “sometimes treated as little better than slaves.”
Matriarch
The matriarch (Ah mi, or elder female, in Chinese) is the head of the house. The Ah mi has absolute power; she decides the fate of all those living under her roof. The matriarch also manages the money and jobs of each family member. When the Ah mi wishes to pass her duties on to the next generation, she will give this female successor the keys to the household storage, signifying the passing on of property rights and responsibility.Adoption
If there are no offspring of one sex, it is common for a child from another family to join an adoptive household. Such a child might come from a large family, or one too small to continue. Children raised in this sense are genealogically linked to their new households. They are treated as equal family members; in some instances, adopted females become the matriarchs of their adoptive families.A careful reading of the whole article, including this Adoption section, shows that the Mosuo emphasis is on the matrilineal household, not on the usual matrilineal family. To denote this "common" Mosuo difference from the norm, the term household/family name will be used in this article instead of the normal term, family name.
Walking marriages
One of the best known, and least understood, aspects of Mosuo culture is their practice of what has been termed “walking marriageWalking marriage
Walking marriage is a widely-used misnomer for the sort of romantic and sexual relationships embedded in the culture of, for example, the Jaintia sub-tribe of the Khasi people of Meghalaya in north-east India and the Mosuo ethnic minority of China. The Mosuo call it tisese, which translates...
” (zou hun in Chinese). There is no traditional marriage in Mosuo culture. Therefore, there are no husbands or wives. The Western conception of marriage has been replaced by “walking marriages” or “visiting relations,” in which partners do not live in the same household. Children of such relationships are raised by their mothers and the mothers' families. Shih (2010) is the most sophisticated anthropological account of Moso practices of sexual union.
General practice
The Mosuo have large extended families, and several generations (great grandparents, grandparents, parents, children, grandchildren, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, etc.) live together in the same house. Everyone lives in communal quarters, and there are no private bedrooms or living areas, except for women between certain ages (see the section on “coming of age,” below) who may have their own private rooms.
All on-going sexual relationships in Mosuo culture are called "walking marriages." These bonds are "based on mutual affection." When a Mosuo woman or man expresses interest in a potential partner, it is the woman who may give the man permission to visit her. These visits are usually kept secret, with the man visiting the woman's house after dark, spending the night, and returning to his own home in the morning. Mosuo women and men can engage in sexual relations with as many partners they wish.
While a pairing may be long-term, the man never lives with the woman's family, or vice versa. Mosuo men and women continue to live with and be responsible to their respective families. The couple do not share property. The father usually has little responsibility for his offspring. "It is the job of men to care more for their nieces and nephews than for their own children." A father may indicate an interest in the upbringing of his children by bringing gifts to the mother's family. This gives him status within the mother's family, while not actually becoming part of the family. Whether or not the father is involved, children are raised in the mother's home and assume her household/family name.
Benefits
This type of marriage practice has many positive outcomes. First, it gives both participants equal measures of freedom. It can be initiated at will and ended in the same manner. Only rarely do families become involved. If a matriarch disapproves of a “visitor,” she can make the participants end the relationship, but this seldom happens. In other Asian cultures, “marriage is seen as a group decision.” China, especially, has a history of focusing more on families' ties than the individuals' and works to serve the economic and political interests of these larger parties. Walking marriages, however, negate these social pressures and allow more independence.Another particularly important result of this practice is the lack of preference for children of a particular sex. For example, in most cultures, a female joins the male partner's family upon getting married. The result is that if a couple has many female children, they will lose them after marriage, and have no one to care for them in old age; but if they have male children, their sons (and their sons' wives) will care for them. So, in poorer populations in particular, there is a strong preference for male children.
However, among the Mosuo, since neither the male nor female children ever leave the household, there is no particular preference for one gender over the other. The focus instead tends to be on maintaining some degree of sexual balance, having roughly the same proportion of males to females within a household. In situations that this becomes unbalanced, it is not uncommon for Mosuo to adopt children of the appropriate sex or even for two households to "swap" male and female children.
Myths
Although sometimes believed otherwise by outsiders:- Mosuo women should not be considered promiscuous
While it is possible for a Mosuo woman to change partners as often as she likes, few Mosuo women have more than one partner at a time. Anthropologists call this system “serial monogamy.” Most Mosuo form long-term relationships and do not change partners frequently. Some of these pairings may even last a lifetime.
