A Journey of Culture----Lugu Lake

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Nov 20th, 2013.This day was sunny. We took about 6 hours from Lijiang to Lugu Lake. Lugu Lake area belongs to both Ninglang Yi Atonomous County and Sichuan province , one of the four countries of Lijiang area and about 140 kilometers north of Lijaing. It took about 3.5 hours to get to Ningliang and another 2 hours to get to the lake. Lugu Lake is located about 75 km beyond the town of Ningliang. As we drove lots of mountains, we saw a huge lake filling up the valley below.

We stopped to visit the Yangtze-river (Golden- sand River) on the way and got a nice viewing from top. It was a great and charming river. We stopped the entrance to buy tickets, several minutes, the driver stopped and told us”you can get off for photos here”. Lily told me this is Lugu Lake. There are many villages around the lake. We stayed in Lige Island at the first night. I am not sure that I am attracted by it at the first sight or not. Is it because when we are here already very late, so it looks grey everywhere. I did not think it is spectacular now. After we put our luggage in the hotel and took a shower, then we went outside and walked around the village to have dinner. I found this small village is a little bit interesting. Before all of them are Mosuo people. But nowadays, lots of businessman cames for doing business. There are around 600 people, 500 for businessman are come from different province and 100 people for local. Lily have told me before she came to here; there are lots of local people who dressing beautiful cloth and many original villages in here. Recently, some guesthouse and hotels replace the village. I found some of the local culture gradually disappeared as well. One of the major attractions for visiting here are the Mosuo people. These groups of people were previously considered a branch of Naxi, but are now officially recognized as an individual people group. And the Mosuo are the only remaining true matriarchal people group in China.

November through February is considered wintertime in Lijiang when early mornings and evenings can become quite cool but daytime is usually rather agreeable. So after dinner it was getting cold and we fell so tired, we had to back to hotel.

The next day, we got up late. We went outside to have a nice breakfast. Lugu Lake looks more beautiful under the sunshine. We would not help taking lots of photos. We climbed the top and get a nice viewing from the Lige Island. The sky is blue and the water is green, the air is very fresh in here. Because Yunan is a mountainous place, so many roads are built in the hillside. There are . It was very dangerous for tourists to ride bike and motorcycle for visiting. Even though they took shortter time. But we chose to walk and had enough time. It was said that here happened lots of traffic accident.

We planed to visit Nisai village, small Luoshui village and Dazui village. In here, we would saw the Goddess Gemu Mountain from different angle. The altitude of Goddess Gemu Mountain is 3754m. It was also called Lion Mountain because it resembles a lion lying on the Shore of Lugu Lake. It lies on the east of Yongning basin as a border of the lake. Gemu means hawk in the Mosuo language. It is belived a hawk transformed into a goddess. Hence the goddess name Gemu, who has since become the protective god of the Daba Religion and takes care of the people.

In 1276, Tibetan Buddhism spread into this area. In order for Buddhism to take root in the local life, the lamas gradually integrated their own rituals with the Mountain Circling Festival. Eventually, Tibetan Buddhism began to take stronger root and the Daba Religion became much less of a focus.

Even though the lamas tried to eliminate the Daba religion, the Mountain Circling Festival survived, remaining as the most important Mosuo festival today. This is a small part of culture about Mosuo. There is another specious and unique festival; it is called Mountain Circling Festival. The most significant yearly festival for them is held on the 25^th of July in each lunar year. Mountain Circling Festival is celebrated with all the surrounding people, dressed in colorful costumes to pay religious homage to their goddess Gemu.

Nisai village is famous for two pairs of tree. They called them“The tree of lover”, They grow besides the river. They look like a pair of lover snuggles together from far way. The tree of couple grows closer. The small Luoshui Village is located in the north of Lugu Lake, and around three sides surrounded by mountains. The small Luoshui Village is the last village in Yunnan area; it is located in the border of Yunnan province and Sichuan province. Only 24 families existed in this traditional and ancient village. They made living by fishing, because this village nears the lake. When we planed to Dazui Village, we met some fishmen sale a kind of dry fish besides the road. Dazui Village belongs to Sichuan province. We will visit what kind of fish. They told me it is a specious fish and it was a little bit silvery and slim; I never seen it before. It only grows in Lugu Lake. So we decided to buy some. Beside the road is full of restaurants and hotels, we walked into to visit the old houses and farmers. It bring us a kind of different feelings.

