缘
缘穆鱼
The Mosuo as a Living Matriarchal Society
Heide Göttner Abendroth:
In 1993, I organized a research expedition to China, together with a group of students from my academy HAGIA, to visit the society of the Mosuo. Iris Bubenik-Bauer, an expert on China, accompanied us. Our aim was to test and correct my theoretical findings about the structure of matriarchal societies by observing a living example.
The Mosuo are a non-Chinese ethnic minority living within the boundaries of China. Their homeland lies on the borders of Yuennan and Szetchuan provinces, not far from Tibet. Anthropologist Wang Shu Wu conducted the first research on the Mosuo in 1954. Later, the feminist scholar Yan Ruxian (1980) also did fieldwork there. The Mosuo are considered by Chinese anthropologists to be matriarchal, because they are still living in accordance with the patterns of matrilinearity and matrilocality.
After five days of difficult travel into the mountains, we reached Lake Lugu and the plain of Yong Ning. Lake Lugu is of breathtaking beauty. It occupies the entire valley and is surrounded by high mountains, one of which is called Gun mu, "Mother Mountain", the protective Goddess of the Mosuo. Beyond the mountains we could see some of the snow-covered peaks of Tibet. In the language of the Mosuo, Lake Lugu is called Shinami, which means "Mother Lake"; Shinami is a goddess, too. Here, at an altitude of nearly 3000 meters, the Mosuo live by gardening and fishing in their sacred lake.
The houses and farmyards of the Mosuo are built in a solid manner, constructed of big beams, whole trunks of trees. The ancient forests however, have disappeared from the landscape because of the devastating clear-cutting mandated by the Chinese government in Beijing. The ongoing destruction of their environment is one of the great political problems of the Mosuo today.
In spite of their hard life as peasant women and fishermen, the Mosuo are a cultivated people. Their traditional festive costume is made of velvet and silk, which turns every young woman into a princess. The traditional colors of these costumes are white (the long skirt made of silk), red (the velvet jacket), and black (the hair dress). Variations of this costume indicate a woman's age and status. The older women are dressed exclusively in dark linen working clothes; they are the matriarchs, the most powerful women in the community. To dress in bright colors, as the young women do, would not be in accordance with their dignity, they told us. The costume of the men is simpler. They wear hats similar to those worn by American cowboys and ride small horses of Mongolian stock. Therefore, the Chinese disdainfully called them Mosuo, which means "cowboys." During thousands of years of expansion by the patriarchal Chinese empire, the Mosuo have been treated as brutally as have the North American Indians. Figuratively, the Mosuo and other marginalized non-Chinese ethnic groups could be called the Indians of China.
What makes the Mosuo so interesting for many anthropologists is their matriarchal society. The majority of the Mosuo still live according to the patterns of matrilinearity and matrilocality in big clan-houses that are built in a square. All persons within each clan-house have the clan name of the eldest woman, the clan mother. These names are, for example: "Tiger Mother," "Snake Mother," "Cougar Mother," "Tree Mother," and so on. The names, as well as the common ownership of the house and the land, are exclusively inherited through the female line.
The women of the first generation are between sixty and eighty years old. We visited one clan-house, in which the former matriarch, now retired, devotes herself to the worship of the ancestresses, her foremothers in the female line. She has a vivid relationship with them. Each day she greets and speaks to them as if they are still alive. She cares for their daily meals of flour and kernels, and in return, the dead give their blessing to the living members of the clan.
The Women of the second generation are between forty and sixty years old. One woman of a group of sisters has been elected by the clan members to be the matriarch. With the help of her sisters, she cares for the economic and social affairs of the clan-house. She is the administrator of all possessions of the clan: the house, fields, domestic animals and food, as well as the horses, which are mostly used by the men of the clan, her brothers and sons. All goods are given into her hands: the crops of the fields, the fruits of the gardens, the fishes and hunted animals - even the goods and the money that have been earned by the men through long-distance trade by means of horse caravans. She is also the distributor of these goods, caring for the welfare of every member of the extended family. She plans the agricultural labor, acts as host for the guests, and is the priestess of the clan house during the important family ceremonies, like the initiation festival of the girls and the funeral ceremonies for the deceased. Her brother, elected to be the representative of the clan, helps her by organizing external affairs, which involves communication with the neighbors and planning the men's work.
