Train to Daliang Mountain

The green leather train carries the villagers deep in the Daliang Mountains, as well as the chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, dogs and sheep at their feet, taking them to distant places in the hidden world.

(Train No. 5634 from Panzhihua to Puxiong via Xichang, the capital of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, is a green train painted in dark green. The train windows are not locked and passengers can open and close them at will.)

The outside world's imagination of Daliang Mountain is of steep terrain and desolate and harsh natural environment. In this mountain, the mysterious and ancient Yi people have lived in isolation for thousands of years. Not long ago, I finally had the opportunity to enter this legendary hidden place.

Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture is located at the junction of Sichuan and Yunnan in the southwest of Sichuan Province. Daliang Mountain is a branch of the Daxue Mountain. The altitude of the mountains is not particularly high, generally between 2,000 and 3,000 meters, with individual peaks reaching nearly 4,000 meters. The areas around Meigu, Zhaojue and Butuo counties I visited this time included rolling hills, deep valleys, and relatively gentle mountainous plains.

Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture is the largest Yi-inhabited area in my country. Regarding the origin of the Yi people, the mainstream view in academic circles is that the Yi people are mainly derived from the ancient Qiang people. The Yi people are a nation with a long history and one of the oldest residents in the southwest. About 3,000 years ago, the ancestors of the Yi people lived in Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou and other places.

(Mahong Village, Meigu County and Guluo Township, sheep returning at dusk and shepherds.)

Liangshan’s commercial exchanges with other regions can be traced back to the Warring States Period The "Five Feet Road" was built to connect the Central Plains, Sichuan and Yunnan. Historically, Daliang Mountain, located in the hinterland of the mountains in the southwest, was a relatively famous place. It was an important passage to Yunnan and Southeast Asia, and was the only place to pass through in the ancient "Southern Silk Road".

Thousands of years have passed, and the "five-foot road" in ancient times has long been replaced by railways, national highways and expressways. When cars are walking on national highways, high-speed rails under construction can be seen on the roadside.

The Chengdu-Kunming Railway, which is rare in the world, runs along the Dadu River, across the Liangshan Mountains and Big Liangshan Mountains, and winds in the mountains and deep valleys. On the Chengdu-Kunming Line, the two trains, one south and one north, between Puxiong Town, Yuexi County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, and Panzhihua, the "Steel Capital", are particularly distinctive. The 5633 train going south and the 5634 train going north are both old-style green trains painted in dark green. This green train connects this ancient and hidden world with the distance.

(In Tekou Jiagu Village, Zhaojue County, villagers drove their cattle and sheep into the mountains to graze in the morning.)

1

Boarded the Green Skin from Mianning Station By car, it took more than 4 hours to walk between Mianning and Puxiong, stopping at 14 stops, many of which were ungraded passing stops. The hard-seat carriage was so crowded that the seat numbers written on the tickets were of course useless. The train aisles, carriage joints, and toilets are full of people standing, squatting, and sitting.

This green train, which runs daily from Panzhihua to Puxiong, is also known as the "Poverty Alleviation Train". Folks from the Yi ethnic group who had trekked from remote mountainous areas such as Zhaojue and Butuo boarded this low-fare slow train, bringing their chickens, ducks, geese, pigs, dogs and sheep, as well as large bags of potatoes, cabbage, fertilizers and other daily necessities. . The railway department made an exception to allow these extraordinary phenomena that are never seen on trains elsewhere in China, turning this green train into a flowing corridor of Yi ethnic customs.

(The green train that runs every day from Panzhihua to Puxiong is also known as the "Poverty Alleviation Train". The Yi people in remote mountainous areas such as Zhaojue and Butuo take advantage of this low-priced train to Travel slowly, purchase livestock, poultry and daily necessities)

The train roared through long cave tunnels. It was a Sunday afternoon, and there were many young people on the bus, students returning to school. The tired travelers didn't seem too bothered by the camera. I chatted with four junior high school girls. They were in the first year of junior high school. Their families were in Xichang, but they went to school in Xide County because their household registration was in Xide. I gave them two cans of yogurt, and the girl insisted on giving me a pack of oranges when I got off the bus.

In a crowded carriage, a boy carefully held his newly purchased basketball shoes. A group of little boys were playing games and smoking at the junction of the carriages.

