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????The Va ethnic minority, with a population
of 352,000, lives in Ximeng, Cangyuan, Menglian, Gengma, Lancang,
Shuangjiang, Zhenkang and Yongde counties in southwestern Yunnan
Province. Some are found scattered in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous
Prefecture and the Dehong Dai-Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture. Ximeng
and Cangyuan counties are the main places where the Va people live
in compact communities. In the areas where the Va people live, there
are also Hans, Yis, Dais, Hanis, Lahus, Jingpos, Blangs, De'angs
and Lisus.
Ximeng, Cangyuan, Menglian and Langcang
are situated between the Lancang and Nu rivers, blocked by undulating
mountain ridges some 2,000 meters above sea level. Traditionally
this area was called the Ava hilly region.
With a subtropical climate, the fertile
Ava region has plentiful rainfall and only 40 frost-free days a
year. It is suitable for the growth of dry rice, paddy, maize, millet,
buckwheat, potatoes, cotton, hemp, tobacco and sugarcane, as well
as such subtropical fruits as bananas, pineapples, mangoes, papayas
and oranges.
The Va language belongs to the Austroasiatic
family. Before the founding of the People??s Republic of China in
1949, except for some parts of the area where an alphabetic script
was used, the Va people had no written language, and they kept records
and accounting or passed messages with material objects or by engraving
bamboo strips. Each strip ranged from half an inch to an inch in
width. Objects used implied specific meaning or feelings. For instance,
sugarcane, banana or salt meant friendship, hot pepper anger, feather
urgency, and gunpowder and bullets the intention of clan warfare.
An alphabetic script was created for the Va people in 1957.
Customs and Habits
The monogamous family was the basic
unit of the Va society. Family property generally was inherited
by the youngest son, while daughters were denied the right to inherit.
A man was allowed to have more than one wife.
Men and women had sex freedom before
marriage. Small groups of young men and women met and sang love
songs. After giving their chosen partners betal nuts or tobacco
leaves as a token of love, they could go to sleep together. Such
freedom ended upon marriage. Marriages were arranged by parents,
and the bridegrooms had to pay several cattle as betrothal gifts.
Eloping used to take place as a result of forced marriages.
Most of the Va villages were built
on hilltops or slopes. Some villages in the Ximeng area have a history
of several hundred years and embrace 300 to 400 households. When
a family built a new house, others came to help and presented timber
and straw as gifts. Generally the house was completed in one day
by collective effort. The "big house" of a big chieftain
or a rich person was marked by a special woodcut on top. The walls
were decorated with many cattle skulls still carrying horns. The
other sections were the same as commoners' houses, built on stilts,
and the space below was used for breeding domestic livestock. Before
iron cauldrons were introduced into the area, the Vas used big bamboo
tubes to cook rice, and the cooked rice was divided into equal shares
by the hostess at the meal. They loved to chew betel nuts and drink
liquor.
The Va people dress differently according
to different areas. Men's garments consist of a collarless jacket
and very wide trousers. Their turbans are usually black or red and
their ears are pierced, through which red and black tassels are
threaded. Young men like decorating their shins with circular ornaments
woven with bamboo strips or rattan. A Va woman wears a black short
dress and a straight long skirt with folds. She has a silver (or
rattan) hoop round her head and silver necklets and chains of colored
beads round her neck. Round her hips are many circular hoops of
rattan. Va women are fond of bracelets round their wrists and earrings.
Religion In the past the Va people
living in the central area of Ava Mountain were worshippers of nature,
believing that all the mountains and rivers and natural phenomena
had their deities. They were believed to bring good or bad fortune
to people. The loftiest god for the Vas was "Mujij." whose
five sons were believed to be the deities in charge of the creation
of heaven, the creation of earth, lightening, earthquake and the
bringing up of the Va people, respectively. There were also deities
of water, trees and so on. Even stomach ache and skin itching were
believed to be caused by gods.
Frequent religious activities were
held to obtain protection from deities and ghosts. Every year the
activities started with making sacrifices to the deity of water,
praying for good weather and good harvests. Cattle were carved up
and their tails cut off as offerings.
"Latou," or the hunting of human head, remnant
of the primitive customs, had been abolished with the influence
of the more advanced neighboring ethnic minorities.
Apart from sacrificial ceremonies held
by the whole village, many families also held their own sacrificial
offerings. These involved chickens, pigs or oxen and cost a lot
of wealth and time. It was estimated that the Vas in this area spent
one-third of their yearly income on religion and superstition, and
the amount of labor wasted averaged 60 days per capita annually.
In Cangyuan and Shuangjiang counties,
some of the Va residents, influenced by the Dais, became followers
of Lesser Vehicle of Buddhism. Christianity had spread into a part
of the area.