The women of the third generation are between thirteen and forty years old. At about thirteen years of age, after the ceremony of initiation, girls are considered to be full members of the clan and are given the key to their own rooms. This young generation of women does the hard work in the fields and gardens. They are also occupied with love, pregnancy, and motherhood. Their traditional custom was to have mutual marriage between two clans, but this form has ceased to exist. Today, each woman chooses her lovers as she wishes. Love affairs are easily begun and easily broken off without problems for the young woman and her children because they are all at home in their (grand)mother's house.
Once a year, the young people of the region go on a pilgrimage to their sacred mountain. There they have a dance festival to honor Gan mu as the great Goddess of Love. On this occasion, the young women choose a new lover among the young men. The men do not initiate the choice themselves. The elected lover has the right to visit his love at night in her private chamber in the house of her clan. But the next morning at dawn he must leave because he has no right to live with her, not even to eat there. The custom is that every person eats where she or he works. The man works in the house of his mother, where he is at home. Thus, every evening the brothers leave the clan house and the lovers enter, and every morning the lovers leave and the brothers come back. This is the classic matriarchal visiting marriage, which still exists among the Mosuo. A Mosuo man has his rights and duties in the house of his mother, not in the house of his love, where he is only a guest.
The children belong exclusively to the mother and her clan. The brothers of the young women take care of the nieces and nephews, who are regarded as their children, too, because they share the same clan name. The uncles of the children fulfill the role of social fatherhood, which is typical for matriarchal societies. Biological fatherhood makes no sense to the Mosuo, socially or spiritually.
Children make up the fourth generation and are regarded as reborn ancestresses or ancestors who have returned into their own clan. The children come from the realm of the ancestors, not from a man of another clan; therefore they are sacred. This belief in direct rebirth is basic in matriarchal religion, and the veneration of ancestors is part of this belief. The ancestors, who are held in good memory, will soon come back as little children. As a child grows up, its clan members will recognize similarities to a deceased relative. At the child's initiation ceremony, her or his name is given to the child. This ceremony, at which the young person becomes a full member of the clan, is especially celebrated for the girls. At that time, the girl is given a woman's costume and the name of the ancestress who, from that moment on, is regarded as fully reborn in her. Therefore, the initiation festival is regarded as the great festival of rebirth for the Mosuo (not the birth of an actual child). When an old woman dies, the initiation costume of a girl of thirteen, together with food and drink, is laid close to her coffin during her funeral ceremony. As the Mosuo say, "she will come back as a young girl."
The ancient religion of the Mosuo, the matriarchal layer, centers on their belief in the divinity of Nature. This is most directly expressed through the veneration of Gan mu, the sacred mountain, which is regarded as the Goddess of Love, and for Shinami, the sacred lake, seen as the Mother Goddess. Nature is regarded as female, as the great Creatrix. The later, patriarchal layers of religion, to which they have been subjected, have not succeeded in suppressing these basic beliefs.
When the Tibetans conquered them, the Mosuo were forced to adopt Lamaism, the Tibetan variation of Buddhism. But, according to myth, Gan mu became furious because the Lamas did not respect the mother and her life-giving womb. She went to Lhasa to fight against the new Buddhist deities and was successful. As a consequence, Gan mu was integrated into the Buddhist pantheon. This myth reflects a historical compromise between the indigenous Mosuo and the Tibetian rulers. Under the disguise of syncretistic religion, the Mosuo were allowed to continue the veneration for their Goddess Gan mu until today. Later, their region was conquered by the armies of the emperors of China and became part of the Chinese empire. But even now the Mosuo have not adopted the patriarchal Chinese patterns, and in their remote area, they could not be forced to do this. At the present time, the Mosuo are under great pressure due to the modern development of China. Their ancient culture is threatened by the continued exploitation of their environment. Roads are being built, electricity installed, and the beauty of Lake Lugu and the "matriarchal women of the Mosuo" are being marketed for Chinese tourism.
