Of the 1,598,100 Bai people, 80 per cent live in
concentrated communities in the Dali Bai Autonomous
Prefecture in Yunnan Province, southwest China. The rest are
scattered in Xichang and Bijie in neighboring Sichuan and
Guizhou provinces respectively.
The Bais speak
a language related to the Yi branch of the Tibetan-Myanmese
roup of the Chinese-Tibetan language family. The language
contains a large number of Chinese words due to the Bais'
long contact with the majority Chinese ethnic
group--Han.
Situated on the Yunnan-Guizhou
Plateau, the Bai area is crisscrossed with rivers, of which
the major ones are the Lancang, the Nujiang and the Jinsha.
The river valleys, dense forests and vast tracts of land
form a beautiful landscape and provide an abundance of crops
and fruits. The area round Lake Erhai in the autonomous
prefecture is blessed with a mild climate and fertile land
yielding two crops a year. Here, the main crops are rice,
winter wheat, beans, millet, cotton, rape, sugar-cane and
tobacco. The forests have valuable stocks of timber, herbs
of medicinal value and rare animals. Mt. Diancang by Lake
Erhai contains a rich deposit of the famous Yunnan marble,
which is basically pure white with veins of red, light blue,
green and milky yellow. It is treasured as building material
as well as for carving.
Origins
and History
Archaeological finds from Canger
and Haimenkou show that the Erhai area was inhabited as
early as the Neolithic Age, and artifacts of that period
indicate that the people of the region used stone tools,
engaged in farming, livestock rearing, fishing and hunting,
and dwelt in caves. Possibly, they began to use bronze
knives and swords and other metal tools about 2,000 years
ago.
The people in the Erhai area developed
closer ties with the Han majority in inland provinces in the
Qin (221-207 B.C.) and Han (206 B.C.-A.D. 220) dynasties. In
109 B.C. the Western Han Dynasty set up county
administrations and moved a large number of Han people to
this border area. These people brought more advanced
production techniques and iron tools, contributing to the
economic development of the area. During the Sui (581-618)
and Tang (618-907) dynasties, the farming there had reached
a level close to that of the central
plains.
Bai aristocrats backed by the Tang
court unified the people of the Erhai area and established
the Nanzhao regime of Yis and Bais. Its first chief,
Piluoge, was granted the title of King of Yunnan by a Tang
emperor.
Slaves were used to do heavy labor,
while "free" peasants were subject to heavy
taxation and forced to render various services including
conscription into the army. Some of them, who lost their
land, were made slaves.
The Nanzhao regime
lasted for 250 years. During that period of time, while
maintaining a good relationship with the central government,
the rulers cruelly oppressed the slaves and mercilessly
plundered other ethnic nationalities through warfare.
Productivity was thus seriously harmed. This caused slave
rebellions and uprisings. Nanzhao's power came to an end in
the year 902. Then a regime based on a feudal lord system,
known as the Kingdom of Dali, was established. The kingdom
adopted a series of measures such as abolishing exorbitant
taxes and removing conservative ministers. As a result,
social productivity was restored.
The kingdom
lasted for over 300 years (937-1253) as a tributary to the
Song Dynasty (960-1279) court. It sent war-horses,
handicrafts and precious medicines to the court, and in
return received science and technology, as well as books in
the Han language. Economic and cultural exchanges with the
Hans contributed greatly to the development of this border
area.
The kingdom was conquered by the Mongols
in the 13th century, and Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368) rule was
established there. The Mongols designated Yunnan a province
while establishing Dali and Heqing as prefectures. In order
to strengthen their control over Dali, the Yuan rulers
offered former chieftains official posts and granted their
families hereditary privileges. Though land was mainly
concentrated in the hands of the local aristocracy at that
time, the feudal lord system began to give way to a landlord
system.
The Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) took power
from the Yuan rulers in 1381. The Ming court removed local
chieftains and replaced them with court officials. This kind
of reform resulted in the weakening of the political and
economic privileges of the local lords, brought freedom to
the slaves and raised the enthusiasm of the peasants for
farming. Those Bais and Hans who had emigrated were
encouraged to return, while Hans from other areas were
persuaded to settle there. This measure accelerated the
development of the landlord economy of Bai
society.
In addition to the continuation of the
Ming policy of dispatching officials from the central
government, the Qing (1644-1911) court also appointed local
officials and chieftains to rule over the
Bais.
Some Bai people in remote areas still
suffered feudal exploitation and oppression at the time of
liberation.
Culture and Folklore
Over the centuries, the Bais have created a
science and culture of their own. Agriculture was dominant
in the Erhai area as early as the Neolithic Age. People then
knew how to dig ditches for irrigation. During the Nanzhao
regime, they began the cultivation of rice, wheat,
broomcorn, millet and several other crops, and built the
Cangshan water-conservancy project which could bring water
to tens of thousands of hectares of land. To their credit
are inventions and advances in meteorology, astronomy,
calendar, architecture, medical science, literature, music,
dancing, carving and painting. Among the representative
works of the Bai people are Transit Star Catalogue for Time
Determination by the Ming Dynasty scholar Zhou Silian,
Collection of Secret Prescriptions by Chen Dongtian and
Tested Prescriptions by Li Xingwei. These classics recorded
and summarized in detail the valuable experience of the Bai
people in astronomy and medicine.
