The Nuosu Book of Origins a Creation Epic from Southwest China

Studies on Ethnic Groups in China Stevan Harrell, Editor The Nuosu Book of Origins A Creation Epic from Southwest China Translated by Mark Bender and Aku Wuwu from a transcription by Jjivot Zopqu University of Washington Press Seattle The Nuosu Book of Origins was published with the assistance of a grant from the Naomi B. Pascal Editor’s Endowment, supported through the generosity of Nancy Alvord, Dorothy and David Anthony, Janet and John Creighton, Patti Knowles, Katherine and Douglass Raff, Mary McLellan Williams, and other donors. Additional support was provided by the College of Arts and Sciences at The Ohio State University. Copyright © 2019 by the University of Washington Press Printed and bound in the United States of Amer i ca Composed in Warnock Pro, typeface designed by Robert Slimbach 23 22 21 20 19 5 4 3 2 1 The digital edition of this book may be downloaded and shared under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 international license (CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0). To use this book, or parts of this book, in any way not covered by the license, please contact University of Washington Press. university of washington press www. washington . edu / uwpress cover design: Tom Eykemans cover illustration: Shuonyie Volie, by Qubi Shuomo. Courtesy of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Washington. All photo graphs are by Mark Bender unless other wise noted. Map by Ben Pease, Pease Press Cartography Standard Yi romanization of The Book of Origins full text available at https://doi.org/10.6069/9780295745701.s01 library of congress cataloging- in- publication data on file lc record available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2018047480 isbn 978-0-295-74568-8 (hardcover) isbn 978-0-295-74569-5 (paperback) isbn 978-0-295-74570-1 (ebook) The paper used in this publication is acid free and meets the minimum require- ments of American National Standard for Information Sciences— Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48–1984.∞ Contents Foreword by Stevan Harrell vii Preface xi Pronunciation Guide and Conventions xix Map of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture xxi Introduction xxiii The Book of Origins 1. Genealogy of Sky / Momu cy 3 2. Genealogy of Earth / Mudde cy 4 3. Transformation of Sky and Earth / Momu zzyqo cy 5 4. Genealogy of Lightning / Murzyr cy 7 5. Separation of Sky and Earth / Muvu mudie po 9 6. Great Bimo / Awo Shubu 15 7. Genealogy of Spirit Monkey / Anyu Ddussy cy 18 8. Zhyge Alu / Zhyge Alu 21 9. Shooting Down Suns and Moons / Gge nbie hle nbie 26 10. Calling Out Single Sun and Single Moon / Gge di hle di gu 29 11. Twelve Branches of Snow / Vonre sse cinyi 31 12. Genealogy of Shyly Wote / Shyly Wote ssy 40 13. Ozzu (Tibetan) Lineages / Ozzu cy 62 14. Ozzu (Tibetan) Migrations / Ozzu muche 63 15. Hxiemga (Han) People’s Lineage / Hxiemga cy 64 16. Hxiemga (Han) People’s Migrations / Hxiemga muche 65 17. Foreigners’ Lineage / Yiery cy 67 18. Migrations of Foreigners / Yiery muche 68 19. Nuosu Lineages / Nuosu cy 69 20. Emperor Vomu and Ni and Vi Genealogies / Vomu Ni Vi cy 71 21. Genealogy of Ahuo / Ahuo cy 74 22. Migration of Ahuo / Ahuo muche 75 23. Genealogy of Nzy Clan / Nzyzzur pu 76 24. Highpoints of Migrations of Gguho / Gguho cy bo 86 25. Migrations of Qonie / Qonie cy bo 88 26. Changes in Hxuo Villages / Hxuoqo hxeqo 90 27. Genealogy of Gguho / Gguho cy 95 28. Migrations of Nine Sons of Gguho Durzhy Ddiwo / Kurdie Gguho Durzhy Ddiwo sse ggu cy 98 29. Genealogy of Qoni / Qoni cy 114 Appendix: The Book of Origins Contents with Tone Indicators 127 Glossary 129 Notes 131 References 151 Index 159 Foreword Stevan Harrell The Book of Origins (Hnewo teyy) is the story the Nuosu Yi people of Liang- shan in southwestern Sichuan tell themselves about how they got where they are and how they fit in—to the cosmos, the spirit world, the natu ral world, and the social world. The book exists in many versions, all of them written in the Nuosu syllabic script, mostly in five- syllable lines. People recite parts or all of it on impor tant ceremonial occasions. Translating something like The Book of Origins is really difficult. The -lan guage itself is both poetic and archaic; a native speaker of Nuosu reading the text or listening to a recitation would understand it about as well as an American high- school student would understand The Canterbury Tales minus CliffsNotes. A translator must deal with a lot of obscure terms, puz- zling ellipses, unfamiliar names for people and places, and obtuse allusions. It