The cattle-keeping Bai of Yunnan

« previous post | next post »

The province of Yunnan in the far south is home to more ethnic minorities and languages than any other part of China (25 out of 56 recognized groups, 38% of the population).  The Bai are one of the more unusual groups among them.


Bai children—in Yunnan, China

From S. Robert Ramsey:

In the 13th century, Chinggis Khan’s grandson Khubilai led his Mongol armies past misty southern Sichuan and entered what Chinese called Yúnnán—the land “South of the Clouds.” This entire region was geologically a high shelf extending to the southeast off the end of the Himalayas. Ribbing the top of this shelf were rugged mountains cut by narrow river valleys that broadened out into inhabitable lake plateaus. Few Chinese had ever lived there. Instead, the power was a Tai kingdom, where a few elite families ruled over a diverse mixture of peoples.

But Khubilai’s forces were unstoppable. His Mongols quickly overran the Tai capital, and the ruling families fled south into what is present-day Thailand. Khubilai then consolidated his conquests and made the land “South of the Clouds” a province of the Chinese Empire. As a result of this Mongol conquest, Yunnan became a permanent part of China.

The Bai had long been the most important people in that Tai kingdom. Bai farmers formed a large, well-established population that cultivated rice the same way the Han Chinese did, and they produced the wealth that had sustained the region’s economy. And since economic considerations were more important to the Chinese than ethnic ones, these hard-working peasants were allowed to remain on their farms.

The Bai soon became known to the Chinese for something besides rice, though. At the bases of the mountains the Bai have enough space to graze cattle, which they milk in order to make cheese. Many Chinese outside the province consider such milk products disgusting, but among the Chinese of Yunnan, Bai “milk cake” has become a delicacy. Like the Bai children posing in the above photograph, Bai cheese has become a Yunnan tourist attraction.

But who, after all, are the Bai? They are among the oldest inhabitants of Yunnan, but we do not know where they came from. Some think the Bai language has ancient ties to Han Chinese, but that is also an idea far from being proved. For now at least, the origin of these intriguing people remains a mystery.

VHM notes:

Language

The Bai language (Bai: Baip‧ngvp‧zix; simplified Chinese: 白语; traditional Chinese: 白語; pinyin: Báiyǔ) is a language spoken in China, primarily in Yunnan Province, by the Bai people. The language has over a million speakers and is divided into three or four main dialects. Bai syllables are always open, with a rich set of vowels and eight tones. The tones are divided into two groups with modal and non-modal (tense, harsh or breathy) phonation. There is a small amount of traditional literature written with Chinese characters, Bowen (僰文), as well as a number of recent publications printed with a recently standardized system of romanisation using the Latin alphabet.

The origins of Bai have been obscured by intensive Chinese influence of an extended period [VHM:  more than two millennia, with most etyma in the lexicon related to Sinitic]. Different scholars have proposed that it is an early offshoot or sister language of Chinese, part of the Loloish branch or a separate group within the Sino-Tibetan family.

(source; see also "Greater Bai languages")

People and name

The Bai people hold the colour white in high esteem and call themselves "Baipzix" (pɛ˦˨ tsi˧, Baizi, 白子), "Bai'ho" (pɛ˦˨ xo˦, Baihuo, 白伙), "Bai yinl" (pɛ˦˨ ji˨˩, Baini, 白尼) or "Miep jiax". Bai literally means "white" in Chinese. In 1956, the Chinese authorities named them the Bai nationality according to their preference.

Historically, the Bai had also been called Minjia (民家) by the Chinese from the 14th century to 1949.

The origin of the name Bai is not clear, but scholars believe that it has a strong connection to the first state Bai people built in roughly the 3rd century AD. This state, called Baizi Guo (白子國, State of Bai), was not documented in Chinese orthodox history but was frequently mentioned in the oral history of Yunnan Province. It was believed to be built by the first king, Longyouna (龍佑那), who was given the family name "Zhang" (張) by Zhuge Liang, the chancellor of the state of Shu Han (221–263 CE). Zhuge Liang conquered the Dali region at that time and picked up Longyouna and assisted him in building the State of Bai. The State of Bai was located in present-day Midu County, Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province.

(source)

It's curious that, according to Liu Mau-Tsai 劉茂才, a Chinese scholar who studied in Germany, the Tocharian (hereherehere) royal surname at Kucha, Bó 白, also meant "white" (source).

Other names

The name of Kucha in Tocharian B was Kuśi, with adjectival form kuśiññe. The word may be derived from Proto-Indo-European *keuk "shining, white". The Tocharian B word akeññe may have referred to people of Agni, with a derivation meaning "borderers, marchers". One of the Tocharian A texts has ārśi-käntwā as a name for their own language, so that ārśi may have meant "Agnean", though "monk" is also possible.

