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Lisu emerge from hunt tradition
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WHETHER climbing a knife ladder for celebration, roasting meat for food or attaching great importance to mutual aid and brotherhood, the Lisu people still keep much of the precious cultural legacy from their hunting tradition.
With a population of 702,839, the Lisu ethnic minority mainly inhabit in the Nujiang River Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province, while some others are scattered elsewhere in Yunnan and Sichuan.
The Lisu people originated from the Di-Qiang tribe in ancient times.
The Lisu kept moving from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the Sichuan Basin, and then Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. Some even went as far as Myanmar, Laos and Thailand. The moving history of the Lisu finally came to an end in the early 20th century, when they first took shape as an ethnic group.
The Lisu are closely related to the Yi and Naxi ethnic groups in terms of origin, all belonging to the Yi language branch of the Tibetan-Mian language group of the Han-Tibetan language family. Lisu literally means “the people who obtain grains through slash-and-burn cultivation” in Chinese language, and the “people who fight for truth” in their own language.
The Lisu people still use three languages today. The old Lisu language created by Western missionaries based on the Latin alphabet is mostly used for reading scriptures and eliminating illiteracy. A syllabify language created by a Lisu farmer is more often used to record folk tales. And the new Lisu language formulated in 1957 is widely used in bilingual teaching, radio programs and publications.
Most Lisu people today live in the Nujiang River Canyon where the Nujiang, Lantsang and Jinsha rivers join, dividing the region into many high peaks and deep valleys. Sharp differences in altitude lead to climates in the region where four seasons coexist on one mountain and the weather may well differ ten miles away.
With limited proper land for rice, most Lisu people take maize and buckwheat as their staple food. They hunt game and like their meat roasted. Roast piglet is one of the best-known cuisines of the Lisu.
Crossbow is the traditional hunting tool of the Lisu. People compete with their knives and crossbows and even exchange crossbows to improve their friendship.
Diverse traditions
Almost every household of Lisu people make wine, and wine is a necessity for treating guests in Lisu tradition. Maize, sorghum and barn grass are among the common ingredients. The host will fill his own cup first, spread a bit on the ground as sacrifice to the ancestor, and drink it to prove its good quality before filling the guest’s cup and offering it with both hands.
Lisu villages are usually composed of bamboo or wood-structured houses near mountains and water, formed by people of the same clan or tribe.
According to the custom, a house must be completed within one day or it will be a sign of bad luck. People from the whole village will come to help if anyone is to build a house.
Cable sliding used to be a major method for Lisu people to travel across torrential rivers and steep mountains. The cables can convey men as well as livestock like cows and horses.
Traditional Lisu clothes are mostly made of self-weaved cloth. Women wear short jackets and long skirts, accompanied by red or white beads on their heads. Women wear skirts that are tailored with hundreds of cloth stripes of all colors, with patterns on the edges. That’s why they are called hundred-pattern skirts.
The women also decorate their clothes and hair with pearls, coral, shells and silver rings. Women in Nujiang River Lisu Autonomous Prefecture wear ele hats, weaved with trumpet shells and coral beads, forming a beautiful image of many stars surrounding a moon. The ele hat has become a representative element of the clothing of Lisu women.
Men wear short shirts. Some wear black scarves and carry knives around the waist.
The girls will attend a coming-of-age ceremony. The mother will dress the girl up by skirt made by the mother for the ceremony. After that, the girl will wear adult skirts and decoration and gain more communicative rights.
Young Lisu people enjoy freedom of dating. Before modern communications, the Lisu people whistled with tree leaves, broke tree branches, tied straw knots or laid stones or chopsticks to express their love. Each of the devices carries a particular message. For instance, by laying chopsticks they are appointing the dating place, and they whistle with tree leaves to inform their love that they are not able to come for some reason. Nowadays, many youngsters communicate with each other by modern telephones.
The Lisus traditionally believe in Polytheism that worships nature, ancestors and Totemism, while Christanity and Roman Catholicism have been gradually accepted since the middle of the 19th century.
Knife-pole Festival is celebrated on the eighth day of the second month of the lunar calendar. A 20-meter-high pole is usually set up in the middle of the meeting ground, with 36 or 72 knives bound on it, blades up. The knives and the pole form a ladder of knives for the participants to climb bare-footed. The participant will set a flag when he reaches the top and light firecrackers. Many others will follow up the ladder.
Lisu
Population: 702,839 (2010 national census)
Distribution: Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province
Language: The old Lisu language, a syllabify language and the new Lisu language
Religion: Polytheism, Totemism, Christianity and Roman Catholicism
Food: Maize, buckwheat and roasted piglet
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