Wang shiying 王世英 Lijiang Dongbainstitute

Living in the southwest of China, at the border of Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet, there are many independent tribes of Na People from the ancient time. People used similar pronunciation but different Chinese characters like “Moxie”, “Mosha”, “Mosuo”, “Mexie”, “Mesha”, “Moxi” and so on to record the tribes in Chinese written records. Now the academic circles separate Naxi area by the Golden River to the east language area and the west area. The people of the west regard them as Naxi People; some of the people in the east take them as Naxi(the people in the Muli County of Sichuan Province and the people in the Dazhu Village by the Lugu Lake), but most of them call themselves as the Na branches. Some east people accept the given name “Mosuo” by other people to call themselves as “Mosuo People” or “Meng People” because of academic and other factors influence, like the people around Yongning of Nilang County. The people around there live together and have the same names, but separate to Na People in Lijiang and Meng People in Yanyuan County of Sichuan Province. This kind of names cause a lot of difficulties to academic circles.

The article will introduce the religions, customs, marriage, language, clothes, and so on of Na people groups, and will point out the similarities and differences of Na People branches, and will analyze the reasons.

The writer once made field survey at the border of Yunnan and Sichuan, and made research of Naxi culture for many years, so can accurately catch the similarities and differences of Na People branches. This research will help with understanding and unity of Na People, and obviously have lots of practical significances.

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Hu Wenming   Lijiang Party School

Pumi and Naxi are two ethnic groups that have a long history and rich culture, distributing at the crossing boarders of Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet. In the ancient Chinese history books, Pumi ancestors were called Xifan(西蕃or西番), and Naxi ancestors Muosuo(摩梭) or Mexie(么些). After new China was founded, the names Xifan and Mexie weren’t used any longer through the national recognition. According to the principle ‘name follows master’, unity legal national names were used since then, namely, Pumi and Naxi. Pumi and Naxi lived next to each other, even mixed together in the long history. They have close connection in politics and economy, they have been sharing many commons in religion colture. Therefore, a state of culture and society mixture Pumi and Naxi was formed. Obviously, the study of the historical relationship of the two ethnic groups is an important theme topic for both Pumi and Naxi. Unfortunately, from home and abroad, the study on this topic is not wide enough, nor deep, systematic, and the study development is rather slow. Thus, it is very necessary to do further exploration and study. This paper tries to analyse and study this relationship by the of applying multi-subject and different approaches, which leads to the writer’s systematic recognition and view on the topic, what’s more, it figures out a general picture of the historical relationship between Pumi and Naxi. The paper will discuss it from the following aspects.

1. the relationship of the national source

1.1      the folk legend and the relationship of the two ethnic groups

1.2      the relationship between Xi Qiang and the two ethnic groups

1.2.1        Hehuang Qiang and the source of the two ethnic groups

1.2.2        Maoniu(Yak) Qiang and the source of the two ethnic groups

1.2.3        Bailangge( the song of the white wolf) and the source of the two ethnic groups

2. the political relationship in the history

2.1      the political relationship of the two ethnic groups in Tang and Song Dynasty

2.2      the political relationship of the two ethnic groups in Ming and Qing Dynasty

3. the relationship on the religion culture

3.1      the relationship between Hangui religion and Dongba religion

3.2      the relationship between Tibetan Buddhism and the two ethnic groups

4. the influence and mixture of the two ethnic groups

4.1      the mixture of culture

4.2      the mixture of Pumi and Naxi in different regions

4.2.1        the mixture in the southwestern area of Sichuan

4.2.2        the mixture in the northwestern area of Yunan

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