Three fifth-grade elementary school students were as tall as junior high school students. One of them, a girl with dyed blonde hair, said to me, "Auntie, I haven't touched the Apple (iPhone 12) yet. Can you let me touch it?" ”

Walking towards the front of the car, there are chickens and ducks on the floor of the carriage, and at the feet are large bags of vegetables: zucchini, cabbage, and tuna. Vendors selling fruit drinks and snacks squeezed through the crowd carrying large baskets.

"Why go to Mianning to buy feed?" I asked an old lady with a basket of roosters. "The prices are good over there," she replied.

After the students got off at Xide Station, the carriage became a little emptier and I was finally able to find a seat. Opposite me is a 28-year-old young mother who already has three daughters. The eldest daughter is in elementary school in Xide.

"Are you still alive?" I asked her.

She hesitated for a moment, "We can't do it without a boy here."

(Mother and son in Dimo ??Village, Butuo County.)

There is something in the car Two young people who looked like college students sat quietly and looked at the scenery. They are from Inner Mongolia and volunteered to teach in Puxiong branch. The boy taught Chinese and the girl taught art. They got married last year.

When the train arrived in Puxiong, it was completely dark, and the conductor was busy looking for someone to "pick up" the two sheep. At the front of this train, there is a special carriage for livestock. This conductor from the Chengdu Railway Bureau has been running on this line for 20 years.

2

When walking in Daliang Mountain, you can often see some interesting scenes on the roadsides in markets, villages, and county towns: "Bimo" and "Suni" Perform spells for customers. Bimo held the law enforcement weapon in his hand, faced the sheepskin scripture, and muttered something. Suni cracked an egg into a bowl and used the special "elephant" on the egg to predict good or bad luck.

Liuqie Town, Zhaojue County, meets every eight. The market is very lively, with people coming from all over to trade grain, pesticides, vegetables, corn seeds, fruits and clothing. Since people live in scattered places on weekdays, the market is also an important social place for local people. People come to the market wearing beautiful clothes, squatting, standing, and chatting together in circles.

In front of a stall selling roosters, people buy roosters from time to time and take them home, probably to ask Bimo to perform rituals. A young Bimo from Jinyang told me that he could earn 15 yuan, 150 yuan, or more than 10,000 yuan per practice. At the bridge in Butuo County, I saw a Bimo who had just finished performing a spell on a customer, politely declining the 50 yuan the customer had paid.

("Bimo" dances the long "Heavenly Bodhisattva", beats the sheepskin tambourine, and chants sutras. The background is the sutras written on parchment in Yi characters. Some scholars have found that China The ancient Yi script is the only language still alive among the six ancient scripts in the world, and is an important origin of the world's scripts.)

Bimo is a priest in the traditional religion of the Yi people, and Suni is a wizard in the Yi society. . Suni's status in Yi society is not as good as Bimo's, and his income from religious activities is also lower than Bimo's.

The Yi people believe in nature worship, totem worship, ancestor worship and animism. Bimo is also an intellectual among the Yi people, proficient in Yi characters and scriptures, and is also the inheritor and disseminator of Yi culture. Both men and women can serve as Suni. They do not need to understand scriptures, chant scriptures, or host major sacrificial activities. The main social functions are to perform witchcraft, exorcise ghosts, and cure diseases.

The Yi people still retain many of their cultural traditions, but they have witnessed more changes in the past few decades. In the late 1950s, the Yi ethnic minority areas in Da and Xiaoliangshan in Sichuan and Yunnan completely destroyed the slavery system through democratic reform movements, and the Yi ethnic minority society entered a socialist society "across a thousand years".

(Children on their way to school on the roadside from Zhaojue to Butuo.)

During my visits to Yi areas, I rarely saw people and animals living together. The original adobe houses have been replaced by neat brick buildings covered with indigo steel roofs. In Dimo ??Township, Zhaojue County, villagers are using mulch technology to grow corn. They dug furrows, planted seeds, watered and spread mulch.

Seeing me taking pictures, an old man came over and said in barely distinguishable Mandarin, "Country, scientific development"

In Feitu Village, Butuo County, I visited the home of a Suni. To make dinner, mix the noodles in a basin, cut the steamed buns into pieces with a knife, and put them in a large steamer. The villagers' houses were renovated by the government, with walls covered with whitewash and ceilings raised. Every household has identical cabinets issued by the government. Although each family still has a fire pit, it looks like it has never been burned because there is a special kitchen for cooking. From the yard, you can see the flush toilet in the toilet, and there are satellite dishes and solar water heaters on the roof.

