Author: Feng Li

1. Historical Review

I am a Yi ethnic group. I moved to the United States. Whenever I mention my ethnicity, I find that many overseas intellectual elites (not to mention ordinary people) have little knowledge of my ethnic group, which always triggers a series of strange questions, as if I came from a land of ignorant barbarians. In fact, the history of the Yi ethnic group is as old as Chinese civilization. It was the most important ethnic group among the "Southwest Yi" tribes in the pre-Qin period. Later, it was called "Yi people" and "Luolu" by the Han people. It was not until the 1950s that Mao Zedong changed "Yi" to "Yi" when he first met with Yi representatives in Beijing. He believed that the former had one bow per person and were barbaric; the latter lived in stilt houses under the big roof of the house, had rice and silk, and lived in stilt houses, which symbolized that they had no worries about food and clothing and were prosperous. Since then, people have called us "Yi people", but it took my elders and fellow villagers a long time to recognize and get used to this name from outsiders, because our ethnic group still uses the ancient self-names "Nuosu" and "Niesu".

The Yi people have lived in the mountains and plains of Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces in southwestern China for generations. The ancient Shu Kingdom, ancient Dian Kingdom, Yelang Kingdom, Nanzhao Kingdom and Dali Kingdom that appeared in these three provinces in history were all related to the Yi people. The Yi people were either the builders, rulers or subjects of these countries, and they have left their marks in the history of the rise and fall of Chinese political regimes.

The archaeological remains excavated by modern people under the thick soil of these three provinces contain too much information about the ancient Yi people. For example, the bronze artifacts unearthed from the Shizhaishan ancient tombs in Jinning, Yunnan, have images of the Yi people (the excavators roughly dated them to the Warring States Period to the Western Han Dynasty), and the murals of the tombs of the Eastern Jin Dynasty in Zhaotong, Yunnan also have clear images of the Yi people. The most noteworthy thing is that the Sanxingdui bronze culture in Guanghan, Sichuan (more than 4,000 years ago), which amazed the world, has ostentatious and alien artifacts and human figures. It is completely another mysterious system outside the Central Plains Han culture. Neither its source nor its flow can be found in the context of the Central Plains culture. A huge and exquisite culture has left no trace in the historical books of the Han language. It came and went without a trace, leaving behind a mystery for thousands of years that scholars have exhausted their minds and cannot find its belonging. In the eyes of us Yi people, it is clear at a glance. It is a relic left by our ancestors! The facial features of its bronze figures, its headdresses, its clothing and patterns, its ritual vessels, its cremation sacrifices, its towering sacred trees, its exaggerations of human eyes and the sun, all have similar aspects and traces in today's Yi people. Even if an illiterate Yi mountain dweller who has never been to school walks into the Sanxingdui Museum, he will not feel unfamiliar with the culture, but will feel familiar. Sanxingdui culture and Yi culture are of the same origin, which can be felt by any Yi people. Moreover, the Yi historical books (Southwest Yi Chronicles) clearly record that the Yi people lived in the Chengdu Plain thousands of years ago and were one of the earliest inhabitants of the Chengdu Plain. (Han Shu - Geography) also says: "Bashu Guanghan was originally the southern barbarians, and Qin merged them into counties."


Before Zhang Qian opened up the Western Regions and the Chang'an Silk Road, the ancestors of the southwest had already developed a "Shu-Shendu Road" (Shendu was the ancient name for India) from the Chengdu Plain to India in the fourth century BC. Today, it is called the Southern Silk Road and is recognized by the academic community as the earliest international channel for China's foreign exchanges. Starting from the starting point of Chengdu, this "Shu-Shendu Road" enters the Yi area after only a few post stations, especially its "Lingguan Road" and "Wuchi Road", which have been winding through the vast Yi area. The Silk Road trade that has lasted for hundreds of years and the footprints of the horse caravans transporting goods are still deeply embedded in the bluestone slabs of the ancient roads in the Yi area.

