Presenting the Baima

The Baima are a people that lives in the frontier districts of the provinces of Sichuan (Pingwu and Nanping) and Gansu (Wenxian).

They are approximately 10.000 inhabitants who live very dispersed for these regions and mixed with the Han. Where they are more concentrated it is in the village Baima de Pingwu, where they live through more than 1.000. Declared as Tibetan in 1951, in 1981 it is seen that his history, territory, language, garment, culture and religion, everything is different from that of the Tibetan ones of the Tibet or of the Sichuan province. In 1973 pedió this classification will be rectified and in 1978-9 there were several scientific expeditions to his region without coming to any conclusion.

Nevertheless, the scarce ethnological studies realized between them affirm that his language is different from the Tibetan one, that his customs and garments are different, and that they are not lamaístas, but they support from immemorial time the animism of his ancestors, and that on the past numerous rebellions have experimented to be liberated of the oppression of the Tibetan noblemen.

Therefore in spite of the scientific evidence its own existence like people, is, of this form denied by the Chinese government.

In the last years, in addition to the agriculture and cattle that they practise for centuries, they have reached a certain economic prosperity with the development of the wood and the wild medicines. Since there put itself in force the prohibition of cutting wood in the top basin of the river Yangtze, they are trying to develop a minimal tourist infrastructure, since his grounds are rich in forests and natural sceneries, and in them pandas inhabit some bears.

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