Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
and their passes are covered with snow by October, the Mekong-Yangtze divide, which reaches its highest point
in Pai-mang Shan, about 20,000 feet in height, is still free of snow in December, and several species of Gentians
enjoy a glorious sunshine and blue sky. Thus do the western ranges gather all the moisture.
(1947:276).
In the writings of both men, one can sense a mixture of wonder, bewilderment, and
sometimes opencondescension towardthehumaninhabitants oftheNuRiver Gorge.Upon
meeting the Nu and Lisu, the two predominant minority groups in the gorge, Joseph Rock
observed matter-of-factly, “Nearly all are cretins and afflicted with goiter. Their constant
intermarriagehascausedthemtodegenerate.Theyliveamiserableexistence,isolatedfrom
the rest of the world” (1947:426). The word
cretin
, which offends modern ears, did not
carry quite the derogatory connotation of today; rather, he used the term to refer to people's
small stature, which he attributed to underactive thyroid glands, probably due to malnutri-
tion from a diet lacking in iodine. Goiter—a swelling of the thyroid gland that can cause
noticeablebulgesintheneck—isasymptomvisibleinmanyofthepeopleposinginRock's
photographs.
Joseph Rock's early explorations were commissioned by the U.S. Department of Agri-
culture, with the intention of discovering blight-resistant varieties of chestnut trees for
introduction to North America. Many of his scientific contemporaries considered him a
“walking encyclopedia” (Harrell 2011:7), and he collected more than 100,000 plant spe-
cimens during the years he spent in East and Southeast Asia, naming and cataloging an
incredible list of species from azaleas and rhododendron to peonies, poppies, and ferns
(Yoshinaga et al. 2011:123). But the scope of his work turned out to be much wider than
botany: he contributed to the development of what is arguably the most comprehensive
dictionary of the Naxi language, a multivolume tome that was published posthumously in
1963 and 1972 and has become a cornerstone of Naxi language revitalization efforts. When
Lijiang Old Town became a UNESCO World Heritage site in the 1990s, attracting millions
of tourists from around the world each year, it was through Rock's writings that much of
the Western world first came to know northwest Yunnan.
In Francis Kingdon Ward's work, the reader can also see a struggle to understand the
intricacies of ethnic identity in northwest Yunnan. A mélange of people make appear-
ances at various points in Ward's writing. There are the “Nung” (Nong). There are the
“dwarf Nung,” which are probably the Dulong because their main distinguishing feature,
apart from their small stature, is prominent facial tattooing of women, a cultural prac-
tice that continued well into the mid-twentieth century. There are the White Lisu, living
mostly in the lower portion of the watershed near the town of Liuku, and the Black Lisu
farther north, which Ward distinguished according to various degrees of “uncouthness”