When Zhuge Liang led his army to the south, the sentence in his "Departure to the Imperial Academy" "Crossing the Lu River in May and entering the barren land" refers to entering the Yi people's settlements in the southwest. The rattan armor army that faced Zhuge Liang was the Yi army in Liangshan at that time. The Yi people used rattan and leather armor and fought fully armed, and this custom continued until the 1950s. The rattan armor army in history was brave and good at fighting, especially in the battles in the high mountains and jungles, defending the borders of the Yi people. However, in the writings of Luo Guanzhong, a great Han chauvinist literati centered on the Central Plains culture, they were left with a reputation of being wild and barbaric. Meng Huo, who was captured and released seven times by Zhuge Liang, was the tribal leader of the Yi people. However, in the historical legends of the Yi people, it was Meng Huo who captured and released Zhuge Liang seven times. Comparing the national character of the Yi and Han people today, judging from the courage and the habit of dealing with the enemy, it should be Zhuge Liang who was captured and released seven times by Meng Huo.

According to historical records, as early as the Han Dynasty, the Yi people were already the ruling class in Yunnan, and many wealthy families emerged. The Yi nobles and big families have always ruled the territory in Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan for thousands of years. During the Anti-Japanese War, many talented Chinese scholars, including Southwest Associated University, moved to Yunnan to escape the war, and spent the wartime years under the protection of the Yi ruling group headed by Long Yun, the chairman of Yunnan Province.

Shi Dakai, the Wing King of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, was ambitious and experienced in many battles. Due to the internal strife of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, he led more than 100,000 troops to march westward into Sichuan, and traveled through the Yi area of ​​Liangshan. When he reached the Yi area by the Dadu River, his entire army was annihilated by the Yi and Han officers and soldiers. More than a thousand white tombs of the children of the Taiping Army were left in the Jiuxiang area of ​​Hanyuan County, which are vast and lonely beside the sad river, telling the historical grievances (the Emperor of the Qing Dynasty specially rewarded the Yi Tusi Leng Chengen for this. This area was gradually occupied by the Han people in the early years of the Republic of China. During the Cultural Revolution, the local land was changed and the Taiping Army tombs were razed to the ground and turned into grain fields, destroying a tragic and tragic war site).

As time passed, history entered the Republic of China. During the confrontation between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party, the Yi people helped the Chinese Communist Party out of difficulties. In 1935, under the encirclement of the Kuomintang, the Central Red Army was forced to evacuate Jiangxi. They traveled through the mountains and ridges of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and arrived at the Yi people's settlement area in Liangshan. The troops were exhausted and the pursuers were pressing. In the midst of all difficulties, the Red Army general Liu Bocheng and the Yi leader Xiaoyedan ​​drank blood wine together and formed an alliance as brothers. Only then was the Red Army able to successfully cross Liangshan and later march north. In the 1960s, the large-scale political musical (The East is Red) personally supervised by Zhou Enlai specifically listed this as an important chapter in the history of the Communist Party of China and praised it. This is one of the few times in the history of the Communist Party of China that it was in a life-and-death situation and turned danger into safety. If the Yi people were enemies of the Red Army and had besieged them in the narrow valleys of Liangshan, it would have been easy for the Kuomintang to capture the Red Army, just like taking a turtle out of a jar. The Red Army would have been the second Shi Dakai, and Chinese history would have been written in a different way. Therefore, the Kuomintang made an irreversible historical mistake by not forming a strategic alliance with the Yi people in terms of military strategy and tactics.

During the eight-year war of resistance against Japanese aggression, the country was in trouble. The Yi soldiers, full of passion, and their fellow soldiers, traveled thousands of miles from the southwest of China to the front line of the war. During the war, the Yunnan Army participated in the fierce and bloody Battle of Taierzhuang, the Battle of Wuhan, the Battle of Changsha, the Battle of Zhongtiaoshan and the Battle of Northern Jiangxi, transporting about 400,000 troops and suffering more than 100,000 casualties. They fought in the vast front of the war of resistance in China, and their military exploits were outstanding. They were praised as the "national elite". Among them, from army commanders, division commanders to ordinary soldiers, there were Yi people who charged into battle, shed their heads and blood, and the Monument to the People's Heroes standing in Tiananmen Square in Beijing also has the blood and lives of our Yi people!

