Where Women Were Said to Rule

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Where Women Were Said to Rule

Fr Cirineo Matulac SSC visits a remote area of south-western China and shares his concern for the passing of a traditional way of life.

With China's present rapid economic development, what might be the challenges faced by the indigenous peoples of the country? This question posed itself to me as I went to Lung Hu, one of the areas in China's Yunnan Province (yun nan means a place south of the clouds) where the Moso people live.

The former means that the lineage is traced through the mothers, while the latter means that the mothers hold more power than the fathers. The term matriarchal is frequently used with reference to the Moso, especially by those in the tourist industry, as this adds an aura of uniqueness. In fact however, the Moso are egalitarian when it come to man-woman power sharing and strictly speaking are matrilineal rather than matriarchal. The myth of matriarchy encourages visits from curious tourists like myself.

The Lake
Only when I got to see the place did I realise why it is so famous. The bus that took me went through the mountain ranges for about eight hours from Lijiang. As the road descended from the mountain ridges I saw a breath-taking sight. From above, one got the impression of a blue lake set like precious jade in the valley below. As we got closer I could feel the mist on my face and it was most relaxing to experience the fresh air. When the bus eventually stopped close to the shore, I went to touch the crystal clear water and sprinkled it on my face. The tiredness of the long bus-ride disappeared as I said to myself, "I have finally arrived in the famous Country of Women."

Meeting the Locals
My environmental consciousness pushed me to ask a local man, "Are the people here not afraid that the tourists garbage will find its way into the lake?" "Don't worry about the garbage", he replied, "We collect it promptly". Exactly where the garbage goes he did not explain. I did find a place to stay at one of the hostels and when I went to the cafeteria a familiar face smiled at me. It was the man I had questioned earlier. He was a young man in mid-thirties, tall with a heavy build, long hair and wearing a cowboy hat. I mistook him for a Tibetan but he corrected me right away. "We are Hanzu (Han Chinese), we are not Yizu (Yi minority). We are Moso and we have our own culture and language. Don't worry about the environment here, we the Moso people care for it as much as you foreigners do". He invited me to try the local tea with his friends.

The Tradition
The province of Yunnan is home to 26 of China's cultural minorities, each one with its own language and culture.The Moso regard the lake as a Mother and a place where the spirits of their ancestors live. The lake is the repository of stories of the Moso people and a carrier of their living tradition. That is why the lake and everything around it is considered sacred. In their society it is the women who sing and tell their stories to the children, generation after generation, while the men travel to far away places to trade and bring back stories of their adventures in the outside world. The mother is the most stable figure in the society and everyone traces their lineage through the mother. She is the head of the family. The men are always attached to the household but it is the woman who establishes a family once she gives birth. To outsiders it seems a strange set-up but it has always been their tradition. At different times they have been urged to abandon it for moral or political reasons but they have always managed to revert to it.

Development
However the world of the Moso is beginning to change. Although Lugu Hu is quite far from Lijiang, a city connected to by highway and plane to the rest of Yunnan, my eight hour bus trip was definitely an improvement from the traditional one week trek that the journey used to take. This asphalt road has become a symbol of a much greater wave of change to come. My friend told me proudly that the government would soon construct an airport near the lake. I looked around the faces of others having tea with us and they were all nodding their heads in agreement: it seems it will happen.

Since 1978, the country has experienced economic development at an unprecedented rate. But the new economy is largely dependent on knowledge and information so China has been aggressive with its educational system based only on the national language, Mandarin. Other cultural minorities with whom I talked feel that unless their people know Mandarin and get a formal education in a university they won't have access to economic or political power.

Dislocation
The possibility of the Moso language disappearing is real and, if that happens, the people's culture and stories would disappear also. There is no comfort in being assimilated. Assimilation brings a feeling of displacement in provinces like Yunnan where there are many cultural minorities. Questions of cultural revival surface at the many cultural festivals. What does ethnicity mean and how is it being defined? How am I different from others? How do you balance being part of a state and at the same time belonging to a cultural minority? Those with whom I spoke in Lugu Hu are optimistic. "Many tourists are now coming and we can make money; our children are getting educated, some have even graduated from university; maybe someday they will come back bringing insights on how to develop our language and culture," they said. "Look at Namu". Namu is a celebrity in China; the first Moso to make it to the Shanghai music conservatory, she has brought a taste of Moso culture to China and to the world through singing her culture's traditional songs.

I later spoke with an old man who had travelled far and wide in China and spoke perfect Mandarin. He was worried that the younger generation might want to go to the cities to work and study and might lose interest in their culture. He explained, "We have to find new ways to teach our children our own language, stories and traditional way of life. We have to teach them what it is like to be Moso. In this way we will be able to maintain and develop our culture." Such reflections can only be expected from a man who has witnessed the winds of change in his life. I left Lugu Hu conscious of the hopes and aspirations of this fascinating people.

Cirineo Matulac is a Filipino Columban who has worked in Chile and China. He was ordained in 2002. All photos courtesy of Cirineo.

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