At the harvest festival held in Weixi, Yunnan, Yufan saw the legendary Mary Maasa for the first time, they are an ethnic group living in the territory of Tacheng Town, Weixi County, Diqing Prefecture, Yunnan Province, about 2,000 people, they have their own language, and their own culture, but in the ethnic identification in the 1950s, the Mary Masa people were divided into Naxi branches, concentrated in Several natural villages such as Gaogu and Haini in the administrative village of Haini in Tacheng Town, Weixi County, as well as Guanliluo, Xincun and Ruke Natural Villages in The administrative villages of Kona. "Marimaza" means "the prey does not let go, the hunter can not die", is the Mary Masan people left their parents to go out hunting when they gave them a blessing. The Marmasa are a minority on the frontier that has gained traction in recent years.
At the celebration of the day, the Mary Masa people performed two programs, one was the Mary Massa song "Breaking Ground" sung by Minghui and Mu Liying, and the other was the "Mary Massa Dance" organized by Haini Village in Tacheng Town.
After the celebration, Yu Fan had a brief chat with the famous Mary Marsa singer and Minghui, who explained to me some basic information about the Mary Masa, who said that the area where they lived was inhabited by lisu, Tibetan, Naxi, Yi and Han ethnic groups. Because of the need for communication, each of them can speak four or five different languages, and when communicating with the Lisu, they speak the Lisu language; when communicating with the Tibetans, they speak Tibetan; when communicating with the Yi, they speak the Yi language, and when they communicate with the Han, they can also speak Chinese; but when they communicate internally, they speak their own Mary Marisa.
The origin of the "Mary Masan" is still a mystery, some scholars believe that they belong to the Naxi tribe due to their similar language, customs, etc., and most of them are surnamed as a large surname of the Naxi people - "He", and the official household registration statistics also include them in the Naxi ethnic group;
But some people believe that they are descendants of the Mosuo people, because the harmonic pronunciation of "Mary Marsa" is "Mosuo people between heaven and earth";
Some even believe that they are descendants of the Qiang people, who migrated from western Sichuan
It is said that the "Marimasa" Elderly Association in the village of Kona has also specialized in its own origins and has compiled materials based on folklore. According to legend, the ancestors of the "Mary Marsa" were the grandsons of the Arctic life star, who came to Visi to hunt and live in the "Ape Man Cave" on the cliffs next to the Lap River.
The "Ape Man Cave" is called the Gordon site in the archaeological community, which proves that Diqing had humans in the Neolithic state, and is of great value for studying the connection between the Neolithic cultures of the Three Rivers and the rest of China in the same period.
The "Mary Masanese" not only created their own language and clothing in the long-term practice of production and life, but also their own primitive religion and nature worship, and they worshiped the mountain gods every year to pray for smooth wind and rain and abundant grain. They also have their own "Masa festival", which is spent in the first month of the lunar calendar and June, dressed in clothes that combine Tibetan and Naxi costumes, dancing, exorcising ghosts, and offering food made of medicinal herbs, fish, rice and milk for health, longevity and abundance.
In addition to their own festivals, because of the coexistence and integration of different ethnic groups, the number of festivals and sacrifices of the "Mary Masanese" is rare among other ethnic groups. Tibetan Buddhism, naxi Dongba and the primitive religion of the "Mary Masa" coexist harmoniously in their villages: Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags flutter in the wind, "Mary Masa" burn incense in front of the Mani pile to pray for blessings; Naxi religious activities such as "Seen" and "Chong Tong Bei" and "Torch Festival" of the Yi people are also carried out.
Li Jiansheng, director of the Vesey Tourism Bureau, introduced to us that the "Marimasa people" are industrious and enthusiastic, and their main source of economic income is to grow corn and rice, and some young adults also go out to work. In addition, the wild orchids dug up from the mountains by villagers are famous far and wide, and some orchids can be sold for tens of thousands of yuan a plant. In recent years, their living standards have been greatly improved with the help of the government, and infrastructure such as water, electricity, roads, and communications has been improved, and they have enjoyed rural cooperative medical care, pensions, free compulsory education, and subsidy policies for highland farmers and herdsmen.
Director Li said that the Marimasa people can sing and dance, and their song and dance have two sources: first, they come from imitating birds and animals; second, they come from productive labor. In the area of the Lap River, some animals often show their beauty with pleasant sounds and graceful physical movements to please the opposite sex during the reproductive season. When the ancestors of Mary Martha hunted in the forest, they were often attracted by the beautiful sounds and gestures of these animals, so they tried to imitate it, and there was a prototype of the early Mary Martha song and dance.
The early rudiments of Mary Massa's song and dance originated from the imitation of animal sounds and gestures by her ancestors, while the modern Mary Massa song and dance is more derived from productive labor. In the process of rhythmic labor, in order to coordinate the movement of the body and the speed of labor, there will often be behaviors similar to dance and singing, and people gradually experience the beauty of dance and music, and begin to consciously create songs and dances.
With the development of society, the way of livelihood of the Mary Masanese gradually changed from hunting to planting and breeding, and some songs reflecting grain production and harvest at that time came into being, such as ploughing songs, planting rice, chopping wood, chestnut songs, grain songs, harvest songs, etc.
The Marimasa people, they almost became the 57th ethnic group in China, but because they are similar to the Naxi in many ways, they are classified as a branch of the Naxi people, which was previously little known, and then slowly attracted the attention of society, and their culture and song and dance slowly entered people's vision. Finally, have you heard of the Marisa people?