Mosuo - WikiHQ

thumb|right|Mosuo girl weaver in Old town Lijiang

thumb|Clothes of religious ceremonies of Moso, photo taken at Moso's Folk museum.

The Mosuo (; also spelled Moso, Mosso or Musuo) or Na, often incorrectly referred to as the Naxi,

Introduction

The Mosuo are often referred to as China's "last matrilineal society". The Mosuo themselves may also often use the description matriarchal, which they believe increases interest in their culture and thus attracts tourism. However, the terms matrilineal and matriarchal do not reflect the full complexity of their social organization. In fact, it is not easy to categorize Mosuo culture within traditional anthropological categories. They have aspects of a matriarchal culture: women are often the head of the house, inheritance is through the female line, and women make business decisions. However, unlike a matriarchy, the political power tends to be in the hands of men. However, according to an article by NPR, there was once a time when the political leaders of Mosuo villages were in fact women. The anthropologist Peggy Reeves Sanday has argued that the Mosuo should be considered a matriarchy. Further, scholars have argued that while matrilineal arrangements are the normative pattern, domestic arrangements still vary geographically and by family circumstance.

Lifestyle

Society

The core structure of Mosuo society is a corporate house group of about twenty people called the Awo, as the Mosuo are a matrilineal house society. Buildings, lands and livestock are owned collectively by the house and Musuo customs are largely made in order to maintain it, not for individual initiative. When an Awo grows too large, it is split into multiple awo, which stay a part of the larger matriline or Sissi. It is rare, but Awo sometimes adopt new members from other houses, often due to outside pressure or a house group being at risk.

Local economies tend to be gift or barter-based. However, more interaction with the outside world has led people to use cash more often. Average incomes are low (US$150–200 per year), causing financial issues when cash is needed for activities such as education or travel. Electricity has been introduced in most Mosuo communities, but some villages still lack electric power. The Mosuo nobility practiced a "parallel line of descent" that encouraged cohabitation, usually within the nobility, in which the father passed his social status to his sons, while the women passed their status to their daughters. Thus, if a Mosuo commoner female married a male serf, her daughter would be another commoner, while her son would have serf status. As Shih argues, marriage, as different from tisese, was introduced into Mosuo society through contact with other ethnic groups during the Yuan and Qing empire-building process.

Adoption

If there are no offspring of one sex, it is common for a child from another family to join an adoptive Awo. Such a child might come from a large family, or one too small to continue. Children raised in this sense are full members of their adoptive household. They are treated as equal family members; in some instances, adopted females become the matriarchs of their adoptive families. In long term marriages the wife and husband refer to each other as Chumi and Haechube.

Husbands in walking marriages have a much less involved role than wives. The husbands in these relationships are generally the figures who are in charge of all religious and political decisions for the family. Regarding the family responsibilities, the father or husband in the family does not have nearly as many responsibilities regarding the family as the wife does. In fact, the male relatives of the mother's side of the family, such as uncles and cousins, are generally the "father figure" to the husband's children.

After coming of age, Mosuo women can get their own private bedroom, called a "flowering room"; and, once past puberty, can begin to invite partners for "walking marriages".

Hearth

The Mosuo describe the hearth as the heart of the Awo.

Daba

Daba is the religion of Na people It holds most of the Na's culture and history. They worship a variety of animistic spirits including various persons of the natural world, their ancestors and the worship of a mother goddess. Daba also refers to the religious leaders of the Na. Their primary tasks are to be literate priests and shamans for the Na people. They perform exorcisms, bless families and assist deceased spirits. In the past, they cultivated oats, buckwheat, and flax exclusively. This changed under Han influence at the end of the nineteenth century. Since then, these farmers have also cultivated, among other things, corn, sunflowers, soybeans, potatoes and other vegetables such as pumpkins and beans. Potatoes were their main staple for a while until the mid-twentieth century when they began growing rice, which today makes up more than half of annual production.

Mosuo also keep a variety of livestock. Since the early twentieth century they have raised buffalo, cows, horses, and goats which originated from Han and Tibetan regions. However, their preferred stock is pigs. Pork plays several important roles in Mosuo society. It is fed to guests, is the obligatory offering at funerals, and used as payment or reimbursement. Hua (2001) insists that it is "a kind of currency and... a symbol of wealth".

Once a year, regions of Mosuo males gather for a livestock fair. They travel for miles on buses, horses, or foot to attend. The name "Narua" is used in the Summer Institute of Linguistics' inventory of languages, Ethnologue. Narua A collection of audio recordings is available online for the dialects of Yongning, Lataddi, Qiansuo, and Lijiazui, and a trilingual dictionary has also been posted online. Two book-length descriptions of the language are available, as well as several research articles.

Yongning Na, which is spoken in Yongning township, Lijiang municipality, Yunnan, China, has been documented by Jacques and Michaud (2011).

Youmi Script

thumb|right|A chart of ancient Mosuo symbols (and meanings written in Chinese) found at the Mosuo Cultural Museum, Lugu Lake

Despite claims to the Mosuo being a solely oral society the Mosuo used to have a hieroglyphic script that was written on animal hides although now only 32 characters and an oral memory remain. Their script is understudied compared to the related Dongba script of their neighbors. However the Mosuo community of Youmi, a village of both Nashi and Mosuo, has lead to the discovery of over 400 new characters and over 300 sacred texts belonging to the Mosuo people. by Sunny Bergman

The Mosuo Sisters (2012, 80 min.). A tale of two sisters living in the shadow of two Chinas directed by Marlo Poras.
"The Land Where Women Rule: Inside China's Last Matriarchy." Broadly staff. 2016. Broadly. October. 2016.

Bibliography

Dashi, Latami (editor). 摩梭社会文化研究论文集 (1960–2005)，云南大学出版社，主编：拉他咪达石
"Matriarchal/Matrilineal Culture." Matriarchal/Matrilineal Culture. Lugu Lake Mosuo Cultural Development Association, 2006. Web. 25 Oct. 2016.
Waihong, Choo. The Kingdom of Women: Life, Love and Death in China's Hidden Mountains. I B Tauris, London, 2017, ,
Xu, Duoduo. (2015). A Comparison of the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions Between Dabaism and Dongbaism. Archaeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies, 3, 2: 61-81 (links: 1. ; 2. Archaeoastronomy and Ancient Technologies).
Xu, Duoduo. (2017). From Daba Script to Dongba Script: A Diachronic Exploration of the History of Moso Pictographic Writings. Libellarium: Journal for the Research of Writing, Books, and Cultural Heritage Institutions, X, 1: 1-47 (Links: 1. Libellarium; 2. academia.edu).
Yuan, Lu. "Land of the Walking Marriages." Natural History. Ed. Sam Mitchell. N.p.: n.p., n.d. 57–65. Print.

References

Further media

Archived at Ghostarchive and the :

External links

(via archive.org)
Kingdom of Daughters
5 Successful Societies Run by Women