Dissertation, Chapter 1

Part 1

Chapter 1. The Context of Lisu Society Before Migration: Historical Yunnan [Last edit: July 2003]

The Problem Regarding Lisu Regional Ethnography
On a trip to Lijiang, in the northwest of Yunnan Province, China, in 1994, I was startled to see that the dance and music of rural Naxi people were remarkably similar to that of the Lisu people I had known in northern Thailand. The tempo was faster, the dance steps more complex, but the basic music and dance were unmistakably alike. Here, Lisu patterns of culture were part and parcel of regional patterns, unlike their position in Thailand as conspicuously different and out-of-place people. That which appeared so odd and exotic in Thailand appeared in place and normal in Lijiang. How could this be? Over a period of 200 years’ and 500 miles’ migration, through several different political regimes, profound economic transformations, and the roughest of territories, there was this marvelous thread of cultural continuity counter to all rational arguments of contingency and situational specificity.
Given the marked relational character of ethnicity in Southeast Asia, how have the “Lisu” remained “Lisu” despite comprehensive changes in the encompassing political and economic systems in which they lived? Despite the contingent nature of social relations, something remained constant in how people lived their lives. One way to discover this is to delineate what remains when other things change and to discover the common thread in that change, for people are not automatons, cogs in the wheel of the world system changing to suit conditions. They have their own structure, a fixed compass point around which they oscillate. However, the structural principles are not of a coherent, integrated whole; rather, there are inherent contradictions within the structure of this society and it is along these fault lines that change is most likely to occur.
Another point is to consider the conditions that led to their current situation, the prior text. The situation of Lisu in northern Thailand provides an excellent landscape for the study of change and continuity in Lisu society given the profound transformations in their economy in the twentieth century. To situate these processes, I wish to explicate a prior text from which Lisu living in Thailand have worked, a text written into Lisu culture from the practices and adaptations to the conditions of those who preceded them, those who taught their children and grandchildren what to do to survive in a constantly shattering and tumultuous world.
Key to understanding this prior text is to understand the power relations of the place from which their forebears came, Yunnan and Burma, where they lived before moving to Thailand. In the end, Lisu peoples’ strategies today come in part from prior structures of inequality from which they have sought escape and redress; they pursued answers to pre-existing problems using the strategies at their disposal.
The Historical Context
The people of western Yunnan lived in a place of great change and tumult. Geographically, it was a place of high sharp mountains inter-cut with rushing rivers, prone to flash floods in the valleys, sudden landslides on the mountain slopes, and earthquakes. On the border with Burma, Yunnan is a region of “formidable” topography with steep slopes. A late nineteenth century traveler wrote that the people of western Yunnan were exposed to all sorts of calamities, especially flood and fire: flash floods left deposits of sand and shingle that covered entire villages and fires that incinerated every house (Baber 1882:52). Yunnan is very complex, a patchwork topography of high mountains, deep gorges and canyons, plains basin lands. The western frontier ranges are the most epic of Yunnan’s mountain ranges, part of a longitudinal system of mountains (Wiens 1967 [1954]:20). It is also a discrete geographical bloc, resistant to Han incursions due to high altitude, rugged terrain, and poor soils (Wiens 1967 [1954]:8). A characteristic of the west is the parallel trend of rivers and mountain ranges. The western gorges are formed by four great rivers: the Nmai Hka and Mali Hka are tributaries of the Irrawaddy; the Nu (Salween); and the Lancang (Mekong). All of these are restricted by the longitudinal ranges and cut southward in unusually deep gorges (Wiens 1967 [1954]:21). These geographical and topological features also united Yunnan with northern mainland Southeast Asia. Geographically and ecologically, this is known as Montane Mainland Southeast Asia or the Upper Mekhong Ecoregion {Van Keer et al. 1998:1}. The westernmost ranges of Yunnan form what the British called the “Triangle” of Upper Burma. Some mountains run southward to become the Shan Plateau of Burma and another branch runs south to become the Burma Range, the longest of the longitudinal ranges separating Burma from Thailand (Wiens 1967 [1954]:20). The weather tends to be dry (Wiens 1967 [1954]:26) and the western slopes are particularly dry and barren due to the prevailing winds (Baber 1882:166-7). A place of particular importance to the discussion of historical Lisu is Kham (K’am) or Eastern Tibet, in Sichuan and the far northwest of Yunnan, a region that was a patchwork of small states (Samuel 1993:41).
