Nu and Lisu Life

Almost all the 25,000 members of the Nu minority nationality reside in the Nujiang canyon. A few Nu vil lages lie east of Biluoshan in Lanping and Weixi Counties.They were for a long time the only inhabitants, moving in as early as the Nanzhao era, perhaps from the jungles of northern Burma, as Kingdon Ward suspected. Two branches live in the prefecture-the Anu of the north and the Nusu of the south, speaking mutually unintelligible dialects.

The canyon remained sparsely settled until the Ming Dynasty. Then large-scale Lisu migration commenced out of their original homeland in the mountains along the Jinshajiang, where it forms the border between Tibet and Sichuan. In the 16th century this migration reached the Nujiang canyon and the Lisu soon surpassed the Nu as the most numerous of its inhabitants. Today over 40% of Yunnan's large Lisu population lives in Nujiang Prefecture, outnumbering the Nu by about 9 to 1. The Lisu are divided into two main subgroups with mutually unintelligible dialects-the small Hua Lisu group in Lushui County and the far more numerous Black Lisu of the rest of the canyon.

The salubrious climate of the valley has attracted other settlers besides Nu and Lisu. Along the river the daily temperature ranges from 17 to 26 degrees℃.And because the high mountains trap the warm air currents from the Indian Ocean it is warmer in general than mountainous areas to the east. A village sited at 3000 metres here then will enjoy a slightly warmer temperature than a village at the same altitude, even the same latitude, east of Biluoshan. But except for the Jingpo, who have long inhabited some of the southernmost mountains of the prefecture, and the Dai who have occupied the valley south of Liuku since ancient times, more recent immigrants like the Bai, Han and Naxi have opted for the towns or the low hills around Liuku.

The prefecture's towns and bigger townships may have ethnically mixed populations, but the mountains belong to the Nu and the Lisu. So do the sections of tableland along the river, usually (but not always) where feeder streams come to meet the river. A few, always close to the river, are fairly well off, with brick buildings, some with plastered and whitewashed walls, tile roofs and stone foundations. But the norm is a much simpler construction of wood and plaited bamboo, resting on stilts (the "multi-legged house," in local parlance) or stone piles, with a thatched roof. People live on the elevated floor, pigs and cattle below.

Wooden planks or logs may both be used for walls instead of plaited bamboo, especially further north. In Gongshan the roof will be made of stone slabs. The Nu people quarry them from the cliffs, where the rock is in vertical strata, like books on a shelf. After prying a rock loose they rip apart the layers, creating slabs as thin as half a centimetre. These they lay in a herring bone pattern over the frame of the roof.

Formerly the Nu and Lisu practised slash-and-burn agriculture on the slopes of the canyon, but since the 60's this has been replaced by terrace farming. Nowadays terraces everywhere fill the spaces between the settlements, well irrigated from streams diverted in several directions. In some places the water runs down concrete channels with staircases beside them, enabling people to walk up and down the hill on a non-slippery, flat surface. Indeed, water engineering, from the diversion of streams to the highland farms to the many hydel projects on the river, has been the main instrument in the transformation and improvement of Nujiang people's lives.

Along the river and the irrigated upper slopes the main crop is rice, seeded in March or April, transplanted in May and harvested in September. Barley, maize, buckwheat and sorghum are the other grains cultivated. Oxen are the draught animals, singly or in pairs with the plough attached to a crossbar between them. On sowing day the Nu and Lisu customarily make offerings of grains, flowers and pine needles to the spirits protecting agriculture and kill a small pig to feed the work crew. Hemp, vegetables, rape, fruits, especially tangerines, and walnuts are the supplemental crops.   
In Fugong County the costume components of the Nu and Lisu are identical and it is only in Gongshan County, where the Anu branch dresses differently, that one can distinguish Nu from Lisu at a glance. Cotton is not cultivated in Nujiang, so traditionally clothes have been made from hemp, which grows well on marginal plots and stony hillside fields. After the laborious process of turning hemp stalks into thread, the women weave the cloth on simple backstrap looms. The principal uses of this cloth are for making long skirts for the women, trousers for men and shirts for both.