- Fathers of children are commonly known
The large majority of women know their children's fathers; it is actually a source of embarrassment if a mother cannot identify a child's father. At a child's birth, the father, his mother and sisters come to celebrate, and bring gifts. On New Year's Day, a child visits the father to pay respect to him and his household. A father also participates in the coming-of-age ceremony. Though he does not have an everyday role, the father is nevertheless an important partner.
Coming of age
The coming-of-age ceremony, which occurs at the age of thirteen, is one of the most important events in a Mosuo child's life. Before this ceremony, Mosuo children all dress the same and are restricted from certain aspects of Mosuo life, particularly those that involve religious rites. Also, a child who dies before this ceremony does not receive the traditional funeral. Once they come of age, girls are given their skirts, and boys are given their trousers (thus, it is called the “skirt ceremony” for girls, and the “trouser ceremony” for boys).After coming of age, Mosuo females can get their own private bedroom, called a "flowering room"; and, once past puberty
Puberty
Puberty is the process of physical changes by which a child's body matures into an adult body capable of reproduction, as initiated by hormonal signals from the brain to the gonads; the ovaries in a girl, the testes in a boy...
, can begin to invite partners for “walking marriages”.
Hearth
This is the center of the household. It combines the worship of nature, ancestors, and spirits. Behind the hearth is a slab of stone (called guo zhuang in Chinese) and an ancestral altar where Mosuo household members leave a food offering. They do this before each meal, even when having tea.Funeral
Death is the domain of men, by whom all funeral arrangements are made. It is the only time men prepare food for family and guests. Usually, every family in the village will send at least one male to help with the preparations.Dabas and Lamas are invited to recite prayers for the deceased. Mosuo believe that if a spirit does not have assistance of a Daba, it will be lost. Without Lamas, a spirit will not be able to attain reincarnation. Caskets are small and square, with the deceased's body placed in the fetal position so that that it can be reborn in the next life. During cremation, a decorated horse is led around the fire, which Mosuo believe will help carry the deceased's spirit away. Afterwards, friends and family gather to pay their last respects and wish the deceased an easy journey to their ancestral land.
Dogs
While many Asian cultures practise the custom of eating dogs, this is strictly forbidden to the Mosuo. In Mosuo culture, a myth describes that long ago, dogs had life spans of 60 years while humans had life spans of thirteen years. Humans felt their life span was too short, so they traded it with the dogs in exchange for paying homage to them. Therefore, dogs are valued members of the family. They are never killed, and they most certainly are never eaten. During the initiation rites into adulthood, Mosuo adolescents pray before the family dogs.Economy
The Mosuo are primarily farmers. Subsistence is mostly based on agriculture. Farmers work "seven hours a day and seven months a year". In the past, they cultivated oatsOATS
OATS - Open Source Assistive Technology Software - is a source code repository or "forge" for assistive technology software. It was launched in 2006 with the goal to provide a one-stop “shop” for end users, clinicians and open-source developers to promote and develop open source assistive...
, buckwheat
Buckwheat
Buckwheat refers to a variety of plants in the dicot family Polygonaceae: the Eurasian genus Fagopyrum, the North American genus Eriogonum, and the Northern Hemisphere genus Fallopia. Either of the latter two may be referred to as "wild buckwheat"...
, and flax
Flax
Flax is a member of the genus Linum in the family Linaceae. It is native to the region extending from the eastern Mediterranean to India and was probably first domesticated in the Fertile Crescent...
exclusively. This changed under Han
Han Chinese
Han Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and are the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92% of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98% of the population of the Republic of China , 78% of the population of Singapore, and about 20% of the...
influence at the end of the nineteenth century. Since then, these farmers have also cultivated, among other things, corn, sunflowers, soybeans, potatoes and other vegetables such as pumpkins and beans. Potatoes were their main staple for a while until the mid-twentieth century when they began growing rice. Today it makes up more than half of annual production.
Mosuo also have a collection of livestock. Since the early twentieth century, they have raised buffalo, cows, horses, and goats which originated from Han and Tibetan regions. However, their preferred stock is pigs. Pork plays several important roles in Mosuo society. It is fed to guests, is the obligatory offering at funerals, and used as payment or reimbursement. Hua 2001 insists that it is “a kind of currency and...a symbol of wealth”.