1948 was a life-or-death year for the Kuomintang and the Communist Party. Before the Liaoshen Campaign in 1948, the Kuomintang occupied almost all of China, while the Communist Party only had a tiny piece of land. The Kuomintang had sophisticated weapons and equipment, while the Communist Party only had millet and rifles. The military strength of the two parties was extremely different. How could the Communist Party leaders dare to use eggs to hit stones under such a disadvantage and have a good chance of winning? Why did they choose the Northeast as a breakthrough point on the national chessboard? In addition to many factors in the military, political, and economic environment after the Anti-Japanese War, there was an unexpected and inconspicuous episode that played a crucial role for the Kuomintang. This episode was related to the Yi people.

It is said that the Yi leader Long Yun ruled Yunnan for more than ten years, almost turning Yunnan into an independent kingdom, known as the "King of Yunnan", which aroused Chiang Kai-shek's resentment. In 1945, Chiang Kai-shek ordered Du Yuming to command the Central Army to surround Kunming City, and the troops pressed on the border, forcing Long Yun to go to Chongqing, and appointed him to a nominal position, making him a caged tiger beside Chiang Kai-shek. Immediately, the 60th and 93rd Yunnan Army, which were most loyal to Long Yun, were transferred to Changchun in the northeast to weaken the local forces in Yunnan. Most of the Yunnan Army generals and soldiers who went to the northeast were children of the Yi people in Zhaotong, Long Yun's hometown. They were full of resentment in the northeast. First, they complained that Long Yun was innocently dismissed, second, they complained that they were forced to stay in the northeast, third, they complained that they were discriminated against and humiliated by the Central Army in the northeast, fourth, they complained that they were treated extremely unfairly in military supplies, and fifth, they complained that they were not used to the local climate and life. They had a strong desire to return home, so they had a strong anti-Chiang and anti-war sentiment.

Since Long Yun lost power, his generals had a grudge against Chiang Kai-shek and were inclined to the Communist Party (some had already established contact with the Communist Party before that). In early 1947, Zhang Chong (Yi nationality, former deputy commander of the 60th Army and commander of the 184th Division) under Long Yun secretly flew to Yan'an to meet with Mao Zedong and others. The Communist Party leaders learned about the military spirit of the Yunnan Army in the Northeast, and thus discovered the weak points in the Kuomintang's iron wall defense line, and found an excellent breakthrough point, which prompted the Communist Party to choose the Northeast as the first battlefield and carefully planned the Liaoshen Campaign, so that the Northeast offensive began in the summer of that year.

After three large-scale offensives in the summer, autumn and winter of 1947, the Communist Party expanded its base in the Northeast, replenished its manpower and material resources, and launched the Liaoshen Campaign in March 1948, compressing the Kuomintang army into three isolated areas of Changchun, Shenyang and Jinzhou, implementing the tactic of long siege and long siege, launching political offensives and economic blockades. Zhang Chong was specially sent to the Northeast front to specialize in the work of instigating the rebellion of the Yunnan Army. At the same time, Yi party members were sent from Yan'an to sneak into Changchun and use their relatives to instigate rebellion among senior generals of the Yunnan Army. During the siege of Changchun, Zhang Chong wrote a poem to persuade the surrender, and shot it into the city of Changchun with his own photos using propaganda bullets, which greatly moved the military spirit of the Yunnan Army stationed in Changchun. By November, the disciples of the Yunnan Army revolted under the leadership of Zeng Zesheng, commander of the 60th Army, and Long Yao (Yi), deputy commander of the army. The People's Liberation Army was able to enter the city of Changchun. Zheng Dongguo, deputy commander of the Northeast "Suppression Headquarters", led his troops to lay down their weapons in desperation, and Changchun changed its flag.