(The Tuojue Livestock Market in Butuo County is famous far and wide, with many traders.)

Three

The tops of the peaks of Daliang Mountain are mostly round and flat, with few There are steep peaks. Yunnan pine, masson pine, spruce, fir and pitch pine grow on the mountains. The fragmented flat land in the mountains is planted with economic trees. On the mountains in the distance are layers of terraces.

At the turn of winter and spring, the morning in Daliang Mountain is filled with thick fog. In the mist, people wearing the traditional cloak "Charwa" of the Yi people working are the most beautiful pictures.

Mahong Village in Meigu County and Guluo Township is located deep in the Daliang Mountains, at an altitude of 2,700 meters. The green valley is shrouded in clouds and mist all year round, and the rolling hillside terraces are dotted with cattle and sheep.

Early in the morning, there were people in twos and threes carrying firewood and radishes. The radishes harvested in autumn are hung on Daliang Mountain's characteristic "radish rack" to dry throughout the winter. During the lean season, they are collected and carried home to feed cows, sheep, and pigs.

(In Mahong Village, Heguluo Township, Meigu County, a man carrying a radish tried to stand up.)

The woman who carried the radish home then unloaded it. Carrot, carrying the firewood stand again, climbed to the mountain behind the village to chop firewood together. On the stone loess mountain road filled with thick fog, men drove cattle and sheep up the mountain, and groups of cattle and sheep passed by. Standing on the top of the mountain, the neighing of cattle and horses came from the thick fog.

On the village road, four children were jumping on their way to school. Since the country launched its poverty alleviation campaign, it has invested heavily in the construction of road network, power grid, and water network base stations, and one-village-one-child education projects. The Liangshan Yi people are getting closer and closer to modern society.

The fields here are all cultivated on the hillside, with small patches next to each other. Under the strong sunshine at noon, a young couple was pushing an electric plow to plow the ground, and their little daughter was playing in the field. When the plow reached the edge of the terraces, the young man pushed the electric plow with almost his body hanging in the air, while the woman pulled hard in front with a rope. On the undulating hillside, I took pictures and was unsteady on my feet. The woman who was working in the terraces above stretched out her hand and pulled me up. That hand is very strong.

(In Mahong Village, Heguluo Township, Meigu County, a young couple pushed an electric plow to plow the ground while their little daughter played in the ground.)

In the Village You can see the slogan with red letters "Green mountains and green waters, peaceful country and safe people". There is a garbage recycling room on the roadside, which is full of garbage. The undulating village roads are equipped with solar street lights. There is a centralized recycling station for glass bottles at the entrance of the village, where recycled bottles are neatly stacked. The lifestyle of the mountain people deep in the Daliang Mountains is undergoing profound changes.

There is a "cliff village" in Zhiermo Township, Zhaojue County. The village is built on the top of a mountain with a vertical height of 800 meters from the ground. For generations, villagers here have relied on climbing vine ladders to connect to the outside of the mountain. . A few years ago, after the villagers' difficulty in traveling was reported in the media, the local government funded the construction of a steel ladder to the top of the mountain, ending the "history" of Yi villagers climbing rattan ladders to go up and down the mountain. Many villagers also relocated to the county seat.

The steel ladder is strong and solid, but the road to the steel ladder is still dangerous. The two steel pipes are slightly tilted inward, making it steep and slippery to climb up. There are several sections of almost 90-degree vertical ladders that require both hands and feet to climb up. I climbed for two hours and was still halfway to the village. On the steel ladder, there was a couple with three children, carrying dozens of kilograms of drinks, food and sundries. They had to take a break after walking for a while. The man was live broadcasting on his mobile phone while walking.

In the past, the complex and steep terrain and traditional social concepts hindered the development here and isolated Daliang Mountain from the outside world.

In today's Yi villages, people have come into contact with many new things and concepts that they have never had before through television and mobile phones, and many dreams have arisen.

(The author is the deputy secretary-general of the China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation. All pictures in this article were taken by the author in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province in March 2021)