NAME: Master Yang
AGE: 68
OCCUPATION: Dongba Master/ retired prison guard
FAVORITE CALLIGRAPHER: Zhu Da (朱耷)
It’s a mid-autumn afternoon in Baisha village in southwest China—brisk, clear, the sky overtaken by the 18,400-foot Jade Dragon Snow Mountain located a few miles down the road. A mixture of sounds meanders through the cobbled streets and into the homes: livestock wandering, children playing, a farmers’ orchestra practicing traditional music. I am sitting on the patio of Master Yang, a Baisha calligrapher, scholar and religious leader.
I begin to feel that China is very far away. The architecture, language, and even the musical scales emanating from the farmer’s instruments are distinctly non-Chinese. The blue embroidered tunics and sheepskin capes the women around me are wearing are designs found nowhere else in China. From the patio, I can see the calligraphy studio inside Master Yang’s home. The works hanging on the walls convey an elegant simplicity unlike any calligraphy I have encountered elsewhere.
The residents of Baisha are Naxi, belonging to one of the 25 ethnic minority groups found in Yunnan, the most ethnically diverse province in China. The calligraphy in Master Yang’s studio uses not Chinese characters, but Naxi Dongba script— the last living set of pictographic characters in the world.
Baisha was once the political and cultural capital of a Naxi Kingdom independent of Chinese jurisdiction. For centuries, it was the center of a distinct society characterized by animist religious beliefs and matriarchal social norms. Although Baisha has been part of China since Kublai Khan conquered the region in the late 13th century, Naxi society still continues to thrive there. It does not take long to realize that, among other things, the Naxi have maintained their matriarchal social roots; the women still call the shots in many household and economic affairs. For centuries, the Naxi have consistently managed to preserve their cultural identity against the tides of history.
This is the third time I have waited on Master Yang’s patio to meet with him. Sipping the local Yunnan coffee he prepared for me, I think about an earlier meeting, when, after entering the master’s home, I met a middle-aged man from California. The man, who was living in a village near Baisha and studying spirituality and philosophy under Master Yang, assured me, “You have no idea what a special place you’ve stumbled on.”
As it turns out, he was right.
Master Yang bears the title of Dongba. The Dongba—which means ‘wise men’ in Naxi language—are priests and scholars in traditional Naxi society. The process of becoming a Dongba is arduous, requiring candidates to spend extensive time studying Naxi classics, rituals, history, and script. The final task of prospective Dongba is a pilgrimage to a sacred cave in Baishuitai, a region in northern Yunnan province where Dingbashiluo, the first Dongba sage, developed and promoted Dongba beliefs and customs.
The Dongba have extensive social responsibilities, including providing advice, preserving Dongba script and protecting Naxi knowledge as well as conducting funerals, exorcisms and festivals. In the past, when a person faced a problem or important decision, they first consulted with a Dongba. The traditions still exist today but only a handful of Dongba remain, and most are elderly men.
Master Yang slowly emerges from his home just as the old men in the farmers’ orchestra are putting down their instruments to drink rice wine. The master is short in stature, with graying hair and olive-tan skin. His most noticeable feature is his perpetual smile that seems out of place for a man of his age and distinction. He asks what I would like to talk about, and I tell him that I want to learn more about his life.
Master Yang was born in Baisha in 1942. By his seventh birthday, he had lived through Japanese occupation, World War II, Chinese civil war, and the founding of the People’s Republic of China. But it was the events that occurred after the founding of modern China that most profoundly affected his life in Baisha.
After communist victory in 1949, Dongba rituals and traditions were targeted by the government as counter-revolutionary superstition. As a result, the Dongba of Baisha no longer dared to conduct rituals or practice Dongba calligraphy. Some buried their equipment and ceremonial clothes in anticipation of a time when they might be tolerated again. “The Dongba had become cow devils and snake spirits,” Master Yang muses, recalling the terms Chinese revolutionaries used to demonize enemies of the revolution.
In this political context, Master Yang had no choice but to postpone his studies of the Dongba mystical arts. After graduating from high school, he took a job at a local prison, where he would work for the majority of his life. In his free time, he studied the classics of Han Chinese culture and eventually became adept at writing poems, stories, essays and calligraphy in the Chinese style. However, he wasn’t satisfied with this type of scholarship. “I was a minority scholar on the edge of China,” he says, “there was no way for me to compete with what was coming from the Han world.”
The dismantling of forced integration guidelines for minorities that accompanied the “reform and opening” policies of the late ‘70s gave Master Yang a new opportunity. By the early ‘80s, his research and writings began to turn towards Naxi customs and ritual. It was during this time that Master Yang and a group of other like-minded Naxi scholars essentially brought Dongba traditions back from the brink of death. Through his research and writings, he contributed to the resuscitation of a culture that had proven resilient many times before. Just as it had survived the invasion of Kublai Khan and other dynasties past, the Naxi and their unique way of life survived the trials of the Maoist era.
But the greatest threat to the Naxi way of life came through the forces of development and globalization. In 1997, the ancient streets and architecture of Baisha and neighboring Lijiang attracted the attention of UNESCO, which gave both sites the World Heritage Site label. Partially as a result of this, Lijiang, a picturesque old town of winding streets and canals located only 11 kilometers south of Baisha, exploded into one of the premiere tourist destinations of China.
As hordes of tourists flooded Lijiang in the ‘90s, the region became connected to the rest of China via a new airport and modern tourist infrastructure. Significant economic development followed— along with the grumblings of other Yunnan ethnic minority groups that the Naxi were crudely marketing or even “selling out” their culture. During the early tourism boom, Master Yang found work in Lijiang lecturing tourists about Naxi history but quickly found the crowds too tiring. Before long, he retreated back to his studio in Baisha.
Master Yang believes that the Dongba have survived through the turbulence of history because the rituals and services they provide have always come from the needs of the community. While the changing dynasties and crude policies of the past have done little to affect the actual need for traditional customs and spiritual guidance, the subtle yet deeper influence of materialism, modernization and popular culture has profound implications for the younger generation of Naxi. He says that these days, many younger Naxi are more interested in pop music and television than they are in the ancient customs and calligraphy of their ancestors.
The farmers’ band is already playing again when the master is finished talking. He slowly rises from his chair and begins to walk towards his studio. “We’ll find a way to keep it going,” he tells me, looking back.
Before I leave his home, Master Yang commemorates our meeting in accordance with tradition—by completing a work of calligraphy. With total concentration, the old Dongba gently presses his brush against the parchment to create four pictographs— a giant leaf, a set of seven squiggly lines, what looks like a pig with triangles for eyes, and a wave. With his trademark smile he translates the work for me: “May everything turn out as one wishes.”
The Finished Piece
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