Recently, Lan Jinwu, a descendant of his descendants, found a batch of folk contract documents in the place where his ancestors lived in Liude Township, Yongsheng County, and invited city and county cultural scholars to identify them.
According to the on-site inspection, there are about hundreds of copies of this batch of documents, cotton paper, each of which is slightly larger than A3 printing paper, all written in brush Chinese characters, but most of the place names and personal names are transliterated Chinese characters, and even a few Chinese characters specially created by him. Most of the contents are pawned by other people who stay in his family because of economic difficulties and other reasons, and there are also people who ask the head of the family to mediate because of major family disputes, or sell the fields because they are in urgent need of entanglement in other places.
In order to avoid damage caused by repeated folding, only a dozen of them were read on site. Judging only from the unfolded documents, these documents date up to the twenty-ninth year of Daoguang (1849) and down to 1949.
Yongsheng Taliu belongs to the Yi branch, with a population of about 5,000, and historically belonged to the indigenous people of the Beisheng Shi Shou Gao Clan Tusi, who was the local armed force of the Gao clan and the first ethnic minority in Yongsheng to accept Han culture. They still retain their own language, common Chinese characters, and have attracted the attention of the world because of their unique marriage customs and production and lifestyle. He has been awarded a national historical relics protection unit - he left a grave forest, and there are many provincial and municipal intangible cultural heritage projects such as he left people to hey grass linen weaving, folk songs and dances, folk literature and so on. According to the cultural management department, the historical archives documents he left behind were discovered in batches, which was the first time.
According to his descendant Lan Jinwu, this batch of documents has been preserved by the Lan family, and many of the contents of the documents also involve the Lan family, although they have been well preserved after a movement, one is because their ancestors are literate and hyphenated, many contracts are established by their ancestors as middle people, and at the same time, the ancestors of all generations have a high sense of archival preservation, so they have been passed on to the hands of their great uncle Lan Shaoqing, and these documents have never been shown. It was not until the old man Lan Shaoqing died that he informed his family that there was such a deposit, and said that "the thousand-year-old documents were made of medicine" and instructed future generations to keep it properly. Recently, Lan Jinwu searched for historical evidence to correct the ID surname from "Lan" to "Lan", and only then did he find the "house foundation certificate" and this batch of documents from his cousin. As for why the "Lan" surname became the "Lan" surname, according to expert analysis, it should be related to the implementation of the second edition of simplified characters by the state in the 1970s.
After preliminary identification, relevant cultural experts believe that these contract documents have very high cultural research value, are important documents to witness the integration and development of various ethnic groups in southwest China, and are an important embodiment of Yunnan Biantun culture, from which we can glimpse the history, cultural changes and social and economic life conditions of his people in modern times, and thus reflect the social ecology of Yongsheng and even Northwest Yunnan at that time. This batch of documents has been well preserved after many sports, which is not easy and is even more precious. It is recommended to provide special protection, special research and use to relevant departments.
Lan Jinwu, a descendant of the Lan clan, said that these contract documents will be temporarily kept by individuals, and will be donated to the relevant state management departments in due course after being sorted out and repaired by experts.
Source: Lijiang Daily
Producer: Luo Chaohui Ma Lihong
Final Judgment: Zi Shiming
Editor: Wan Jianfeng Yin Huazhen