is the sort of text where you pretty much have to know what it means already if you hope to understand it. And then, of course, you have to put it into the target language in a way that readers can understand. Often no one person is capable of doing all this. Fortunately, The Book of Origins has found a team of translators and interpreters worthy of this challenge. Mark Bender has been translating, pre- senting, and analyzing folklore, particularly ritual texts and origin stories, of vari ous peoples of southwest China for many years, and his most intense specialty has been the folklore of the Nuosu. Through his interest in Nuosu folklore he has become a close friend and collaborator of Aku Wuwu (Luo Qingchun), who is both a professor of Yi studies in Chengdu and one of the best- known poets among the Nuosu—one of the few Nuosu poets who writes in both Nuosu and Chinese languages. Nuosu Yi children learn some vii of his poems by heart in school. Mark and Aku have previously worked together to produce written and audio versions of Aku’s poetry. In approaching The Book of Origins, this team needed to find the right version of the text to translate, as well as the right expert to explain some of the more obscure passages. They found both in Jjivot Zopqu, a Nuosu tradi- tional mediator who has also served as a local government official. Jjivot had compiled and transcribed a relatively complete version of The Book of Ori- gins, written in a notebook with Mao on the cover. Hours of consulting with Jjivot and listening to recitations of the text gave Aku and Bender the additional understanding they needed to begin their translation, which we are proud to pres ent here, along with Bender’s extensive introduction and analy sis. What a rich text it is! Its story begins as the world begins, continues through several destructions and re- creations of the natu ral and social order, explains the origins of our current world, and ends with stories of the migrations and genealogies of today’s widespread Nuosu clans. The story involves not just gods, spirits, and humans but also animals, plants, and landscapes, including all of them in a web of relationship that comprises the nature of the world the Nuosu and their ancestors have lived in for two millennia or longer. Through the story and through Bender’s detailed and authoritative introduction, we learn of an integrated cosmos, a “pluriverse” where gods and mortals, animals and plants, parents and children are all part of a single, interconnected order. Humans are special, but only a little— they share a common origin and genealogy with gods and spirits, on the one hand, and with animals and plants on the other. To be human is to be part of a complex web of social relationships, but also of an equally complex web of natural or ecological relationships. To relate to other humans is also to relate to other beings and to landscapes and the creatures that inhabit them. This cos- mic order is the basis for the ethical order as well, for the proper and improper ways to interact with fellow inhabitants of this cosmos. Nuosu lit er a ture and folklore, including The Book of Origins, realize that this order is not perfect. People need to make a living, and they alter the envi- ronment in doing so; sometimes clans or ethnic groups feel the need to fight with each other; sins and offenses have their consequences. The Nuosu themselves are progressively integrating into the Chinese national po liti cal and environmental order. But in the ever- advancing Anthropocene, we, as inheritors of a very differ ent idea about humans and the natu ral world, need to contemplate something: How would we deal with environmental prob- lems such as biodiversity loss, water shortages, and the biggest of all— climate viii Foreword change—if we recognized our relationships to the earth and its other deni- zens as genealogical and reciprocal rather than just utilitarian? In reading The Book of Origins, we not only learn of a rich cultural and literary tradi- tion that is unfamiliar to most of us, but we also open our eyes to differ ent possibilities for dwelling in this world. Foreword ix Preface On a mild summer day in 2005, Aku Wuwu and I traveled by jeep into a narrow valley in Xide County, in the Liangshan Mountains of southern Sichuan.1 Our mission was to find a folk version ofThe Book of Origins, which relates the origins of the life- forms of earth and sky, including the early human lineages. The epic is key to the ritual life of the Nuosu, the largest subgroup of the Yi ethnic group in southwest China.

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