Mosuo

Young Mosuo woman doing traditional weaving in Lijiang Old Town ( UNESCO World Heritage Site ; 2009)

The Mosuo ( Chinese 摩梭 , Pinyin Mósuō ) or Moso are a Chinese people with the Tibetan Burman language who live in the southwest of the People's Republic of China , particularly on the shores of Lake Lugu between the provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan . Their population is estimated to be around 40,000.

Ethnic classification

Although they are assigned to the Naxi people according to the official Chinese classification , call themselves Na and do not differ significantly from the other Naxi in terms of language, they consider themselves to be a relatively independent ethnic group. Your sense of identity with the other Naxi is poorly developed. They practice two religions, the Daba religion and Tibetan Buddhism . Besides the prevailing Buddhism, it mainly distinguishes its social structure from the other Naxi.

The Lugu Lake in southern China at the foot of the mountain Ganmu is the cultural center of the Mosuo (2000)

Traditional economy

Mosuo woman in traditional clothing working in the fields on Lake Lugu (2005)

Ancient Mosuo symbols and their meaning in Chinese in the Mosuo Cultural Museum on Lake Lugu (2007)

The Mosuo are a premodern farming culture and until recently lived relatively secluded, animals and people under one roof. Until recently, they produced all the essentials of daily life themselves, and even today many villages have no electricity. Meat, one of their main sources of nutrition, is preserved by drying, curing and smoking and can be kept for up to ten years.

Traditionally there is a pure barter economy , which makes long journeys just as superfluous as an educational system with specialization. In recent times this has started to loosen up due to the improved contact with neighboring cities, so that money is also used.

Social organization

The Mosuo are known for their matrilineal social structure. They live together in large families, with women not only doing all essential work (such as washing, keeping a fire, cooking, collecting wood, feeding cattle, spinning) within such a household, but also having a woman head of the household. All household members of both sexes are subordinate to this head of household, called “Ah mi”, in almost every respect. She also decides on her own successor and determines the timing, symbolized by the handover of the keys to the pantry.

Men tend to look after the cattle, especially when it comes to killing: slaughtering domestic animals and catching fish is their sole responsibility (dried meat represents a significant part of the supply). Even with humans, death is a man's business: funerals are organized by men alone - this goes so far that they even prepare the food on this single occasion.

When it comes to relationships outside the extended family, women tend to make the business decisions, while men tend to make the political decisions.

You sleep in common rooms. Only women of childbearing age have the right to their own bedroom. The Mosuo do not know of any marriage between women and men in which the married couple live together; this is seen as unnatural and a danger to the family. Rather, they maintain the walking marriages or visiting relationship (also visiting marriage or walking marriage called). Both women and men are allowed to have sexual relations with several (opposite-sex) partners next to one another or one after the other, which do not require any confirmation from third parties and can also be dissolved by either side without any circumstances and at any time. The men visit the women as lovers (azhu) at night and return to their extended family's household in the morning.

Despite this permission for “free love”, there can be no question of promiscuity . Few women have more than one “lover” at the same time, and most of the time relationships last for years - sometimes even a lifetime.

All children from the fraternity stay in the mother's household. The brothers help their sisters raise the children. So men are responsible for their nieces and nephews (the children in the household with whom they share most of the genes), not for their own biological children. Contrary to rumors to the contrary, the biological fathers are usually known and play an important role in the lives of children. For mothers, but not for the children, it is downright shameful not to be able to name the father. On New Years Day it is customary for children to visit him to show their respect to him and the household to which he belongs. Nevertheless, boys find their essential male caregivers among the members of their household, especially their uncles and brothers.

Current developments

In recent times, when the Chinese central state has again given the Mosuo more social and cultural freedom, their contact with Chinese and other societies has increased. Numerous descriptions of "free love" and matriarchy have drawn the interest of researchers as well as Chinese and foreign tourists to the Mosuo. In particular, there is an increase in sex tourism in the Mosuo area, which is why numerous venereal diseases have spread there.

Mosuo and matriarchy

The question of whether there is a matriarchy among the Mosuo is controversial and depends on the respective definition. Individual elements of the theories of matriarchy can be found, for example matrilinearity , matrilocality and the strong economic position of women. However, this is offset by their weak political position outside the budget. Such discussions are made more difficult by the strong breaks and changes that emerge among the Mosuo, especially in modern times. Aspects such as the azhu system of visiting relationships were unacceptable to traditional Chinese moral concepts and the socialism of the People's Republic and should disappear. In addition, younger family members of both sexes in particular are increasingly looking for work in neighboring cities, which was made possible primarily by better roads. Young people thus begin to earn their own money outside of the household. Older family members are increasingly concerned because they fear disputes over property and (with young people moving away) the basis of the “household model”.

As to whether the Mosuo are the remnants of an old matriarchy, there are different interpretations in the specialist literature. One assumes that the social structure of the Mosuo originated from a feudal system in which a small class of nobility ruled the rural population. The aristocratic families followed a patrilineal line of descent on the father's side ; the father transferred and bequeathed his social status and property to his sons, while the mothers, on the other hand, passed on their status and property to their daughters in a matrilineal sequence. This lessened the class barriers customary elsewhere against connections with members of the lower class. If in such a relationship the woman belonged to the aristocratic class, then she passed her status on to her daughters, while the sons inherited from the father. This juxtaposition of "patriarchal" and "matriarchal" clans and hereditary systems separated at some point, presumably the patrilineal families mixed with neighboring peoples also organized under patriarchal law, while the matrilineal extended families isolated themselves with their inheritance rules and perhaps also spatially separated.