There are many interesting aspects to the Mosuo culture in the Lugu Lake area. There are lots of small islands and peninsulas in this area. Nowadays, the local people often rides across the lake in a “pig-trough boat”. From here, they can row you out to some small islands for making income. On the way to the island, sometimes the local people will sing as they row. Actually, there is funny story about the origin of the Pig –Trough Boat. Legend has it that a poor boy looking for water in the Lion Mountain came across a great fish trapped in the opening of a cave. The boy cut a piece from the fish cut and ate it, and it tasted delicious. Strangely enough, no matter how much he cut from the fish, believing that he was now free from the worry of starvation.

Unfortunately, the boy’s happiness did not last longer. When the greedy chieftain was informed, he dispatched men to capture the fish. When the fish was pulled out of the opening, a flood of water gushed out of the cave and overcame everything in its path, as it made its way down the mountain.

Everyone raced away, but one woman was feeding her pig when the flood came and had no time to get away. She thought to jump into a pig-trough boat. The trough not only saved her life, but also a number of other from drowning. This flood formed Lugu Like. Since this event, resemble pig-troughs, in memory of the Mosuo lady’s idea.

Today, lots of culture over time gradually disappeared, forgotten by people.

When we drove back to Lige village after we visited those villages almost 5pm. This was the best time to enjoy the sunset. So we climbed the Lige Peninsula to see it. After that, we had dinner in the restaurant. Later, we backed to hotel. This was the second day, although we felt so tired, but we were happy.

The third day, it was hard to get up early to us. So we drove to Yongning Village already 11o’clock. We wanted to visit Zhamei Tibetan Temple. We drove around 20 minutes to there. on the way,we passed by some Naxi village, to viewing some farmlands. Zhamei Temple is a old one and also the biggest Tibetan Buddhism Temple for Pumi and Mosuo minority’s area. It was built in Ming Dynasty by Karmapa Lama. It belongs to Yellow Section. Because it is a little bit far from Lugu Lake, the traffic is not very convenient, so few visitors came to visit there.

After we visited here, we took a mini van to Luoshui Village. Because it was easy for us to drive back to LIjiang. In here, there are many traditional structure houses before. Now, they wanted to make money that they rebuilt it and also built lots of hotel in this area. Mosuo is the remaining matriarchal people ethnic minority in China, so they also keep some traditional way about marriage. The local people called “A xia Marriage”. “A xia”means “lover”in Mosu language. To establish axia relations, it is not necessary for them to go through any official marriage procedures, or a ceremony. An axia relation is formed as soon as a man and a women have fallen I love. To begin, the male axia must pay visits to the female discretely. As the relationship develops over days or months, the visits may gradually be made known to the public. Having plenty of freedom, their axia relations can be severed if disagreements develop.

The dominant half of the A'xia relationship is female. Each woman possesses a room of her own. Men, however, are subordinate and are merely visitors. Instead of living together, each person live wit his/her mother or immediate relatives. Children belong to the mother so the father is free from raising his children. This is, of course, a strong characteristic of a matriarchal society.

Is not all of people called “Axia”? When a Mosuo boy or girl reaches the age of 13, a Maturity Ceremony is held for them in front of throe respective pillars. In this ceremony, the boy will be asked to put on trousers and the girl a skirt. There are symbols of maturity, entitling them to look for their own axia.

A fire pit stands in the center of the main room for family activities. In front of the fire pit are two pillars made from the room tree. The left pillar(the male) is instrument in the boy’s Maturity Ceremony, made from the upper half of the tree, while the right pillar(the female), made from the lower half of the tree, is for the girl’s ceremony.I leart lots of knowledge about Mosuo minority from this trip. Every ethnic minority had their own unique culture and spiritual connotation. We were very lucky; it was sunny in the following of days.

Tonight, we stayed in Luoshui Village, it was a quite peaceful. The next day, we drove about 6 hours back to Lijiang.

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