Once a year, regions of Mosuo males gather for a livestock fair. They travel for miles on buses, horses, or foot to attend. Here men sell and trade livestock to supplement household incomes.
The Mosuo fish on Lake Lugu and also set land-based fish traps; however, they do not use motorboats, and catching fish in open water using their very primitive gear is not easy.
Religion
Religion is a major part of Mosuo life. It is made up of two coexisting beliefs: their own syncretic faith called Daba and the influence of Tibetan BuddhismTibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist religious doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet and certain regions of the Himalayas, including northern Nepal, Bhutan, and India . It is the state religion of Bhutan...
.
Daba
Daba has been a part of Mosuo culture for thousands of years, handed down through generations by word of mouth. It functions as a repository of most of the Mosuo culture and history. It is based on animisticAnimism
Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
principles and involves ancestor worship and the worship of a mother goddess: "The Mosuo are alone among their neighbors to have a guardian mother goddess rather than a patron warrior god".
The primary tasks of the priest (or shaman), also called daba, are to perform exorcisms and assist deceased spirits. Priests drink alcohol until they go into a trance and can converse with these spirits. Since the Mosuo have no written language, there is no religious script, nor is there a temple. All Daba priests are male, and they live in their mother's house with their brothers and sisters. When not pursuing their religious duties, they engage in everyday tasks such as fishing and herding.
On a day-to-day basis, Daba plays a far smaller role in the lives of the Mosuo. The daba is mostly called on to perform traditional ceremonies at key events, such as naming a child, a child's coming-of-age ceremony, a funeral, or special events such as the Spring Festival. The daba is also called on to perform specific rites if someone is sick.
A cultural crisis is emerging. Due to past Chinese government policies, which made being a Daba priest illegal (this policy has now ceased), there are very few remaining dabas, most of whom are old men. This leads some Mosuo to worry that Mosuo history and heritage may be lost when the current generation of Dabas are gone.
Buddhism
This religion has become a larger part of their culture in recent years. Today Tibetan-style Buddhism is the predominant religion, but it has been somewhat adapted to Mosuo society. Like the Buddhist population of Tibet, both lay and monastic Buddhists among the Mosuo eat meat. Mosuo lamaLama
Lama is a title for a Tibetan teacher of the Dharma. The name is similar to the Sanskrit term guru .Historically, the term was used for venerated spiritual masters or heads of monasteries...
s offer prayers of thanks and prayers for the dead, offer basic religious and secular education to young children, and counsel adults. In families with more than one male child, one will most often be sent to be a monk.
The Mosuo even have their own “living Buddha”, a man said to be a reincarnation of one the great Tibetan spiritual leaders. He usually lives in Lijiang
Lijiang
Lijiang may refer to:*Lijiang, Yunnan , prefecture-level city in Yunnan Province, China*Old Town of Lijiang, World Heritage Site, in Lijiang City*Lijiang Naxi Autonomous County, formerly a county in Lijiang, Yunnan, China before 2002...
, but returns to the main Tibetan temple in Yongning for important spiritual holidays. Many Mosuo families will send at least one male to be trained as a monk, and in recent years, the number of such monks has increased quite significantly. Update: the Mosuo Living Buddha died of old age in April of 2011.
In most Mosuo homes, a statue of some Buddhist god can be found above the cooking fire; the family will usually put a small portion of whatever they are cooking in the fire, as an offering to their god. Tibetan Buddhist holidays and festivals are participated in by the entire Mosuo community.
Language
The Mosuo speak a dialect of the Naxi languageNaxi language
Naxi is a Tibeto-Burman language or group of languages spoken by some 310,000 people concentrated in the Lijiang City Yulong Naxi Autonomous County of the province of Yunnan, China. Nakhi is also the name of the ethnic group that speaks it.- Classification :There are at least two Naxi languages...
, a member of the Tibetan–Burman
Tibeto-Burman languages
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non-Chinese members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken thoughout the highlands of southeast Asia, as well as lowland areas in Burma ....
family. While there is no question that the language of the "Mosuo" and that of the "Naxi" are very closely related (i.e. dialects of one and the same language), some "Mosuo" speakers resent the use of the language name "Naxi", which is commonly used to refer to the dialect of the town of Lijiang and the surrounding villages; a more adequate name would be "Na", which is the common autonym of the "Mosuo" as well as of the "Naxi".