The Battle of Changchun was the most important part of the Liaoshen Campaign. For Mao Zedong, it was under the control of the general public. In June of that year, he sent a telegram to the three commanders of the Northeast front, Lin Biao, Luo Ronghuan and Liu Yalou, saying: "Victory in Changchun will pave the way for you to march south and capture major cities one by one. The capture of various major cities will gain experience from the Battle of Changchun." This shows that he was already confident of victory before Changchun was captured. This was not unrelated to Zhang Chong's trip to Yan'an, which enabled him to know the inside story of the Changchun defenders well.

The victory of the Liaoshen Campaign made the Northeast Field Army a powerful strategic mobile device of the Communist Party, and also made the Northeast a solid and stable strategic rear of the Communist Party. The military power comparison between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party changed dramatically in a very short period of time. Relying on this, the People's Liberation Army was unstoppable and unstoppable. It won the Pingjin Campaign and the Huaihai Campaign in one fell swoop, marched straight into the country with a crushing momentum, and finally kicked the Kuomintang out of the mainland. It should be said that the Yunnan Army stationed in Changchun was a crack in the Kuomintang's solid military platoon. It was here that the Communist Party inserted the first wedge, took advantage of the victory and pursued the victory, splitting this military platoon into pieces. This is why Mao Zedong later specially thanked Zhang Chong in person and gave a high evaluation of the Yunnan Army. The government once made a movie (The Enemy at the Gates of the City) for this purpose, recreating the historical facts of the Yunnan Army when conquering Changchun. However, this historical detail and the role played by the Yunnan Army at the critical moment of determining China's destiny have been buried in the vast sea of ​​history and completely ignored by historians on both the Kuomintang and the Communist Party.

Looking back, the Yi people have always been one of the characters on the stage of Chinese history. They are not unknown people hiding in the corners of the mountains and wandering outside the main line of history. Together with other ethnic groups, they have performed the vicissitudes of Chinese civilization. Its own history is full of ups and downs, and it has a long history. It is impossible to tell it all. If we compile a "Yi people's romance", we don't need to make it up out of thin air. History itself is full of wonderful materials.

2. Cultural Miscellany

From the physical characteristics, the typical Yi people have deep eyes, high noses, curly hair, dark skin, tall stature, and an image different from that of the Han people, which greatly surprised the European and American missionaries who went deep into the Liangshan Yi area in the late 19th century and early 20th century. A closer look at the cultural customs showed that they had no similarities with the Chinese culture known to the world at that time, and were unique. So the missionaries began to conduct physical anthropology and cultural anthropology research in the Yi area and concluded that this was an independent nation originating from the Aryan race (Aryans) of the South Asian subcontinent, hence the name "Independent Lolo". In the 1950s, the country changed hands, and the Communist Party entered the Yi area. It regarded the "Independent Lolo" theory as one of the attempts of imperialism to split China. The missionaries were regarded as imperialist spies and expelled from the country. The survey data collected by the missionaries were burned in Xichang City for several days and nights. The term "Independent Lolo" was reduced to ashes and became a historical word. No one has mentioned it since then.

Although the "independent Luo Luo" theory is regarded as a farce, the Yi people are indeed another independent system different from the Han culture. From the external clothing to the internal thinking mode, they are different from the Han people in every aspect, which must have shocked the Westerners who had just arrived at that time and wanted to find out the root cause. In my opinion, the "Aryan" theory is not groundless, especially the strict and insurmountable blood hierarchy system within the Yi society, which is very similar to the strict caste system of Aryan culture. Westerners first understood Aryan culture and then came into contact with Yi culture, so it is easy to link the two together. After reading Aryan culture in depth, it is not difficult to find that due to the similarity of the most basic institutional structure of society, the two cultural models present many similar and common elements. It is considered a fallacy to look for the origin of the two ethnic groups in the ethnic origin. However, if we use Aryan culture as a reference system and compare and study Yi culture, we can adjust the research perspective to a wider range, and we can find many interesting trends in human culture. In order to study the culture of the Eskimos in Alaska, the Americans looked around the globe from the 60th parallel north to the other half of the world, searching for cultural similarities. Moreover, the Yi culture and the Aryan culture were both close neighbors in the Asian civilization circle, and there was once a "Shu-Shendu Road" connecting the two ends of the same trade route.