(source)

Agneans / Arseans (Ārśiññe) / Aspacares (mentioned by Ptolemy based on an Iranian exonym) – in Agni Oasis, (Ārśi may have been the native name) (i.e. Chinese Yanqi; modern Karasahr) (According to Douglas Q. Adams the name Ārśiññe was not the native name for the Agneans as the name Ārśi was not a designation for Tocharian A as has occasionally been supposed or for modern Karasahr Oasis; it meant "ordained beggar monk" as a noun and "Aryan" – Iranian or Indo-Aryan, as an adjective, it was a borrowing from Prakrit through some Iranian language. However, this explanation is contested by Zhivko Voynikov who states that the name Ārśi meant "Bright" or "White", and was the ancient name for modern Karasahr Oasis and was also the basis of a real self ethnonym for the people of this region).

(source)

Since ancient times, the Bai have lived in the mountainous, subtropical region around Dali, Yunnan.  This is not a natural climate for raising cattle, yet the Bai have found a niche for rearing cattle and have become proficient at certain types of dairy production.  The association between humans and cattle in this region goes back to the time of the Dian Kingdom (279 BC-109 BC).  Miniature figures on the lids of bronze vessels created by this culture (whose origins date back to a period earlier than that of the kingdom per se) depict scenes of daily life, war, and other activities, with cattle prominently featured and human beings — many of them wearing Scythian (steppe) clothing and armor mounted on horses (also not native to the region).  For a good account and visual, archeological evidence, see this Wikipedia article and these Google images.

 

Selected readings



17 Comments

  1. KIRINPUTRA said,

    January 18, 2022 @ 8:59 pm

    > The origins of Bai have been obscured by intensive Chinese influence of an extended period

    It seems that language contact blurs the "genetics" way more than most language geneticists care to admit, esp. believers of ethno-national essences….

  2. Victor Mair said,

    January 18, 2022 @ 10:37 pm

    @KIRINPUTRA

    Your comments are most welcome.

    Within the last year or so, there has been a worrisome trend / phenomenon of population geneticists who know next to nothing about languages, especially their historical dimensions and relationships, making sensationalistic claims about the development of language groups. They also ignore or blur over archeological, cultural, and historical evidence, making statistical interpretation of genetic data virtually the sine qua non on which they base their radical, sweeping conclusions. In essence, the population geneticists are currently running away with the show, and they are doing it in some of the world's most prestigious science journals, particularly Nature.

    The tide will soon turn, however, since linguists and archeologists are preparing to refute their astonishing claims. For instance, a group of about a dozen of the world's top specialists in Manchu, Mongolian, Turkic, and other "Altaic" languages are gearing up to rebut the linguistic claims of the geneticists concerning their origins and spread.

    When I find the time, hopefully within a month or two, I will respond to the insupportable conclusions the population geneticists have drawn about the Tarim mummies.

  3. Robert T McQuaid said,

    January 19, 2022 @ 5:06 am

    Are the Bai lactose tolerant?

  4. Philip Taylor said,

    January 19, 2022 @ 5:51 am

    A query arising from the use of the phrase « "Baipzix" (˦˨ tsi˧, Baizi, 白子) ». At standard magnification, I was unable to make out the tone letters, and even at maximum zoom there appeared to be only a single tone letter after . However, copying and pasting the phrase discloses that there are, in fact, two tone letters : "˦" and "˨". On screen, these appear to form a quite distinct ligature, which can best be described as a 60-degree fall from level 4 to level 2 immediately followed (with no separation) by a vertical from level 1 to level 5 (see PNG screen capture).

    Trying to understand how / why "˦" and "˨" ligate to form the glyph described, I consulted Wikipedia on the subject of tone letters, but failed to gain enlightenment. I have no idea whether these two distinct tone letters will also ligate in this comment, but any enlightment offered will be much appreciated.

  5. Philip Taylor said,

    January 19, 2022 @ 5:53 am

    Sorry, the hyperlink from "PNG screen capture" in the above failed to appear as intended — it should have read http://hellenic-institute.uk/screen-captures/tone-letter.png

  6. Pete Tsayolo said,

    January 19, 2022 @ 8:14 am

    @Philip Taylor
    Yes, I think adjacent tone staff characters are supposed to blend into one. Whether (and to what extent) they display as such depends on proper support by whatever font your browser has been instructed (by your browser settings and/or the website) to use here. There are fonts which superficially include tone staffs (so the font can be advertised as covering 100% of IPA), but they won't blend. Just like many fonts poorly support combining diacritical marks.

  7. David Marjanović said,

    January 19, 2022 @ 9:26 am

    It's curious that, according to Liu Mau-Tsai 劉茂才, a Chinese scholar who studied in Germany, the Tocharian (here, here, here) royal surname at Kucha, Bó 白, also meant "white" (source).

    Why is that curious? "White" is also a common surname in Europe, from Portugal to Russia. I think it usually refers to white hair ("Whitehead" is similarly widely distributed, though much less common), but of course white is associated with all sorts of symbolisms in lots of cultures.

    For instance, a group of about a dozen of the world's top specialists in Manchu, Mongolian, Turkic, and other "Altaic" languages are gearing up to rebut the linguistic claims of the geneticists concerning their origins and spread.