Yunnan was a place of battles, rebellions, banditry, and social unrest. In the frontier region of northwest Yunnan, coveted by both Tibet and China, there were several different spheres of authority. As a result, the local population were obligated to a multiplicity of allegiances – Chinese officials, Naxi tusi, indigenous leaders, Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, and rulers from Central Tibet – and were bit by bit being deprived of their land through debt and dependency arising from taxation and tribute required of them (Gros 1996). And yet, it was a region of opportunity. Economically, it was a crossroads of west and east, of Southeast Asia and China. Culturally, Yunnan is not so much peripheral to China as it is central to “a web of linguistically-related villages spanning parts of Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and India“ (Davis 2001:48). Study of overland trade routes between China and its south/southwest neighbors illustrates the continuity of a region that can be called northern mainland Southeast Asia (Sun 2000; see also Giersch 2001). There were many Chinese villages in what is now northeastern Burma, tied into the same trade nexus (Scott & Hardiman 1983). This region’s continuity is supported by its geography (Wiens 1967 [1954]:20-21). It is to some extent coterminous with the YunGui macroregion defined by Skinner but extends further.
Too much of our understanding of the region has been distorted by a sinocentric view that sees lands under native chiefdoms invested or validated by the Chinese court as actual territories of the Chinese empire and that ignores the substantial trade and cultural exchange that occurred between Southeast Asians and Chinese via traders of many cultural groups (Sun 2000:5, 15). The blinders of national boundaries still prevent the kind of interdisciplinary communication necessary to understand the history, society, and economy of these regions in their own terms rather than in presentist nationalist ones. Sun’s dissertation is unusual for the range of materials in different languages it brings together. Work on the history of the region on ethnic minority peoples increasingly illustrates commonalities with northern Southeast Asian patterns of social relations: upland/lowland ritual relations, debt and dependency as an organizing principle, methods and meanings of display of wealth and status (cf. the work of Gros 1996 and Jonsson 1996 to see contrasting discussions of such commonalities). Study of the conditions under which the Lisu of Yunnan moved south is essential to understanding Lisu in Thailand, and to this end we must learn more about the dynamics of their time and place in Yunnan.
The social and political environment in which Lisu people lived and migrated from was one of incertitude and chaotic change. Of particular interest here is the middle Qing, a period when Chinese administration and immigration into the furthest borders of Yunnan achieved a critical mass and began to most profoundly affect the lives of upland non-Han peoples. This is also a period in which opium was introduced as a commodity and cash crop. The first Lisu village in northern Thailand was established in the 1840s. Assuming at least one generation for migration, the period leading up to the 1820s is most likely significant for understanding the forces for Lisu migration. However, migration probably took longer as Lisu in northern Thailand largely came via settlements in Burma. It is more likely that migration into took at least two if not more generations to effect. For this reason, I will discuss conditions in Yunnan starting in the eighteenth century. Migration continued for many decades, with successive groups migrating along the Salween River basin, into northeastern Burma, and finally east into Thailand. A considerable migration of Lisu occurred after World War II as Lisu fled the governmental changes in both China and Burma. Therefore, my survey here will briefly cover the Republican period. But of most significance is the time period for the introduction of opium as a cash crop. I believe that migration could not have occurred without the opium poppy as a cash crop. This topic will be discussed separately from the administrative, demographic, and economic changes that occurred as the upland indigenous peoples of western Yunnan began their migration.