Script
- Main article: Daba script
Generally, since Han Chinese occupation of the region, the Mosuo today use Han script
Chinese character
Chinese characters are logograms used in the writing of Chinese and Japanese , less frequently Korean , formerly Vietnamese , or other languages...
for daily communication. The Tibetan script
Tibetan script
The Tibetan alphabet is an abugida of Indic origin used to write the Tibetan language as well as the Dzongkha language, Denzongkha, Ladakhi language and sometimes the Balti language. The printed form of the alphabet is called uchen script while the hand-written cursive form used in everyday...
is mainly used for religious purposes. The existence of Daba script is disputed. The following is the point that it does not exist. For the point that it exists, see :Zh:達巴文.
The Mosuo also have their own native religion, called Daba, which uses 32 symbols. However, there are currently efforts underway to develop a written form of the Mosuo language, most notably by the Lugu Lake Mosuo Cultural Development Association.
Outside Influence
There have been many attempts to change Mosuo culture throughout history. First, Han ideals, or the ethnic majority, were instituted in the Yongning region under the Ming DynastyMing Dynasty
The Ming Dynasty, also Empire of the Great Ming, was the ruling dynasty of China from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty. The Ming, "one of the greatest eras of orderly government and social stability in human history", was the last dynasty in China ruled by ethnic...
. Next, Mosuo accepted Buddhism into their culture but they adapted it to fit their values. Neither the Cultural Revolution or trade between different cultures fundamentally changed Mosuo beliefs. Recently, however, Mosuo society is changing quickly.
Modernity
With heightened technology, there are better roads and transportation. Young Mosuo men and women use these modes to leave their villages and find employment in neighboring cities. Television has brought the wonders of the modern world and ideals of an easier way of living. Also, men have begun to take jobs independent of the household and earn their own income. These new practices concern older generation Mosuo. They fear emerging property conflicts. Also, with younger children generations leaving the villages, they wonder who will continue to care for the family.Tourism
Mosuo living near Lugu Lake inhabit an aesthetically pleasing region. Photographers, television crews, writers, and artists are drawn to their homes (Blumenfield). This increased attention has also brought tourists. While a good source of income and trade, it has opened this once isolated culture to the whims of the modern world. Tourism has attracted a red light district to the Mosuo region. Walking marriage is used as a legal excuse for prostitution (Kingdom of Women). Finally, tourism also threatens traditional family and kinship values. The Western idea of cohabitation, or both partners living under the same roof (Ward), have led one-fourth of Mosuo relationships to develop into traditional status with husbands and wives, a 2008 study said. It is unclear how much farther this trend will continue or what other values will be affected.Films
There are many documentaries made about the Mosuo, in English and Mandarin, and there has even been a film festivalFilm festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
dedicated to some of them. Most films perpetuate the myth that women run the society, some even claiming that men have no say in political or household matters and do not work.
- "Without Fathers or Husbands" (1995, 26 min., Royal Anthropological Institute). Made by Chinese born, French educated anthropologist Cai Hua. It does not make claims about matriarchy.
- “A World without Fathers and Husbands.” Eric Blavier (2000, 52 min.)
- “The Ladies of the Lake: A Matriarchal Society" (20 min.)
- Mosso, the Land of Free Love: The Last Matriarchy (2006, 50 min.)
- Mosso, the Land of Free Love: Walking Marriage (2006, 50 min.)
- Kingdom of Women: The Matriarchal Mosuo of China (2007, 54 min.)
- "Frontline World: stories from a small planet" (June 27, 2006, 9 min)
- Mosuo Song Journey, by Diedie Weng and Carol Bliss (2007, 37 minutes)
- Kingdom of Women - A Reflection of a Matriarchal Society on Lugu Lake (58 minutes)
- "Taboo: Sex", National Geographic Channel (2008)
See also
- Naxi people
- MatriarchyMatriarchyA matriarchy is a society in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership and moral authority. It is also sometimes called a gynocratic or gynocentric society....
- Yang Erche NamuYang Erche NamuYang Erche Namu is a Chinese writer and singer of Mosuo ethnicity.-Early life:Yang Erche Namu was born in a small village near Lugu Lake, in northern Yunnan province, but left at age thirteen; after arriving in neighbouring Yanyuan County, she joined a singing troupe and won a scholarship to study...
, a notable Chinese writer, singer and TV star of Mosuo ethnicity