Rock and Lugu Lake: How a Botanist Introduced the "Kingdom of Women" to the World

In April 1928, an Austrian-American set out from Lijiang with more than 20 Naxi attendants, passed through Yongning (the Lugu Lake region) into Muli in Sichuan, pushed deep into the heart of Mount Gongga, and returned to Lijiang. This half-year expedition collected several thousand plant specimens and more than 700 bird specimens, and took 40 of the most expensive colour photographs of the day and 503 black-and-white ones. The man was Joseph Rock (约瑟夫·洛克), the first person to make the Western world look properly at Lugu Lake.

Who Was Rock

Joseph Rock (1884–1962) reached southwest China in 1922 and made Lijiang in Yunnan his base, spending 27 years of his life in China. He worked for three American institutions — the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. National Geographic Society, and the Harvard University Botanical Institute — collecting plant and bird specimens and taking photographs non-stop in the remote mountains of Yunnan, Sichuan, Qinghai and Gansu.

The noted China correspondent Edgar Snow (埃德加·斯诺) wrote of Rock that, on the trail, his attendants were divided into an advance guard and a rear guard, the front party led by the cook, the assistant cook and the male servant who managed the whole camp's provisions. At mealtime a leopard-skin rug was spread on the ground, table and chairs set upon it, a linen cloth laid, with silver cutlery and napkins. He ordered his attendants to carry him by sedan chair into unfamiliar towns to show his status, and many onlookers took him for a foreign prince.

Rock never married and never let himself become entangled in love affairs — that, he felt, might interfere with his work. Besides botany and photography, by chance he became fascinated by Dongba culture, began writing articles for National Geographic, and later produced major works such as the Ancient Naxi Kingdom of Southwest China (two volumes) and a Naxi–English Encyclopedic Dictionary.

During the war against Japan, a Japanese torpedo sank the warship carrying all of Rock's belongings; his life's work went down with it, and the loss left him in such agony that he almost took his own life. Later, pulling himself together, Rock spent his final years in Hawaii, and on his deathbed still murmured the name of Lijiang.

Lugu Lake in 1928

From April to September 1928, Rock travelled from Lijiang via Yongning to Muli, deep into the heart of Mount Gongga, and back to Lijiang. This was his most famous expedition, and it was the first time Lugu Lake was systematically recorded by a Western scholar.

In Yongning, Rock stayed on Xieva E Island (谢瓦俄岛) in Lugu Lake — the place where the Yongning chief administrator A Yunshan (阿云山) received distinguished visitors. A Yunshan was the most influential figure in the Yongning region at the time; he received scholars such as Rock and Li Lincan (李霖灿), and Xieva E Island thus became the cultural centre of Lugu Lake in that era. Rock spent some time on the island and recorded Mosuo (摩梭) life, religion and social structure.

Rock was deeply impressed by Daba (达巴), the native religion of the Mosuo. After witnessing a Daba sacrifice, he wrote: "These religious practitioners, from dawn onwards, mumble to the spirits, and do not finish until sunset. When the rite is done, without exception they collapse drunk and are carried home by their families." Rock assumed the Daba drank continuously during the rite and became intoxicated; in fact the liquor only acts as a bridge — the Daba use it to converse with gods and ghosts; what is drunk is the body, what aches is the soul.

Cosmos Flowers and Lost Horizon

On the fields around Lugu Lake, cosmos flowers (波斯菊) bloom every spring, more brilliant than anywhere else. Locals say cosmos was brought here by Rock in the 1930s. There is also an unverified folk belief: wherever cosmos grows, Rock once stopped; and wherever Rock went, cosmos now grows — perhaps a kind of tribute to that work-obsessed doctor.

Many of Rock's photographs and his reports on the Tibetan borderlands also inspired a British writer. James Hilton (詹姆斯·希尔顿) read Rock's articles and photographs in National Geographic and, from imagination alone, wrote a sensational novel, Lost Horizon — and the word "Shangri-La" spread around the world. Though the Shangri-La of the novel is not specifically Lugu Lake, Rock's depictions of western China, especially his records of Yongning, Muli and Mount Gongga, were one of Hilton's most important sources of inspiration.

Contemporaries: Li Lincan and Peter Goullart

Rock was not the only scholar bound up with Lugu Lake.

While studying at the Southwest Associated University, Li Lincan (李霖灿) came by chance into contact with Naxi Dongba script and resolutely stayed on in Lijiang to study it. As his research deepened, he had to trace on foot the migration route of the Naxi people, which led him all the way to Lugu Lake. He was also a man of many talents — a scholar and an outstanding painter alike. After travelling Lugu Lake he wrote the prose work Painting the Exquisite Lugu for You, describing in poetic language the "three wonders of Lugu Lake": the boat on the water (the pig-trough boat, 猪槽船), the people in the boat (Mosuo girls), and the song on the water (Mosuo folk song).

There was another contemporary of Rock and Li Lincan, a man who lived mysteriously in seclusion in Lijiang — Peter Goullart (顾彼得). This gentleman from Russia ran the Indusco co-operative movement in Lijiang while, by the Square Street, drinking wine and chatting with the local aunties; years later he wrote Forgotten Kingdom. He never visited Lugu Lake, but something about the Mosuo people who came from Yongning for the horse fairs caught his eye, and his book contains a fascinating passage — he calls the Mosuo "Lüxi", and records their appearance, their dress, and their freedom in marriage.

Rock's Footsteps Today

Nearly a century has passed. On Xieva E Island, where Rock once stayed, everything of that time was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution; the somewhat ostentatious, gilded buildings on the island today were only put up in 2001, supposedly for tourists. Yongning's Zhami Monastery (扎美寺) still stands — the place Rock often visited. The cosmos around Lugu Lake still blooms every spring, though few know these flowers may be connected to an Austrian who passed by a hundred years ago.

As he left Lugu Lake, Rock wrote a farewell: "Lugu Lake remains as beautiful as ever, but now that my old friend A Yunshan is gone, I cannot bring myself to stay here any longer; with lingering regret I must bid Lugu Lake farewell…" A scholar who left his best 27 years in southwest China also left his deepest regret at Lugu Lake.