literature

Chronologically:

2016: Dagmar Margotsdotter: Am Herdfeuer: Recordings of a journey to the matriarchal Mosuo , Christel Göttert Verlag, Rüsselsheim 2016, ISBN 978-3-939623-59-5 .
2005: Yang Erche Namu, Christine Mathieu: The Land of Daughters. A childhood with the Moso, where the world belongs to women. Ullstein, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-548-25959-6 (from the English by Barbara Röhl).
2005: Ricardo Coler: Paradise is feminine. A fascinating journey into matriarchy. Kiepenheuer at Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-378-01103-3 (from the Spanish by Sabine Giersberg).
2001: Iris Bubenik-Bauer: The home of the goddess Gemu. The matriarchal world of Moso. Myths, rites and legends. Atlantic, September 2001, ISBN 3-926529-97-0 .
1998: Heide Göttner-Abendroth : Matriarchy in South China. A research trip to the Mosuo. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-17-014006-X .
1997: Susanne Knödel: Men? Just for the night! With the Mosuo in southwest China, women are in charge. In: Gisela Völger (Ed.): You and He. Women's power and male rule in a cultural comparison. Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-923158-33-5 ( short version on zeit.de ).
1993: Susanne Knödel: The matrilineal Mosuo of Yongning. A source-critical evaluation of modern Chinese ethnographies. Lit, Münster 1995, ISBN 3-89473-805-7 (doctoral thesis Uni Trier 1993).

English:

2019: Elaine M. Liu, Sharon Xuejing Zuo: Measuring the impact of interaction between children of a matrilineal and a patriarchal culture on gender differences in risk aversion. PNAS , March 18, 2019 (Mosuo girls more willing to take risks than the Hani patrilineal comparison group ; doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1808336116 ).

2011: Yushan Zhong: Parental Roles and Children's Socialization in Mosuo Matrilineal Families. San Diego State University, San Diego 2011 (Master's thesis in Sociology; online and download ).

2009: Chuan-kang Shih: Quest for Harmony: The Moso Traditions of Sexual Union and Family Life. Stanford University Press, Stanford 2009, ISBN 978-0-8047-7344-7 (Shih teaches Anthropology and Asian Studies at the University of Florida; excerpt from Google Book Search).

2009: Tami Blumenfield: The Na of Southwest China: Debunking the Myths. University of Washington, 2009 ( PDF file; 100 kB, 5 pages in web.pdx.edu ).

2003: Christine Mathieu: A History and Anthropological Study of the Ancient Kingdoms of the Sino-Tibetan Borderland: Naxi and Mosuo. Edwin Mellen, Lewiston 2003, ISBN 0-7734-6645-2 .

2003: Tami Blumenfield: Na Education in the Face of Modernity. In: Xu Jianchu, Stephen Mikesell (Eds.): Landscapes of Diversity: Indigenous Knowledge, Sustainable Livelihoods and Resource Governance in Montane Mainland Southeast Asia. Yunnan Science and Technology Press, Kunming 2003, pp. 87–494 ( PDF file; 240 kB, 8 pages ( Memento from September 21, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) in archive.org ).

2001: Cai Hua: A Society Without Fathers or Husbands: The Na of China. Zone Books, New York 2001, ISBN 1-890951-12-9 .

2000: Chuan-kang Shih: Tisese and It's Anthropological Significance. Issues around the Visiting Sexual System among the Moso. In: L'Homme. No. 154–155: Question de parenté , April – September 2000, pp. 697–712 ( tisese is the Mosuo's visiting marriage ; PDF file; 102 kB, 16 pages in lhomme.revues.org ).

French:

1913: Jacques Bacot: Les Mon-Sun. Ethnography of Mon-Sun, leurs religions, leur langue et leur écriture. Avec les Documents historiques et geographiques relatifs à Li-Kiang par Ed. Chavannes . (Collection de l'Institut ethnographique international de Paris), EJ Brill, Leide: 1913 ( digitized version )

Documentaries

2018: Galileo report: women rule here! The matriarchy in China . ProSieben, Germany 2018 (15 minutes; video on YouTube ).
2014: Uschi Madeisky , Daniela Parr, Dagmar Margotsdotter-Fricke: Where the free women live . Germany / China 2014 (90 minutes; Film Funding Hessen + HR).
2013: Uschi Madeisky, Daniela Parr, Dagmar Margotsdotter-Fricke: Girls' initiation with the Mosuo . Germany / China 2013 (30 minutes, short film with live commentary).
2012: Web interview by Joanna Michna, Maria Hoffacker: People worldwide: Songna Mian Zhe (China) . 360 ° - Geo-Reportage , Germany 2012 (5 minutes).
2011: Joanna Michna, Maria Hoffacker: China, in the realm of the Mosuo women. 360 ° - Geo-Reportage , Germany 2011 (43 minutes).
20 ??: Jochen Graebert: The matriarchy of the Mosuo. ARD Studio Beijing, Germany [no year] (5 minutes).
20 ??: Jochen Graebert: Women's rights among the Mosuo in China. ARD Studio Beijing, Germany [no year] (5 minutes).
2005: Elizabeth Dukal Flender, Roger J. Zou: China: The Mighty Women from Lake Lugu. USA 2005 (43 minutes).
2000: Cris Campion, Elisabeth Soulia: WunderWelten: Die Moso. Free women in the Himalayas. Arte France , France 2000 (43 minutes).
1993: Petra Spamer-Riether: China: The Daughters of the Goddess. With the Moso in China. Südwestrundfunk , Germany / China 1993 (43 minutes; short info on 3sat ).