However, the Mosuo have not given up. At present, they are struggling to be acknowledged as a National Minority by the Chinese government. This status would give them more autonomy to solve these dangerous problems by themselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reference:
Winter 1998 issue of ReVision, vol. 20, 110. 3
Heide Göttner Abendroth:
In 1993, I organized a research expedition to China, together with a group of students from my academy HAGIA, to visit the society of the Mosuo. Iris Bubenik-Bauer, an expert on China, accompanied us. Our aim was to test and correct my theoretical findings about the structure of matriarchal societies by observing a living example.
The Mosuo are a non-Chinese ethnic minority living within the boundaries of China. Their homeland lies on the borders of Yuennan and Szetchuan provinces, not far from Tibet. Anthropologist Wang Shu Wu conducted the first research on the Mosuo in 1954. Later, the feminist scholar Yan Ruxian (1980) also did fieldwork there. The Mosuo are considered by Chinese anthropologists to be matriarchal, because they are still living in accordance with the patterns of matrilinearity and matrilocality.
After five days of difficult travel into the mountains, we reached Lake Lugu and the plain of Yong Ning. Lake Lugu is of breathtaking beauty. It occupies the entire valley and is surrounded by high mountains, one of which is called Gun mu, "Mother Mountain", the protective Goddess of the Mosuo. Beyond the mountains we could see some of the snow-covered peaks of Tibet. In the language of the Mosuo, Lake Lugu is called Shinami, which means "Mother Lake"; Shinami is a goddess, too. Here, at an altitude of nearly 3000 meters, the Mosuo live by gardening and fishing in their sacred lake.
The houses and farmyards of the Mosuo are built in a solid manner, constructed of big beams, whole trunks of trees. The ancient forests however, have disappeared from the landscape because of the devastating clear-cutting mandated by the Chinese government in Beijing. The ongoing destruction of their environment is one of the great political problems of the Mosuo today.
In spite of their hard life as peasant women and fishermen, the Mosuo are a cultivated people. Their traditional festive costume is made of velvet and silk, which turns every young woman into a princess. The traditional colors of these costumes are white (the long skirt made of silk), red (the velvet jacket), and black (the hair dress). Variations of this costume indicate a woman's age and status. The older women are dressed exclusively in dark linen working clothes; they are the matriarchs, the most powerful women in the community. To dress in bright colors, as the young women do, would not be in accordance with their dignity, they told us. The costume of the men is simpler. They wear hats similar to those worn by American cowboys and ride small horses of Mongolian stock. Therefore, the Chinese disdainfully called them Mosuo, which means "cowboys." During thousands of years of expansion by the patriarchal Chinese empire, the Mosuo have been treated as brutally as have the North American Indians. Figuratively, the Mosuo and other marginalized non-Chinese ethnic groups could be called the Indians of China.
What makes the Mosuo so interesting for many anthropologists is their matriarchal society. The majority of the Mosuo still live according to the patterns of matrilinearity and matrilocality in big clan-houses that are built in a square. All persons within each clan-house have the clan name of the eldest woman, the clan mother. These names are, for example: "Tiger Mother," "Snake Mother," "Cougar Mother," "Tree Mother," and so on. The names, as well as the common ownership of the house and the land, are exclusively inherited through the female line.
The women of the first generation are between sixty and eighty years old. We visited one clan-house, in which the former matriarch, now retired, devotes herself to the worship of the ancestresses, her foremothers in the female line. She has a vivid relationship with them. Each day she greets and speaks to them as if they are still alive. She cares for their daily meals of flour and kernels, and in return, the dead give their blessing to the living members of the clan.
The Women of the second generation are between forty and sixty years old. One woman of a group of sisters has been elected by the clan members to be the matriarch. With the help of her sisters, she cares for the economic and social affairs of the clan-house. She is the administrator of all possessions of the clan: the house, fields, domestic animals and food, as well as the horses, which are mostly used by the men of the clan, her brothers and sons. All goods are given into her hands: the crops of the fields, the fruits of the gardens, the fishes and hunted animals - even the goods and the money that have been earned by the men through long-distance trade by means of horse caravans. She is also the distributor of these goods, caring for the welfare of every member of the extended family. She plans the agricultural labor, acts as host for the guests, and is the priestess of the clan house during the important family ceremonies, like the initiation festival of the girls and the funeral ceremonies for the deceased. Her brother, elected to be the representative of the clan, helps her by organizing external affairs, which involves communication with the neighbors and planning the men's work.
