In many people's minds, when you say "Mosuo" you mean Lugu Lake. In fact, besides the group that lives around the lake, the Mosuo also have a farming culture in the flat plains; and besides the plains, there is another group — about seven to eight thousand people — who live in the Jinsha River valley.
To reach the Mosuo homeland you must cross countless great mountains, high ridges and deep gorges. Travelling those winding roads where peaks turn and paths bend feels like walking through a tunnel in which time turns back — a little mysterious, a little ethereal, full of wonder. This stretch of the Jinsha River was once called in the histories "Moxie River"; it was along the Jinsha River that the Mosuo migrated to the Lugu Lake region.
A Home Built Against the Mountain, Facing the River
Where the vast Jinsha River flows, they built their homes against the mountain and facing the river — adobe flat-roofed houses, log houses, and watchtower-style dwellings — raising children and multiplying. There, the higher the mountain, the deeper the water; that land produces Sichuan pepper and chilli, and so the people too are known for being fierce-tempered and loyal, more of the Kham character, and a little less of the softness of love's affections.
The great rivers there do not look back, because the mountains there are too precipitous — even the hawks must fly around them. The songs there are desolate, the dances there rough. Compared with the Mosuo by Lugu Lake, the Mosuo of the Jinsha River valley are more the children of the great mountains — their life has no lake-and-mountain scenery, only the roaring river and the sheer cliffs.
Taiziguan: Where Kublai Khan Crossed on Sheepskin Rafts
This is the place where Kublai Khan (忽必烈) led his army across the river on inflated sheepskin bags, so it is called "Taiziguan" (太子关, the Prince's Pass).
In the year 1253, Kublai Khan campaigned south against the Dali Kingdom. His great army came down from the northwest and reached the banks of the Jinsha River. Because the river was wide and the current swift, the army could not cross directly, so Kublai ordered his soldiers to make bags from sheepskin (革囊), inflate them and float them on the water, and the soldiers to cross the river holding onto the bags — this is the famous historical episode "crossing the river on sheepskin bags" (革囊渡江).
The History of Yuan, Treatise on Geography, records: "Yongning Prefecture, formerly called Loutou Dian, bordering the eastern marches of Tibet; the place name was Dalan. The Moxie chieftain Ni Yuewu drove out the Tibetans and settled in this di, which was for generations subject to Dali. In the third year of the Xianzong reign, his 31st-generation descendant Hene submitted." The third year of the Xianzong reign is 1253, the very year Kublai campaigned south against Dali. Before this, there had been 31 generations of Mosuo; by the convention of history, counting 25 years to a generation, that is already 775 years of history — and pushing another 775 years back from 1253 brings us roughly to the Western Jin period. So the Mosuo had already lived at Yongning for more than 1,600 years.
Menggu Du: The Ferry of the Mongol Cavalry
This is the ferry of the Mongol cavalry, and to this day it is called "Menggu Du" (蒙古渡, the Mongol Ferry).
After Kublai Khan's army crossed the Jinsha River, they rested in the Lijiang area and then continued south, finally destroying the Dali Kingdom. This campaign not only changed the history of Yunnan, but also left a deep mark on Mosuo memory — the two place names Taiziguan and Menggu Du are memorials to that history.
To this day, the Mosuo of the Jinsha River valley still preserve some customs and legends connected to the Mongols. There is a certain boldness and fierceness of a grassland people in their character, and a certain desolation and roughness in their song and dance — perhaps some cultural link to the coming of the Mongol cavalry more than 700 years ago.
A Corner Forgotten by the World
There are still too many legends and stories in that place; it is only a pity that, to this day, it remains forgotten by the world.
Compared with the bustle of Lugu Lake, the Mosuo of the Jinsha River valley live in a quieter, more remote corner. Tourists pour into Lugu Lake to see the "Kingdom of Women" (女儿国), to ride pig-trough boats (猪槽船), to join the bonfire evening parties — but few know that in the gorges of the Jinsha River there is another branch of the Mosuo, living in adobe flat-roofed houses and watchtowers, growing Sichuan pepper and chilli, singing desolate songs, dancing rough dances, leading a life utterly different from that by Lugu Lake.
The Mosuo homeland has its tranquil, tender places, its peaceful hidden places, and its fierce, rushing places. Between those mountains and waters lies a single seed of the matrilineal humanity has lost; it is a lone volume everyone wants to read but cannot fully read; it is a documentary about women that still breathes with life. The mountain there is called the Goddess Mountain, the lake there the Mother Lake, the people there the Mosuo — and the Mosuo of the Jinsha River valley are the most desolate, the most rugged chapter in that documentary.
Related reading: Where did the Mosuo come from: a 1,600-year migration story · Daba and lamas: the two kinds of spiritual practitioners at Lugu Lake