Economic and Political Conditions of Yunnan, Eighteenth to Early Twentieth Centuries
Much of our knowledge of the history of western Yunnan is derived from the chronicles of local rulers and Chinese administrators. These were oriented toward the Chinese state and so ignore the full spectrum of relations between upland peoples such as the Lisu and the states, kingdoms, feudatories, and empires of the lowlands such as the Han Chinese Empire, significant polities such as Dali, Sichuan, Lijiang, and the Tibetan principalities of Kham. Such chronicles similarly tell us nothing of relations among similar upland Tibeto-Burman speakers such as the Yi nor of relations among “black” and “white” versions of a particular ethnolinguistic group. Nor do they adequately discuss trade and economy, essential aspects of these polities. These limitations are further circumscribed by the fact that I must depend on secondary sources as I do not know Chinese. However, the considerable research recently carried out in Yunnan and reported in English are, I think, sufficient for me to paint a general picture of the conditions in Yunnan at the time when Lisu migration southward began. In addition, the accounts of European botanists, geographers, missionaries, and consular officials fill in some of the gaps due to their interests in racial categorization and economic expansion. In this section I will discuss Tibetan power and cultural influence and contrast it to Chinese efforts at extension of their administration; economy and demography of Yunnan; and the period of unrest that marked Yunnan in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Multiple Layers of Allegiance
Western Yunnan was not a region that lacked political institutions or significant outside cultural influences before Chinese domination. It was in many ways a Tibetan region before it was Chinese. People living in the region dealt with multiple layers of political, economic, and cultural influence and dominance – Chinese administration; Tibetan cultural, religious, and economic influence; and the power of local chiefs, sometimes under the aegis of Tibetan or Chinese rulers.
Northwest Yunnan was a site of great political and cultural complexity, but not necessarily because of the ethnic and linguistic heterogeneity that marks Yunnan. Rather, much of this ethnic heterogeneity may, in fact, have been due to the great complexity of influences in the region. The people of western Yunnan were related (whether biologically or culturally) to peoples from neighboring territories, possibly due to contact, possibly due to assimilation to adjoining powers. Movements of people, both forced and voluntary, had occurred for centuries before the twentieth century, due to trade, warfare, and alienation of land. People soaked in the influence of the traders and travelers that had crossed through the southern routes for centuries (Sun 2001). In this great heterogeneity, two powers were important in Yunnan in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These were China and Tibet. Northwest Yunnan became a theater of unceasing contestation between the two (Gros 1996, 2001a). Much research focuses on Han incorporation of Yunnan into the Chinese Empire, but the influence of Tibetan politics and religion were at least as important until the modern period.
Wars between China and Tibet – whether directly or through proxy local chiefs – were significant in the social landscape but the end result was rarely a clear and permanent demarcation of boundaries. Boundaries shifted and intertwined and overlapped. A marker of being in the Tibetan or Chinese sphere of influence might be nothing more than signage in either Sanskrit or Chinese (Baber 1882:154). Different local rulers were under the often nominal suzerainty of different powers: those to the east sent tribute to Chengdu (Sichuan) and Beijing; those to the north and west, and even some to the east, were under the influence of Lhasa, even if hundreds of miles from Tibet; others, because they were on the main trade road, were more under Chinese influence. In all cases, the Chinese military officials and garrisons had little local power and were often unarmed or even imaginary (Teichman 1922:8; Baber 1882:126). The Chinese had to use great tact in dealing with local people, who had very little respect for them (Samuel 1993:69). Loyalties and tributary relationships also shifted over time, and local rulers were not ‘loyal’ to just one court – they reconciled each power as necessary and sometimes declared loyalty to more than one at the same time in order to advance their own interests (cf. Mote 1999:178). Local peoples were embroiled in a web of multiple layers of allegiance – local and village, indigenous rulers from neighboring ethnic groups, Tibetan administration and monasteries, Chinese administration, often through the indigenous chiefs and landlords. In one case, a group of Nu in Weixi Prefecture paid annual tribute to China, via the lama; tribute to a Tibetan official nearby, called alms; free transportation of salt loads for both entities and a rich merchant; and were then forced to buy that salt at an inflated price (Gros 1996, 2001a). The conflicts among masters and the need to conciliate them put local populations in an onerous situation of paying tribute, taxes, and corvee labor to multiple masters. These obligations increasingly led to indebtedness, debt slavery, and the alienation of land. In fact, observers almost universally commented upon slavery in the region in the nineteenth century (Anderson 1871; Baber 1882). Independent groups, as were many of the Lisu in the Salween Valley, may have avoided the worst of debt, dependency, and alienation of land, but they were no less involved in these state relations as tributaries or mercenaries for indigenous chiefs and Chinese military (Gros 1996; Gros 2001b; Rock 1947).