    It is quite imprecise to call the authors of that paper "the geneticists". There are geneticists (not the entire discipline, though), archeologists and, yes, a linguist among them. They have found that the expansion of agriculture using one particular species of millet (not the same species as used farther south) matches an expansion of archeological cultures in such a way that it is expected to have brought about the spread of a language family. Whether that is "Altaic" or some subset thereof or something completely different is a separate question, but it's inaccurate to blame "the geneticists" for it. From comparing the "paper" ( = extended abstract), the "supplementary information" ( = paper) and her earlier works, the historical linguist Martine Robbeets is responsible for the conclusion that "Altaic" (or as she prefers "Transeurasian") is the language family that spread in this genetic and cultural expansion.

    When I find the time, hopefully within a month or two, I will respond to the insupportable conclusions the population geneticists have drawn about the Tarim mummies.

    That paper did not say anything, as far as I remember, about the language or culture of those people. It found that they're descended from locals without admixture from people buried by the Afanasievo culture – that's it.

    Are the Bai lactose tolerant?

    Not that I know of. That may be exactly why they make cheese and don't, apparently, drink the milk straight. There's almost no lactose left in hard cheese, and in less fermented milk products there's little enough that certain gut bacteria can deal with it – that's how the Mongolians do it: they're lactose-intolerant and have been living off a sort of cottage cheese to a great extent for millennia.

  8. Victor Mair said,

    January 19, 2022 @ 11:03 am

    @David Marjanović

    Why is that curious?

    Curious enough to make one wonder why the Tocharian royalty styled themselves that way. And, in the context of this post, why the Bai call themselves that way.

    the historical linguist Martine Robbeets is responsible for the conclusion that "Altaic" (or as she prefers "Transeurasian") is the language family that spread in this genetic and cultural expansion.

    Since the lead author is Martine Robbeets, that's a huge problem.

    That paper did not say anything, as far as I remember, about the language or culture of those people. It found that they're descended from locals without admixture from people buried by the Afanasievo culture – that's it.

    No, that's not it. Their paper has huge implications for the language and culture of the Tarim mummies. And their fundamental conclusion about the lack of admixture is wrong, not least because it directly contradicts their own earlier work, which I was involved with.

  9. J.W. Brewer said,

    January 19, 2022 @ 12:16 pm

    Wikipedia has articles (in English) on two different sorts of cheese traditionally made by the Bai, and I am modestly intrigued to see that neither one's Mandarin name includes the lào 酪 "cheese" morpheme that was recently mentioned in another thread. Rather, they both use the 乳 (rǔ) morpheme, whose core meaning I take to be just "milk."

    乳饼 (rubing in hanyu pinyin, made from goats' milk) is reportedly "youdbap" in Bai, while 乳扇 (rushan, made from cows' milk) is nvxseiz or yenx seinp in Bai.

  10. butcher pete said,

    January 19, 2022 @ 2:07 pm

    Might the term "white" and its association with the Bai and Tocharians have something to do with the location of these tribes or groups? I understand that associating colors with cardinal directions is pretty common among the Slavic and Turkic peoples and others.

  11. Jonathan Smith said,

    January 19, 2022 @ 5:25 pm

    OK I assumed reference was to Zhang et. al. (2021) (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04052-7), which seems the more significant piece? Re: Robbeets et. al. (2021), which is concerned with language, I would just say it's problematic simply to refer to the "early dispersal of speakers of Transeurasian languages" as if that's definitely a Thing… but FWIW such begging-of-the-question is a standard piece of the polemicist arsenal.

    Authors of Zhang are also not simply "geneticists" and deal cautiously I thought with the question of the relevance of genetic observations to language and culture… so it is doubtful there are necessarily "huge implications" here… one could of course object to some popular uptake and/or simplified chauvinistic recastings ("East Asia / China is homegrown after all!"), but that's different.

  12. Chris Button said,

    January 19, 2022 @ 6:18 pm

    Curious enough to make one wonder why the Tocharian royalty styled themselves that way

    Although the color term "white" might not say much in and of itself (a good example of color terminology might be how the Karen people may be styled as white, black or red), I agree that the adoption here raises an interesting question.

  13. Victor Mair said,

    January 20, 2022 @ 6:08 am

    As I pointed out in my previous comment about the Zhang et. al. (2021) paper, "their fundamental conclusion about the lack of admixture is wrong, not least because it directly contradicts their own earlier work, which I was involved with." I will give the details in my forthcoming rebuttal.

  14. Chris Button said,

    January 20, 2022 @ 6:26 am

    The genetic questions remind me of this post:

    https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=49741

  15. Philip Taylor said,

    January 20, 2022 @ 6:39 am

    "I think adjacent tone staff characters are supposed to blend into one" — Thank you, Pete.

  16. KIRINPUTRA said,

    January 22, 2022 @ 1:35 pm

    Thanks, Victor. Looking forward.

  17. Victor Mair said,

    January 24, 2022 @ 4:08 pm

    Jingqi Fu and Zhao Min with Xu Lin and Duan Ling, Chinese Ethnic Minority Oral Traditions: A Recovered Text of Bai Folk Songs in a Sinoxenic Script (Cambria Press).

RSS feed for comments on this post