Social Economy
In 109 B.C., Emperor Wu Di of the Han
Dynasty set up Yizhou Prefecture which covered an area extending
to the east of Gaoligong Mountain. As a result, the forbears of
today's Vas, Blangs and De'angs came under the rule of the Han Dynasty.
Thereafter, through the Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties,
the Va people had had inseparable ties with other peoples in the
hinterland.
Between the Tang and Ming dynasties,
the Vas mainly engaged in hunting, fruit collecting and livestock
breeding -- the preliminary stage of agricultural economy. After
the Ming Dynasty, agriculture became their main occupation, and
they had passed out of the primitive clan communes into village
communes. However, development in various areas was not balanced.
Over a long time in the past, the Vas living with the Hans, Dais
and Lahus had had their culture and economy develop faster through
interchanges.
As a whole, however, development of
the Va society was rather slow before liberation. This was due mainly
to long-term oppression by reactionary ruling classes and imperialist
aggression. There were three areas in terms of social development:
The Ava mountainous area with Ximeng as the center and including
part of Lancang and Menglian counties, inhabited by one-third of
the total Va population. There, private ownership had been established,
but with the remnant of a primitive communal system still existing.
The area on the edges of Ava Moutnain,
covering Cangyuan, Gengma and Shuangjiang counties and part of Lancang
and Menglian counties, and the Va area in the Xishuangbanna Dai
Autonomous Prefecture, where two-thirds of the Va people live. There,
the economy already bore feudal manorial characteristics.
In some areas in Yongde, Zhenkang and
Fengqing, where a few Vas live with other ethnic peoples, the Va
economy had developed into the stage of feudal landlord economy.
Post-1949 Development
In December 1949, the Vas, together
with other ethnic groups in Yunnan Province, was liberated. In 1951,
the central government sent a delegation to the Ava mountainous
areas, helping the Va people solve urgent problems in production
and daily life, and to settle disputes among tribes. The Menglian
Dai-Lahu-Va Autonomous County was set up in 1954 and the Cangyuan
Va Autonomous County in 1955. They were followed by the founding
of Ximeng Va Autonomous County in 1964 and the Cangyuan Va Autonomous
County in 1965. In the course of practicing regional autonomy, many
Va cadres were trained, paving the way for implementing the Communist
Party's united front policy, for further winning over and uniting
with the patriots from the upper strata of the Vas, and for carrying
out social reform in Va areas.
Different steps and methods were adopted
by the government in social reform, taking the unbalanced socio-economic
development in various areas into consideration. In Zhenkang and
Yongde the Vas, together with local Hans, carried out land reform
and abolished the system of feudal exploitation and oppression.
Then they carried out socialist reform in agriculture. In most of
the areas in Ximeng, Cangyuan, Shuangjiang, Gengma and Menglian,
exploiting and primitive backward elements were reformed in gradual
steps through mutual aid and cooperation, with government support,
so as to pass into socialism.
Two important economic measures were
taken in the Va areas to improve production and people's life. One
was to provide the poor Va peasants with food and seeds, draught
cattle and farm tools, while helping them build irrigation projects
to extend rice paddy fields. The other was to set up more state
trading organizations to expand state trade. These measures brought
changes to local production and daily life, enabling the people
to do away with usury and exploitation by landlords.
Through transforming mountains, harnessing
rivers and extending paddy fields, the Va people in the Ximeng area
changed their primitive cultivation methods.
In pre-liberation days, eight out of
10 Va people were half-starved. For several months in a year they
had to eat wild vegetables and wild starchy tubers. Their ordinary
meal was thick gruel cooked with vegetables. However, by 1981 they
owned 1,600 hectares of paddy fields, achieving good yields. In
some fields the output per hectare came to 7.5 tons.
Industry was unheard of in the Ava
mountainous areas in the past. Now there are hydro-power stations,
tractor stations and locally-run workshops producing and repairing
farm tools, smelting iron and processing food. The first generation
of workers has come into being.
Industrial and agricultural development
brought marked changes to the commerce, transport and communications,
culture and education and health of the Va people. A case in point
is Yanshi Village in Cangyuan County. There wasn't a presentable
house except those owned by the village head. Now it has grown into
a rising township, with a bank, a health center, primary and middle
schools, a farm tool plant and tailors' shops as well as many stores.
The village has become an economic and cultural center.
Many new schools have been set up in
the Va areas. Nine out of 10 Va children are at school. Cultural
centers, film projection teams and bookstores broaden the knowledge
of the Va people and enrich their life. Every county in the Ava
mountainous area has hospitals.
Over the past 30 years and more a new
atmosphere of unity has prevailed in the Va areas. The old enmities,
resulting from abduction of oxen and headhunting, have been replaced
by mutual help in production and construction through mediation.
Clan warfare which was common in pre-liberation days, seldom takes
place.
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