Tibetan Influence
Tibet was immensely influential in western Yunnan and Sichuan for a long period of time, although not in the form of a centralized theocratized state ruling from Lhasa (Samuel 1993:39). It was not so much a homogeneous, unitary Tibetan political influence on the scale of the Chinese empire’s on-going assimilation of territory as much as it was based on the spread of a common social and cultural framework, which Samuel terms Tibetanization. This was rooted in several factors. Yunnan was marked by physically rugged conditions and heterogeneous polities, which worked against the type of centralized state control practiced by the Chinese. A common social framework reinforced by religious, trade, and political alliances furthered Tibetan influence. In western Yunnan there were many peoples who had been Tibetanized or partially-Tibetanized. Thus, Tibetan rulership was more meaningful to local people and presented a competing allegiance to Chinese administration. Nevertheless, power was practiced locally, first and foremost, and local peoples were under multiple spheres of influence in which Tibetan and Chinese authority ebbed and flowed throughout the history for which we have records.
This was a region set off and distinct, especially in relation to Chinese imperial frontier policy. The rugged topography and general inaccessibility throughout the region favored multiple, small autonomous polities, but few with the economic and population resources to arise as an empire itself (Lee 1979:48; Wiens 1967 [1954]:148), except with the growth of trade networks (Samuel 1993:145, 566). Chinese colonization was difficult due to the rugged nature of the land; it was unsuitable for Chinese agricultural methods (Wiens 1967 [1954]:8, 215). Also, the land tenure system was considerably different from the traditional Chinese system of private ownership. Here, land ownership was vested in the hands of native rulers and they did not grant land use rights to Chinese colonists until the late nineteenth century. Without a substantial Han Chinese population, Chinese military and political control in this region was more apparent than real (Lee 1979:49). Chinese control was made all the more difficult by the variety of polities found in western Yunnan. There were numerous Tibetan principalities neighboring Central Tibet. Of these, Kham (K’am) or Eastern Tibet is most important to understanding Tibetan influence on upland groups such as the Lisu.
Kham comprises the basins of the Brahmaputra (Ya-lu-tsang-po), Salween (Nu), Mekong (Lan-tsang), China-sha, and Ya-lung Rivers. The land is deeply furrowed by the canyons of these rivers and their watershed rivers (effluents). It slopes from the highlands in the northwest toward Sichuan in the southeast. It is a land of high elevations, averaging 13,000 feet, but with valleys as low as 8,000 feet. The temperature varies greatly according to the altitudinal, diurnal, and seasonal differences. Sparsely populated, the cultivated areas in Kham were concentrated in a few small basins and plains, such as Nyarong (Lee 1979:41). Kham was occasionally incorporated into the Lhasa regime, and marked by a patchwork of small secular and monastic states and areas with little or no centralized authority (Samuel 1993:41, 69, 543). There were many “Tibetanized” or “partially-Tibetanized” populations, among the latter, including some Lisu populations that had principalities in the extreme south of Kham in Yunnan Province (Samuel 1993:85). The Yunnan sector of the Sino-Tibetan frontier was the meeting ground of many different peoples, including Lisu and Yi (Lolo). The dominant group, however, were Naxi (Lee 1979:46) and Tibetan speaking peoples (Tibetan or Tibetanized) (Samuel 1993).