The skirt is loose and ankle-length. The usual colours are black, white, grey, dark blue and gray-and-white pinstriped. Over this she wears a long-sleeved blouse and a red or black side-fastened velvet vest. On her head she wears a beaded cap of red and white sections, with a circlet of shell discs at its back. The same discs may be sewn onto a loop of narrow cloth and worn slung over one shoulder. Long strands of red or white beads are popular ornaments. A striped cloth shoulder bag, mostly red and black, with an embroidered rectangular patch in front, completes the outfit.

Men do not dress in traditional style as much or as often as the women. Some do prefer the jacket, of pinstriped grey and white, with black velvet patches on the collar, cuffs and pockets. They also use the shoulder bag, which is universal among Lisu, even the school kids. In the north men more commonly don the traditional jackets, which among the Nu in Gongshan is looser, robe-like, with wider sleeves, and is tied together with a cloth belt.

Nu women in Gongshan County weave a cloth of alternating sections of white and grey, with pinstripes of contrasting colours running through the broad sections. They wear this as a wraparound, shin-length skirt over trousers. A multi-coloured, Tibetan-style cloth belt holds the skirt in place. A small section of hemp cloth, or plain terry cloth, they use as a head covering, which they secure by tying around it their hair braid, lengthened with brightly coloured yarn. A side-fastened vest over a long-sleeved blouse completes the costume. Beads of turquoise, coral and glass, and perhaps an engraved silver box-pendant, like the Tibetans wear, are the most popular ornaments.

The further north, or the higher into the mountains the people live, the more likely they are to dress in traditional style. In Fugong itself and in the riverside townships the trend is toward modern clothing, except for the older generation. On market day, though, which in Fugong is every calendar date ending in 0 or 5, traditional garments and accessories dominate the fashions.

Villagers from the mountains come to the city bearing firewood, poultry, vegetables and forest products like medicinal herbs or bamboo shoots. Young men sit on their stacks of firewood and play guitar while they await customers. Women examine the items in the clothing stalls, curious about modern clothes even if they don't intend to buy them. Others lead suckling pigs to market, especially around planting and harvesting time. Farmers sacrifice small pigs at that time, so the market is brisk. Any pig over 10 kg, however, is saved for New Year or wedding feasts.

Some women wear ordinary clothing day-to-day, but dress up in their best traditional costume for market days. They want to look their best in public places and to them their best is their clean and elegant Lisu or Nu outfit. The other venue for dressing up, with the same motivation, is the Sunday church service, for a large percentage of Nu and Lisu have been Christian since the 1920's. The Protestant church in Shangba, bare and unadorned, fills up on Sundays, men on one side, women on the other, for over an hour's worth of sermons interspersed with Christian hymns, like "Jesus Loves Me," in the Lisu language.

The conversion of the Nu and Lisu did not totally wipe out traditional beliefs in Nujiang, for villagers still hold sacrifices at sowing time and, while adding celebrations like Easter and Christmas to their festival calendar, have retained the biggest annual traditional event-the Flower Festival of the Nu and Kuosheu of the Lisu. Their form of Christianity is devout without being zealous and has little effect on their traditional material life.

Nujiang people are by nature good-humoured, self-assured and hospitable. A stranger cannot walk for long without being greeted or invited inside somewhere. The area sees foreigners only rarely and its people strain to make that visit a pleasant one. "Tamped wine" and tobacco are offered to guests in their homes. The wine's name comes from its process. First the Lisu boil and ferment grains of maize and sorghum and the seeds of a barnyard grass. After fermentation they put the grains in a fresh cauldron, add water and boil, all the while tamping down the grains with a wooden ladle. When sufficiently boiled the mixture is poured into a basket of closely woven bamboo strips, which retains the mash and filters out the wine.

Lisu hosts expect their guests to get drunk and are embarrassed if the guest departs sober. They may ask the guest to join in a "union toast," in which two people drink simultaneously from a single large bamboo cup. The Nu offer a milder beverage, a kind of maize beer, along with buckwheat bread, which is roasted on a heated stone slab like the ones used for roofing. With both peoples hospitality is a duty, a notion which underlines their friendly attitude towards the curious strangers who travel so far to meet them.