The Yi people have always been distributed in large dispersed areas and small concentrated areas, living next to the Han and other ethnic groups. In the southwest region, many weak ethnic groups are in awe of the powerful Han people, but the Yi people are different. They have no fear or admiration. In the relationship between the surrounding Yi and Han people, it is not the Yi people who are afraid of the Han people, but the Han people who are afraid of the Yi people. This is due to the strong and confident folk customs of the Yi people. The author loves to look for and browse old historical photos. I have seen many old photos taken by Westerners in China in the late 19th century. I found that if we compare the ordinary people from all over the country in that era, the people in various places are dull and listless under the camera, but the Yi and Tibetan people are dignified, full of spirit, and their eyes are firm and not wandering. As far as the Yi people are concerned, there are at least three reasons for this high-spirited and confident folk customs: First, in terms of social structure, the Yi people are a society centered on blood kinship, and the social groups and classes are not divided by economy, but by blood. Blood relations determine a person's social status, regulate a person's social behavior, and make individuals completely dependent on their blood relatives. Therefore, in this society, collectivism is supreme, and everything is centered on the collectivism of the blood group. However, this collectivism is not a collectivism that eliminates individual freedom, nor is it the collectivism of absolute obedience manipulated by fascism. Instead, it is a collectivism that injects a sense of security into individuals and provides them with a solid basis for survival. Everyone has a huge blood family group as a backing, thus showing a strong fearless and anxiety-free humanistic spirit in the overall character of the nation. Second, there has never been a unified central government within the Yi nationality, and the spiritual world has basically not been subjected to any top-down forced monopoly and clamping, and there is no repression and restraint in the heart. Third, in terms of religious beliefs, in addition to the worship of ancestors and nature, there is no supreme saint system to worship, and there is no sense of insignificance and incompetence of individuals that is inevitably caused by this, and everyone is confident.

It is precisely because of the many historical reasons of Yi society that the entire nation is always full of optimism and self-confidence in a poor and simple material world, neither humble nor arrogant, and open and honest. The greatest harm that modern civilization brings to the human spirit - temptation, pressure, tension and anxiety - did not exist in the traditional system of the Yi people in the past. Going deep into the Yi area, you can often suddenly find farmers and women with noble temperaments and royal aristocratic styles in remote villages. Only in such places can you realize that noble temperament has little to do with wealth or knowledge, but is related to high-spirited self-confidence with a full spirit and no burden.

The traditional values ​​of the Han Chinese are the "golden mean" between Mozi's "benefiting the world without self" and Yang Zhu's "not plucking a hair to benefit the world", and they are wavering between the two extremes of worry and still cannot get rid of the shackles of anxiety, so they say "worry about the worries of the world". The Yi people are different. The blood group is the axis of society. All values ​​are to maintain the interests and survival of the blood group. The individual maintains the family, and the family also maintains the individual. There is no tearing and reconciliation between the two extremes, and they take a completely different spiritual path.

Due to their reliance on and emphasis on blood relations, the Yi people recognize people as their relatives. When they meet, they first ask about their origins. They go through eighteen generations of ancestors, and quickly connect with relatives. The distance between them disappears. The Yi people's kinship is the same as that of other ethnic groups, which comes from blood relatives and in-laws. But the Yi people value blood relatives' in-laws, in-laws' in-laws more than others... and all in-laws of the entire blood family, all in-laws of the family, and thousands of people, wishing that everyone in the world is their relative. It is very similar to the Greeks in the American movie (My Greek Wedding), and even worse. Therefore, the Yi people have no beggars, no displaced and homeless people, no abandoned orphans, and no elderly people without support. Anyone who falls into hardship will always have relatives and relatives to help. It can be said that the Yi people are the most collectivist model in the world without personal loneliness. The Yi people do not have a welfare system. For thousands of years, everyone has shared the benefits, and collectivism does not leave out any individual. Even today, when modern society has tainted us with all kinds of filth, this simple tradition remains the same.