Although a small proportion of the Lisu population would have been found in southern Kham (in northwest Yunnan), the influence of Tibetan culture would have been significant for Lisu peoples due to their proximity to the southwest of Kham and Tibet. The Lisu people would have, for most of their history, been in far closer contact with Tibetan peoples than with Chinese. The role of Tibetan religion and modes of rulership – that is, patterns or a common conceptual substratum of power – would have been important in Lisu society. While the Lisu population did not become Buddhist, other forms of Tibetan religious expression appear to have been significant, and they had political relations with Tibetan, Tibetanized, and partially-Tibetanized states at different times (see Samuel 1993).
Within Yunnan Province, various Naxi, Yi, and Lisu principalities underwent Tibetanization in the early twentieth century. Most of the populations were not of Tibetan ancestry, although sometimes considered part of Tibet. In Dêqên County, Tibetans were the majority ethnic group, the rest being Lisu with some Naxi, Pumi, and Nu. In Zhongdian County, Tibetans were the largest ethnic group, but with large numbers of Naxi, Lisu, and Yi. In Weixi County, there were mostly Lisu and Naxi with some Tibetans, Bai and Pumi. Lijiang County was mostly Naxi, with substantial numbers of Bai and Lisu (Samuel 1993:85).
Such ethnic identifications cannot be taken too concretely as ethnic identity was notoriously unstable, as is true throughout the region of northern mainland Southeast Asia. Samuel believes that these ethnic groups were adapting various features of Tibetan culture and that, in fact, few of the ‘Tibetan’ populations in these regions were originally ethnically Tibetan. He sees an on-going process of Tibetanization (Samuel 1993:147). Travelers noted that even people who called themselves Tibetan and spoke Tibetan could be variously marked by women’s clothing and personal decoration different from those of Tibet (Kingdon-Ward 1986 [1923]). In short, while Tibetan influence was not homogenous, it was part of common, cohesive structure of northwest Yunnan. Some of the cohesiveness was due to similarity in the social structure, at least among rulers. Territorial chiefs and local nobility observed class endogamy among the aristocratic classes. Marriage alliances were made between the noble families of different autonomous polities. The ruling class, cemented by blood ties and a common culture tended to act as a conservative force in extending and perpetuating the existing social patterns. Dependence on transregional trade also contributed to this common framework. Finally, Tibetan Buddhism created a common cultural framework, a bond that made these peoples very different from the Chinese that sought to control and assimilate them (Lee 1979:48-9).
There was a tendency for non-Tibetan populations to be ‘Tibetanized’ and incorporated into the Tibetan mode of power. One example of this is Mili or Muli. This was a small state in Kham on the borders of Yunnan ruled by an incarnate lama. Tibetans and Yi made up the majority of the population, but other groups included Hmong, Man, Naxi, Bai, and a small number of Lisu (Samuel 1993:81). Other Tibetanized states lay to the south (Samuel 1993:85). Samuel states that in the initial stages of Tibetanization, Tibetan Buddhism or Tibetan-trained lamas would have been adopted along with local shamanic practitioners. This was the case with the Naxi of Lijiang, the people of Mili, and the Tamang of Nepal. Then local languages might have been absorbed by Tibetan dialects. This is a process that would be ten centuries old and an integral part of the Tibetan cultural adaptation (Samuel 1993:84). However, partially-Tibetanized populations such as the Lisu adopted neither lamas nor language. Tibetan influence was more diffuse and subtle. In the early twentieth century, Davies noted a wide range of Tibetan influence in the Sino-Tibetan borderlands. Some groups were completely Tibetan in religion and customs; some had lama-kings and Tibetan religion but not the language; and some were not Buddhists and practiced animal sacrifice. Yet all were classified as “Tibetan” by virtue of the pronounced Tibetan influence (Davies 1909:387). Nor would adoption of lamas have meant that they had the same role in remote societies as in Central Tibetan societies. Often, lamas in the more remote Tibetanized societies were far more concerned with “pragmatic religion” with elements of shamanism than in following the path of Dharma, which justified missionary activity (Samuel 1993:147-8), as well as more independent, non-monastic, and shamanistic practice of Buddhism (Samuel 1993:533-37). Central Tibet was not a state or empire in the Chinese sense; its expansion occurred through religious incorporation and did not always entail total cultural absorption.
