If Lugu Lake is the face of the Mosuo (摩梭), then Yongning (永宁) is their heart.
Escape the noise of Daluoshui village and head inland, into the Mosuo heartland — Yongning. Quietness and simplicity still survive here. The Kaiji River flows clear through the plain, nourishing the whole valley before slipping away, while Mount Gemu lies quietly along its edge. Every household builds against the hillside, leaving the fertile farmland of the plain untouched. Here the matrilineal community endures: people rise with the sun and rest with the dusk, their homes full of kinship and calm. There is no friction, no conflict, and still that unhurried look of people who do not fear being forgotten by the world — none of the haste of those scrambling to catch the last train.
A Homeland of 1,600 Years
Since this is the heartland, it is worth working out just how long the Mosuo have lived here.
We can find a record in the Geography Treatise of the History of the Yuan Dynasty: "Yongning Prefecture, formerly called Loudandian, bordering the eastern frontier of Tibet; the place name was Dalan. Niyuewu, chief of the Moxie barbarians, drove out the Tibetans and settled in this land, which for generations belonged to Dali. In the third year of Xianzong, his 31st-generation descendant Hezi submitted to the court."
Kublai Khan's southern campaign against the Dali Kingdom took place in 1253 AD. Before that date there had already been 31 generations of Mosuo; by the usual convention of 25 years per generation, that is roughly 775 years. Pushing 775 years back from 1253 lands us around the Western Jin era — so the Mosuo have lived in Yongning for more than 1,600 years.
Tracing the written sources, clues to where the Mosuo came from are not hard to find. In the 4th century BC the state of Qin grew powerful and forced the Qiang people southward. Qiang tribes moved down the western Sichuan corridor; some entered the land south of the Dadu River and north of the Jinsha River, and the histories called these people the "yak Qiang" (maoniu and yuexi Qiang). At the end of the Han dynasty a branch called "Moxie" appeared among the yak Qiang. The Records of the Huayang Kingdom, in its "Shu Records," notes that within Dingzuo County of Yuexi Commandery there were "Moshan barbarians." Dingzuo is today's Yanyuan — meaning that Moshan people already lived there as far back as the Han dynasty.
It follows that the Mosuo originated in the Hehuang region of Qinghai, later moved to the Garze area of Sichuan, then migrated south through the gorges into the Liangshan prefecture and northwest Yunnan, and finally settled on this Yongning plain — where they have lived for more than 1,600 years.
The Three Homelands of the Mosuo
Many people's image of the Mosuo is simply Lugu Lake. In fact the Mosuo homeland takes three forms:
The first is lakeside settlement — Daluoshui, Lige Island, Langfang and other villages around Lugu Lake, whose people live by fishing and tourism. These are the Mosuo visitors know best.
The second is the farming culture of the plain — the Yongning plain itself, with its fertile, easily worked soil. Here the Mosuo grow rice, maize and potatoes and raise cattle, horses and pigs, living a self-sufficient agrarian life. Yongning is the Mosuo heartland and the place where Mosuo culture is best preserved.
The third is the Jinsha River valley. Some seven or eight thousand people live along the Jinsha, building earthen flat-roofed houses, log houses and fortified dwellings against the mountain and facing the river, planting Sichuan pepper and chilli. They are known for a fierce, loyal temperament, much like the Khampa. There the great river never looks back, the songs are desolate, the dances rough and bold — utterly different from the Mosuo beside Lugu Lake.
Three homelands, three ways of life, three cultural temperaments — yet they are all Mosuo. They all follow Daba religion and Tibetan Buddhism, they all practise the matrilineal family and Walking Marriage, they all revere Mount Gemu as the goddess mountain and Lugu Lake as the mother lake.
Zhami Monastery: The Tibetan Buddhist Centre of Yongning
Yongning is home to a famous Tibetan Buddhist monastery, Zhami Monastery (扎美寺), the largest Gelugpa (Yellow Hat) monastery in the Mosuo region. Founded in the Ming dynasty, it was the family temple of the Yongning chieftains. It holds an important place in Mosuo religious life: every year, at the major festivals, nearby worshippers come to Zhami to pray; and at Mosuo weddings, funerals and other rites, lamas from Zhami are often invited to chant and perform rites for the dead.
Since Tibetan Buddhism entered the Mosuo region it has coexisted for centuries with the indigenous Daba religion. The Daba see the soul off back to the ancestral land; the lamas perform the salvation rite for the deceased. The two beliefs neither conflict nor compete — an interesting phenomenon in the history of world religions.
That Look of People Unworried by Being Forgotten
The Mosuo of Yongning have a look about them — unconcerned that the world might forget them. They do not envy the bustle of Daluoshui or the prosperity of Lige Island. Quietly they farm, tend cattle, sing and dance on the plain, living much as they did more than a thousand years ago.
The Mosuo homeland has its quiet and gentle faces, its sheltered and peaceful ones, and its fierce and rushing ones. Between these mountains and waters survives a single seed of the matrilineal age that humankind has lost elsewhere; a rare volume everyone wants to read yet cannot fully decipher; a living documentary about women that still breathes. There the mountain is the goddess mountain, the lake the mother lake, and the people the Mosuo — and Yongning is the root of it all.
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 · The Mosuo of the Jinsha River Valley: Taiziguan, the Mongol Ferry and the Legend of Kublai Khan