The Yi people are a nation that is not afraid of hardship or death. They can face the harsh living environment calmly and regard reputation as more important than life. They have the legacy of the ancient Roman era, which advocated bravery and defended their reputation without hesitation. The Yi people are also a nation that is good at speaking, with strong verbal expression ability and a sense of humor. The Yi people have an ancient writing system and classical scriptures, but they are limited to religious, literary and some historical records. The transmission of individual life experience and the overall human experience in space and the inheritance in time are mainly in the form of word of mouth rather than written books. The entertainment and continuation of civilization are inseparable from oral language. After generations of accumulation, the language vocabulary has been honed to be beautiful, rich and sharp. They like to quote proverbs in their conversations, similar to the Han people's quoting from classics. When I watched the presidential candidates' TV debate in the United States, I suddenly felt that these American politicians seemed to be wearing Yi costumes. The two of them were arguing with each other, talking endlessly, and walking back and forth. It really looked like a form of folk wisdom debate of the Liangshan Yi people. The Yi people often hold such public debates at large gatherings, where the winner is decided by the eloquence. This kind of debate requires a high level of knowledge and literary literacy on both sides, and requires extensive citations from astronomy, geography, and the past and present. At the same time, each sentence must be rhymed at the end, and the debate must be finished in a fixed rhythm without stuttering. The form is somewhat similar to the popular rap in the United States today, but the wisdom contained in it is far beyond the reach of rappers.

However, this oral tradition of folk wisdom debate also leaves a trace of regret: such a nation that is so eloquent and loves debate, but there is no great wise man and philosopher like Confucius, Mencius, Socrates, and Plato who transcends time and space and lasts forever in human history. During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the great changes in the social structure of the Central Plains countries interrupted the aristocracy's monopoly on knowledge. Scholars gathered to debate and became popular among the people. Only then did Confucius and others stand out from the Hundred Schools of Thought. Confucius himself was a man who "narrated but did not create". The ancient Greek philosophers who opened the precedent of Western philosophical history, all their deeds were concentrated on debate and questioning. Socrates is the most influential idol in the Western philosophical tradition. His most important contribution to the Western way of thinking is the way he asked questions during the debate. In other words, the wise men and philosophers of the East and the West have two things in common in this regard. First, they are all eloquent debaters, and they all sublimate and condense their thoughts in repeated debates. Second, they all live in the debate customs provided by the times. On the other hand, the Yi people have both the fashion of debate and debaters, and neither of these two conditions is lacking. However, the debate of the Yi people has a prominent feature: it has a strong literary color, and is a literary debate. Although they have some knowledge of astronomy and geography, they are more about human experience, and they express it in the form of literature. The reason why the wise men of ancient Greece became philosophers is that they rejected the traditional literary explanation of the phenomena they saw around them and replaced it with a more rational explanation. In other words, they relied on inference and observation to explain the real world around them, and rejected literary explanations, so that the light of Western philosophy and science began with them. It is a pity and a confusion that the Yi people have not crossed the hurdle of literature in their debate.

Although the Yi people have a good tradition of literary creation, they look down on the creation and fine crafting of material things. They live a simple but energetic life. They have a strong sense of history and regard the migration and development history of the nation as the main content of human knowledge. Their humanistic concerns are mainly projected on the past that has passed. They always look for inspiration in the wisdom of their ancestors and indulge in the past history of the nation and family. There is no tradition of commerce and they don’t know what the pursuit of profit is. The result of all these is the lack of motivation and pursuit for change, and they are satisfied with the status quo of material society. Therefore, the social structure of the Yi people is extremely stable and almost unchanged. The great changes after the 1950s were caused by the political changes in the Chinese society. This change broke the social model of the Yi people's society that had remained unchanged for thousands of years and led the Yi people into the track of modern society.

Today, while the Yi people are enjoying the nectar of civilization and progress, their traditional values ​​are facing serious challenges. Modern confusions are endless, especially the various temptations and sins brought by money, which are beginning to erode the soul of the nation. I wonder how many generations the fearless aristocratic spirit of my nation can maintain?