The states in this region were a series of small polities with diffuse boundaries. Large settled communities at any given time owed nominal allegiance to one state or another through their local headman and his relationship with a superior lord. Travelers along main roads knew when they were passing through one domain or another. But the more remote areas were not necessarily integrated in any effective way into these states, even when they had a headman who owed clear allegiance to a local state’s ruler (Samuel 1993:82). It is important to remember the historical recentness of well-marked permanent territorial boundaries. The situation is further confused by the variety of leadership patterns, in terms of types of leaders (religious or civil, hereditary or appointed), associations with powerful lamas, and that some states were subordinate within a larger state. There could also be several local rulers of more or less equal status, with jurisdictions over families rather than lands. Finally, the headmen of districts and villages would have been under varying degrees of control from the center, and the degree of control exercised by these various polities over local populations varied greatly (Samuel 1993:83-84).
It is likely that people living in more peripheral areas, such as the Lisu, had a greater degree of autonomy in their associations with these states. When and how they allied themselves with a local polity had to do with the relative strength of each. A new force could shift the balance. For instance, when the French Mission to Tibet arrived in Yunnan in 1854, the French were soon seen as rivals for the Tibetans for allegiance, in terms of both wealth and ritual power. The local population, Nung or Nu (closely related to Lisu) were greatly exploited by their multiple allegiances and resultant debt slavery. To them, the missionaries became a way to escape the burdens of multiple masters (Gros 1996, 2001a).
At points in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Tibetan rulership would have provided a competing and attractive allegiance for people in northwest Yunnan. Chinese administration was ephemeral throughout much of this history and often appeared corrupt to local populations. Observers noted that Lhasa Tibetan-controlled territories were safer and more” judiciously” administered. It was the custom in Tibetan territories, for instance, for local people to provide transport for traveling officials, a type of corvee called ula. Chinese officials and military made use of the ula system, but because of the frequency of military operations, chronic scarcity of funds, and use of the system by Chinese officials and soldiers to transport personal trade items, it was grossly over-used (Teichman 1922: 223-4; Johnston 2001: 137). However, Gros (1996) points out that, earlier, many different entities – lamaseries, Tibetan officials, rich landowners, traders, and Chinese officials – used this system to their personal advantage and even imposed their commodities at a fixed price on their subjects, resulting in an onerous burden on local people in areas where people had to reconcile multiple alliances. Thus, the ‘better administration’ of Tibetan-controlled areas may merely have been the result of reducing the number of obligations incumbent upon the local people at certain times. As we shall see below, the Qing administration at times lowered its revenue demands on new subjects in order to consolidate their hold, but when the power of the Chinese state weakened, corruption again arose (see also Gros 1996 and Lee 1979: 56-7). At any given time, the ‘stateless’ hill populations would have benefitted from playing these competing forces off against each other, or choosing allegiance to one or the other depending on specific conditions at that point in time.
Nevertheless, the Tibetans often had real political power throughout this region through the process of Buddhist missionization promoted by the Central Tibetan government. To spread Buddhism, they granted land tax- and service-free to a powerful individual providing they built a village and Buddhist temple. In the Tibetan system, peasants were granted tenure rights in exchange for paying taxes and providing services. The government fixed the amount of taxes and the district official collected them. In addition, land administrators appointed by the government, hereditary chiefs, and monasteries could all be granted land with local families becoming their dependents. The governor had his own agents and a monopoly on commercial activities, which he could cede to monasteries or private merchants. In some cases, local people were expelled from their own lands to make room for a temple and Tibetan families who served the temple (Gros 1996). Buddhist temples were part of a complex political and familial network of indigenous chiefs as well, whom Samuel (1993) would refer as at least partially-Tibetanized.
