The Variety

Variety is the principal component in any description of Yunnan's ethnic minorities. Inhabiting the highest mountains to the lowest valleys, and every kind of location in between, in all sorts of ecological and climatic conditions, ethnic minorities engage in many different lifestyles throughout the province. They are all heirs to old and independently developed cultures that have ordered their lives for many centuries. Customs and traditions have forged their identities as separate peoples, distinct from one another even in those areas occupied by more than one of them.

Migrations from all directions into Yunnan, combined with the geographical diversity, account for this variety. Yunnan has 25 officially recognised minority nationalities (shaoshu minzu). Some are minor spillover populations from neighbouring provinces. Others are small and confined to particular localities. But others are large, spread over several prefectures, and comprise many sub-groups. Until recently most minorities have lived relatively isolated from the mainstream of historical events. Levels of economic development, as well as cultural achievements, vary enormously from remote area denizens who supplement simple farming with hunting and gathering to sophisticated plains dwellers with cities and traditions of art and literature.

Most ethnic minorities have evolved their own particular religious systems, animist with ancestral veneration, The unseen forces in nature, from the benevolent to the dangerous, are all classified as spirits, sometimes given names. Customs, taboos and rituals are devised as the people's means to deal with these spirits, to keep them placated, or to propitiate them, so that they do not upset the harmony of life. This spirits do by causing epidemics, making people ill or weak, starting fires, sending down storms. arranging for droughts or blights and making other mischief. These societies have their own specialists who conduct rituals and communicate with the spirit world to insure life proceeds without problems, either by preventive measures of some sort or by remedial action for anything disharmonious in their environment, from illness to crop failure.

The majority of the traditional cultures are animist, hut some follow the organised religions. Here and there are Christian communities, the fruits of successful missionary work during the last decades of Western colonial empires. The Hui are Muslim Chinese, but they are not the only Islamic community, for there are Dai Muslims in Xishuangbanna and Tibetan Muslims in Deqing. Several minorities are Buddhist, but of three kinds-Theravada, Mahayana and lamaist. And the practices of all three are laced with Daoist or ancient animist aspects.

With a population of over 4 million the Yi are Yunnan's largest minority, with over 25 sub-groups scattered over all sections of the province except the southwest. Large numbers live in Sichuan, too, and small groups in Guizhou and Guangxi, making them China's fourth biggest nationality. The Bai, with over 1.4 million, are the second largest, living mostly in the west. The Hani, at 1.3 million, inhabit the Ailao Mountains and the hills in the south to the borders of Southeast Asia. The Zhuang, the nation's most numerous minority, number over 1 million in Yunnan. Most of them live in Wenshan, but small communities live quite far from here. such as Ninglang County in the northwest and Pu'er in the south. The Dai, at 1 million, rank next, inhabiting the southwest and south-central areas. Those in Ailaoshan and Honghe Prefecture are mostly animist, the other Dai primarily Buddhist. The Miao, with 900,000, reside mainly in the eastern half of the province but, like the Zhuang, have migrated in small groups further on, like Jingdong and Lijiang. The Hui, at 500,000. also live largely in the eastern and central prefectures, but have large communities in Dali and Baoshan Prefectures and small numbers in every major town.

Other minorities are less dispersed. The 500,000 Lisu live mainly in the far west. The 400,000 Lahu are in the southwest, from western Xishuangbanna to southern Lincang Prefectures. The 350,000 Wa are in the mountains of the southwest border with Myanmar. The 275,000 Naxi dominate Lijiang County and spill over into the adjacent counties of the northwest. The 175,000 Yao are in the south and southeast. The 100,000 Tibetans are almost all in Diqing Prefecture. The 80,000 Bulang live in western Xishuangbanna and southern Lincang. The 34,000 Buyi all live in Qujing Prefecture, near the eastern provincial border.

Even smaller groups exist as distinct nationalities, confined to even smaller areas, or living as groups of villages among larger nationalities. The Pumi, with 30,000, are split between Ninglang and Lanping Counties. The 27,000 Achang are concentrated in two counties of Dehong. The 25,000 Nu only live in the upper Nujiang area. The 17,000 De'ang are clustered in a few southwestern counties. Most of the 13,000 Mongolians live in Tonghai County. The 7000 Shui are near the junction of Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi. The 5000 Dulnng inhabit the valley of the same name in the remote northwest, west of the Nujiang.