The women of the third generation are between thirteen and forty years old. At about thirteen years of age, after the ceremony of initiation, girls are considered to be full members of the clan and are given the key to their own rooms. This young generation of women does the hard work in the fields and gardens. They are also occupied with love, pregnancy, and motherhood. Their traditional custom was to have mutual marriage between two clans, but this form has ceased to exist. Today, each woman chooses her lovers as she wishes. Love affairs are easily begun and easily broken off without problems for the young woman and her children because they are all at home in their (grand)mother's house.
Once a year, the young people of the region go on a pilgrimage to their sacred mountain. There they have a dance festival to honor Gan mu as the great Goddess of Love. On this occasion, the young women choose a new lover among the young men. The men do not initiate the choice themselves. The elected lover has the right to visit his love at night in her private chamber in the house of her clan. But the next morning at dawn he must leave because he has no right to live with her, not even to eat there. The custom is that every person eats where she or he works. The man works in the house of his mother, where he is at home. Thus, every evening the brothers leave the clan house and the lovers enter, and every morning the lovers leave and the brothers come back. This is the classic matriarchal visiting marriage, which still exists among the Mosuo. A Mosuo man has his rights and duties in the house of his mother, not in the house of his love, where he is only a guest.
The children belong exclusively to the mother and her clan. The brothers of the young women take care of the nieces and nephews, who are regarded as their children, too, because they share the same clan name. The uncles of the children fulfill the role of social fatherhood, which is typical for matriarchal societies. Biological fatherhood makes no sense to the Mosuo, socially or spiritually.
Children make up the fourth generation and are regarded as reborn ancestresses or ancestors who have returned into their own clan. The children come from the realm of the ancestors, not from a man of another clan; therefore they are sacred. This belief in direct rebirth is basic in matriarchal religion, and the veneration of ancestors is part of this belief. The ancestors, who are held in good memory, will soon come back as little children. As a child grows up, its clan members will recognize similarities to a deceased relative. At the child's initiation ceremony, her or his name is given to the child. This ceremony, at which the young person becomes a full member of the clan, is especially celebrated for the girls. At that time, the girl is given a woman's costume and the name of the ancestress who, from that moment on, is regarded as fully reborn in her. Therefore, the initiation festival is regarded as the great festival of rebirth for the Mosuo (not the birth of an actual child). When an old woman dies, the initiation costume of a girl of thirteen, together with food and drink, is laid close to her coffin during her funeral ceremony. As the Mosuo say, "she will come back as a young girl."
The ancient religion of the Mosuo, the matriarchal layer, centers on their belief in the divinity of Nature. This is most directly expressed through the veneration of Gan mu, the sacred mountain, which is regarded as the Goddess of Love, and for Shinami, the sacred lake, seen as the Mother Goddess. Nature is regarded as female, as the great Creatrix. The later, patriarchal layers of religion, to which they have been subjected, have not succeeded in suppressing these basic beliefs.
When the Tibetans conquered them, the Mosuo were forced to adopt Lamaism, the Tibetan variation of Buddhism. But, according to myth, Gan mu became furious because the Lamas did not respect the mother and her life-giving womb. She went to Lhasa to fight against the new Buddhist deities and was successful. As a consequence, Gan mu was integrated into the Buddhist pantheon. This myth reflects a historical compromise between the indigenous Mosuo and the Tibetian rulers. Under the disguise of syncretistic religion, the Mosuo were allowed to continue the veneration for their Goddess Gan mu until today. Later, their region was conquered by the armies of the emperors of China and became part of the Chinese empire. But even now the Mosuo have not adopted the patriarchal Chinese patterns, and in their remote area, they could not be forced to do this. At the present time, the Mosuo are under great pressure due to the modern development of China. Their ancient culture is threatened by the continued exploitation of their environment. Roads are being built, electricity installed, and the beauty of Lake Lugu and the "matriarchal women of the Mosuo" are being marketed for Chinese tourism.
However, the Mosuo have not given up. At present, they are struggling to be acknowledged as a National Minority by the Chinese government. This status would give them more autonomy to solve these dangerous problems by themselves.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reference:
Winter 1998 issue of ReVision, vol. 20, 110. 3