The governments and religious institutions of Central Tibet took a missionary view of the regions surrounding them. Some were Tibetanized; the area of which I am writing would have been only partially-Tibetanized. However, the “partially-Tibetanized fringes” helped to maintain Tibetan Buddhism to retain its missionary orientation. Lamas were thought of as “taming” people, just as they had tamed the wild gods of Tibet. The border regions remained a constant challenge. The penetration of Tibetan Buddhist religious institutions into the border regions was given further impetus by the fact that monasteries and lamas were in constant competition for lay support. The margins provided scope for expansion and the potential acquisition of politically and economically important lay supporters (Samuel 1993: 147-9).
The establishment of numerous Tibetan Buddhist temples by the Naxi indigenous chiefs of Weixi (Kangpu and Yezhi, who were also invested as tusi in the Chinese administrative system) was an example of this process. When the Chinese established Weixi Prefecture in 1729 and appointed local chiefs as rulers, the chiefs built Buddhist temples throughout their sphere of influence. The strong alliances and close familial links between religious and civilian authorities responsible for administration of this territory was based on concept of power far more Tibetan Buddhist than Chinese (Gros 2001a). Ritual and control of mystical forces were important in the display and establishment of power. In one case, the founding monk of a lamasery in the Salween established as a satellite of the temple in Kangpu in 1734 was able to impose himself on the local Nu only through a demonstration of his magical powers. This substratum of a concept of power was also influenced by indigenous ideas of local spirits. When the temple was later annexed to Yezhi, due to a rivalry with Chinese authorities by Kangpu, a Yezhi relative was appointed head of the monastery. He fell ill, and divination determined that a local spirit had become angry when he had a nearby forest cut down. Animal sacrifices were made to this local spirit to appease it (Gros 2001a). Gros argues that rituals and the role played by intermediaries with local divinities were important in the process of building power and political centralization. This case and that of the French missionaries who established themselves as a local power demonstrates the connections among indigenous shamans and the necessity of conciliating local divinities, the territorial spirits. Ritual acts of the authority of the land and connection with local power was a conceptual substratum throughout the region (Gros 1996).
Further, we can look at the kind of relationship that existed between the rulers of chiefdoms or small states (in the lowlands) and peripheral peoples. The ruler of Yezhi held an annual new year feast which his more peripheral subjects, in this case Lisu and Lutzu (Nu), were obliged to attend. They were to bring him a present and he was to feast them for three days. Every three years, he distributed a piece of beef and some pennies and they brought him two pounds of mushrooms (an item gathered in forested areas) (Gros 1996, quoting (Desgodins 1872). This is similar to a ritual described for Lao kings of Luang Prabang and upland peoples (Archaimbault 1973). The distribution of beef implies the sacrifice of cattle, an expression of local conceptions of prestige and wealth common in much of this region both materially and ritually, as a sacrifice can be performed on behalf of the people for their well being by a chief who serves as intermediary with the local spirits. By such feasts, the chief’s prestige, status, and political power were confirmed. His prestige was enhanced as he displayed his generosity, both materially and ritually. Gros argues that such a ritual role underlies political centralization (1996). Other regional similarities in ritual have been noted by Chao, suggesting that a single group’s distinctive religious tradition may actually be a form of religious practice common to an entire region (Chao 1995).
