The Lisu in 1909

Described in the book "On foot for China" of Edwin Dingle. 1911

In my day of the comeback to Yunnan, I stopped in Lu-chiang-pa. I left my men in the inn while I traveled for two days along the Vale of Salwen. The only purpose of my trip was to see the country, and also to prove the accuracy of the reports that they speak about the slightly healthy nature of vale to which they call the Shade of Death. The people here were friendly, although my route was always far from the principal way; and although my entire team was only one sleeping bag for the nights, I could obtain everything what he needed. Lao Chang accompanied me, and together we spend a few excellent days.

First of all he should say that the idea that they give of this part of the Vale of Salwen like a pitfall of death is completely false. With the exception of the drizzle of the first hours of the common morning to many regions low in the warm countries, there was not, till now when I could see, anything to be afraid of.

During the second day, across this beautiful country, I met some persons that I presumed it was Lisu, and I was sorry that all my movies had become exhausted. The tribe Lisu is undoubtedly a shoot of the peoples who inhabit south - oriental Tibet, although in none of them, at any place in Yunnan, and they are in many places of the central and oriental Yunnan, there finds belief track Buddhist, who is universal in the Tibet. Deceased Mr. G. Litton, which in these dates was operating like British Consul Tengyueh and he has traveled extensionally between them, says that his religious practices look alike closely to those of the Kachins, which believe in numerous "nats" or spirits that there cause different calamities, like the bad harvest and the illnesses, unless they are propitiated in a suitable way. According to him, the most important spirit is the bogey of the ancestors. The graves of the Lisu generally are in the fields close to the peoples, and on them there puts itself the crossbow, the bag of rice and other articles used by the deceased. "Probably it is in foundations how are you", wrote Mr. George Forrest, that Mr. accompanied. Litton in an excursion to Salwen Superior, a few days after the death of his partner "that the cult textile was constructed the Chinese forefather", an idea that seems very doubtful to me.

I am of the opinion that the Lisu his can relate with the lolos or the Nousu of who I have already spoken in the chapters in the Book that treated about the tribes about Chow - t'ong. And even with the Miao they have some resemblances. They are of thin constitution, high cheek, and his skin is almost of the same sepia as they. The Lisu form practically everything of the population of the Vale of Salwen Superior, having spread in considerable number along the mountains between the Shweli and the Irawadi, and up to the States Shan. Those of Salwen Superior in his north end sound absolute savages, but where have they become civilized a little they have showed to be an enterprising race. Between the savages, his villages are almost always in wars some with others, and many have never been more distant than his huts than at the distance of a day of march. The principal object of his lives seems to be to support his neighbors over a distance. They are extremely lazy. His lives happen doing so little work as they can, eating, drinking, sitting down in squatting about the hearth telling him histories of his value with the crossbow, and the excitement that provides an occasional expedition to them to obtain wood for his crossbows and to poison for his arrows, or little salt and the wild honey.

Mr. Forrest, in the role that he read before the Real Geographical Society in June, 1908, speaks about this wild honey as a tidbit, but that after a few days of constant consumption the European palate pushes it back like sickening, and adds that it has escaped from the commentators Bíblicos that one of the principal hardships that Saint John Bautista must exist suffered was his diet of wild honey. In another part of his role the writer says, speaking about the crossbow to which I have referred:" Any Lisu with pretensions possesses one of these you arm one at least for the daily hunting, other one for the war. The children play with teeny-weeny crossbows. The men never leave his huts for any intention without his crossbows, when they are going to sleep the 'na-kung' is hung on his heads, and when they die that it is hung on his graves. The biggest crossbows have an entire length of five feet, and demand a thirty five pounds haulage. The arch is done by a species of wild mulberry, of big hardness and flexibility. The loader, of approximately four feet chattered in those of war, normally it is of wood of the wild plum, the drawstring is of hemp folded, and the bone trigger. The arrow, from sixteen to eighteen inches, is of bamboo cracked, approximately four times the thickness and sharp of an ordinary knitting needle, hard. The top is broke from a quarter to a third of inch, then during another inch the arrow only has the half his thickness, and in this portion it is where the poison puts itself. The secondhand poison invariably is a decoction of tubers of a species of aconite that grows in this status to an altitude from 8,000 to 10,000 feet... The reduction in the thickness of the arrow where does the poison put itself does that it breaks in this point when it strikes any body, and as enough ride poison goes to kill a horse, the wound is invariably fatal. The free and immediate incision is the usual remedy when there is hurt a member or beefy part of the body."

A time, after traveling round these regions, I visited the station of the Interior Mission of the China, which is employed at last times between the Lisu. It is interesting to know the magnificent missionary work that is done between the Lisu, and more knowing the enormous difficulties that they have already overcome. At least an European, if not more, it has dominated the language, and the Interior Mission of China waits for big progresses. Only the residence long and continued between these nations, living through his life, will provide information completely in the future.

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