The superb
architectural skill of the Bai people is represented by the
three pagodas at the Chongsheng Temple in Dali. Built during
the Tang Dynasty, the 16-storey main tower is 60 meters high
and still stands erect after more than 1,000 years. It bears
a resemblance to the Dayan Pagoda (Wild Goose) in Xi'an, an
ancient Chinese capital city in today's Shaanxi Province.
Figurines in the Shibaoshan Grottoes in Jianchuan County are
lifelike, possessing both the common features of figure
creation in China and the unique features of the Bai
artists. The architectural group in the Jizushan Temple,
with bow-shaped crossbeams, bracket-inserted columns, and
gargoyles representing people, flowers and birds created
with the open carving method, shows the excellent
workmanship of the Bai people. The Bais also have high
attainments in lacquerware.
They have created a
wealth of literary works reflecting their life, work, and
struggles against nature and oppression. The epic, Genesis,
sings the praises of the communal life of Bai primitive
society. Some poems by Bai poets have been included in the
Complete Poems of Tang Dynasty. The History of the Bais,
Anecdotes of Nanzhao and Kingdoms of Southwest China are
among the best historical works written by Bai historians.
They provide important data for the study of the history of
the Erhai area.
The Bai people are good singers
and dancers. The "Lion Dance," created during the
Nanzhao regime, was appreciated in the central plains during
the Tang Dynasty. Bai opera, known as chuichui, is an art
form combining folk music and dancing. It has also absorbed
some of the characteristics of Han operas.
The
famous painting depicting the Resurgence of the Nanzhao was
created in 899 A.D. by Bai painters Zhang Shun and Wang
Fengzong. This masterpiece was stolen by foreign
imperialists in 900 from
Beijing.
Customs and Habits
The Bais are Buddhists and worshippers of
"communal god." Dotted with monasteries and
temples, Dali has been known as a "Scented
Wonderland." Abbots who held huge amount of land and
other property in the past were big landlords and usurers.
The ordinary people were heavily burdened by this caste and
by religious activities which required sacrifices of cattle
and other valuables.
Monogamous families have
been the basic social cells of the Bais, with a very few
people who practiced polygamy. Parents live with their
unmarried children, but only in big landlord families did
four generations live together. Before the founding of the
People’s Republic of China in 1949, matches between
young men and young women of the same surname or clan were
not permitted, while marriages between cousins were
encouraged, and were arranged by the parents. High bride
prices caused many poor families to fall into debt. Women
were discriminated against, and only men had the right to
inherit family property. But all such feudal practices and
customs have been fading away since 1949. Young people now
enjoy the freedom to choose their lovers.
The
"March Fair," which falls between March 15 and 20
of the lunar calendar, is a grand festival of the Bais. It
is celebrated every year at the foot of the Diancang Hill to
the west of Dali city. It is a fair and an occasion for
sporting contests and theatrical performances. People gather
there to enjoy dances, horse racing and other games. June 25
is the "Torch Festival." On that day, torches are
lit everywhere to usher in a bumper harvest and to bless the
people with good health and fortune. Streamers bearing
auspicious words are hung in doorways and at village
entrances alongside the flaming torches. Villagers, holding
aloft torches, walk around in the fields to drive insects
away.
Economy
Before 1949, the feudal landlord economy was
dominant in most Bai areas. Incipient capitalism had
developed in a few cities and towns, while vestiges of the
primitive communalism and remnants of the slave system were
still in existence.
About 90 per cent of the
people were farmers who possessed only 20 per cent of the
arable land.
In areas where the lord system
prevailed, peasants were all serfs, who owned neither land
nor personal freedom.
In the communal setup in
Bijiang and Fugong areas, class distinctions were not clear.
There was land which was tilled collectively and the harvest
distributed equally among the people. Private ownership of
land also was practiced on a small scale. There were also
land sales and leasing.
Commercial capitalism
found its way into some Bai areas at the beginning of the
modern times. Trading companies owned by bureaucrat
landlords emerged, shipped in commodities such as yarns and
cloth from the United States, Britain and France via India,
Burma and Vietnam, and exported gold, silver, and farm and
sideline produce.
The Bai people had staged
numerous uprisings against the Qing rulers and foreign
imperialists. In one of these uprisings, which took place in
the mid-19th century, they set up their own political power,
the Dali Administration. The new government adopted measures
to promote industrial and agricultural production, reduce
land taxation and stamp out discrimination against the
various nationalities.
New Life
Democratic reform and socialist transformation
proceeded in the Bai areas in much the same way as in the
Han inhabited areas, but the reforms were carried out in a
more gradual manner in those areas with vestiges of
pre-capitalist economic organization. Cooperatives were set
up to boost production on the basis of abolishing class
exploitation and the remnants of primitive
communalism.
The Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture
was founded in November 1956 after the completion of the
democratic reform and socialist transformation.