Lisu were specifically mentioned as an animist or wild element to be counteracted and converted, if possible (Gros 1996, Gros 2001a). Samuel refers to them as partially-Tibetanized. However, this must have been true of only some Lisu populations in certain areas. I have found no reference whatsoever to any Buddhist Lisu populations. It may be that, as in lower Southeast Asia, conversion to a state religion also entailed change of ethnic identity. Samuel states that religious incorporation was the initial stage and that cultural absorption did not always follow (1993: 147). Nevertheless, adoption of Buddhism does not appear to be the case for the Lisu. Highland peoples such as the Lisu were exposed to Buddhism but adopted it to a limited degree as part of a largely non-Buddhist religious system, if at all (Samuel 1993: 554). It may have been that local leaders took on the role of chiefs and practiced, at least nominally, Tibetan forms of worship. Lisu social organization shows many commonalities with greater Tibetan social structure; Lisu is a Tibeto-Burman language, thus sharing that conceptual substratum; certainly the Lisu were a part of the ritual and political language of power found throughout this region; it is possible that Lisu shamanic practices were related to pre-Buddhist Tibetan practices. We must, I think, look to these elements for Tibetan influence on earlier Lisu societies, and keep in mind that Tibetan polities were an important part of the social and political landscape for all upland, non-state peoples of the time. Clearly the Lisu were part of a Tibetan sphere of influence as much or more than a Chinese one until recent history.
It is unclear whether this influence came directly from Tibetan polities or from Tibetanized polities such as those of the Naxi – or perhaps both in different areas. It is not surprising that upland tribal peoples did not convert to Tibetan Buddhism. There was little reason for the state-less, de-centralized (to use Samuel’s terminology) and relatively autonomous societies of the mountains of western Yunnan to accept a religion that was part and parcel of a centralized state, specifically to adopt the clerical, textual side of Tibetan Buddhism (Samuel 1993: 561-2). Chiefs in such society were more in the style of ‘big men,’ who gained power and authority through control of local spirits, people, livestock, land, and labor. What would have been the attraction of Tibetan Buddhism? Here, the shamanic element of Tibetan Buddhism would have been essential. Shamanic Buddhism comes out of and is congruent with de-centralized state-less societies. If the essence of shamanism is the manipulation and harmonizing of people’s souls, power, and a myriad of local spirits, deities and ancestors (as Samuel holds), then Tantric Buddhism could have been adopted in these societies because it was believed to provide a superior set of techniques for exercising those powers (Samuel 1993:562-64). This religious complex was associated with a rich and powerful set of states with access to trade, the ability to suppress other groups with its armies, and with demonstrable ritual power. A chief manipulating these forces with these techniques allied himself, then, with even more powerful forces than his local ones. Buddhist lamas and monasteries could have become important in a chief’s alliances to maintain and extend power – through contacts in the real and spiritual worlds – and through providing a common language of ritual and power with neighboring subjects and allies (cf. Gros 1996 and Leach 1964). Although partially-Tibetanized societies apparently adopted the shamanic elements of Tibetan Buddhism, in keeping with existing cultural patterns, its association with a more formal, institutionalized element of religion could also have facilitated the creation of an institutionalized leadership, potentially less dependent on ‘charisma’ and constant demonstration of power through activities such as feasting, which were inherently unstable bases of power. They could seek a more permanent chieftainship and a less ephemeral ‘big manship’ (although Gros’s work hints that even in established states, princes needed to demonstrate power, and we know this to have been true in the galactic polities of the rest of Southeast Asia). Finally, we can not forget the agency of highland peoples, consciously choosing to at least superficially adopt Buddhism and thereby demonstrate their ‘civilized’ status in order to gain benefits, access to trade, validation of political position, a more extensive network of allies, and protection against violence in a strife-torn and unstable region (much, as I will discuss below, indigenous rulers were at times willing to submit to the Chinese state). Tibetan Buddhism was well-suited to such needs, due to its many diverse modes of religious thought and practice – a quality further enhanced by the contributions to the religion by Tibetanized peoples of Eastern Tibet – and to the similar substratum of shamanism and concepts of power (Samuel 1993: 560-61).

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