The Bai, or Pai ( Bai: Baipho, (白和); ;

endonym An endonym (from Greek: , 'inner' + , 'name'; also known as autonym) is a common, ''native'' name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, language or dialect, meaning that it is used inside that particular place, group, ...

pronounced ), are an

East Asian East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea ...

ethnic group native to the

Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture (; Bai: ) is an autonomous prefecture Autonomous prefectures () are one type of autonomous administrative divisions of China, existing at the prefectural level, with either ethnic minorities forming over 50% o ...

Yunnan Province Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the ...

Bijie Bijie () is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Guizhou Province, China, bordering Sichuan to the north and Yunnan to the west. The Daotianhe Reservoir, located to the north of the town was commissioned in 1965 with a rated annual capacit ...

area of Guizhou Province, and

Sangzhi Sangzhi () is a county in Hunan, Hunan Province, China, it is under administration of the prefecture-level city of Zhangjiajie. Located on the northern margin of Hunan, Sangzhi County is bordered to the east by Cili County, to the south by Yongdin ...

area of

Hunan Province Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangxi to ...

. They constitute one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by China. They numbered 1,933,510 as of 2010.

Names

Tools and utensils in the in the Yunnan Nationalities Museum - DSC03656

The Bai people hold the colour white in high esteem and call themselves "Baipzix" (', Baizi, 白子), "Bai'ho" (', Baihuo, 白伙), "Bai yinl" (', Baini, 白尼) or "Miep jiax". ''Bai'' literally means "white" in Chinese. In 1956, the Chinese authorities named them the Bai nationality according to their preference. Historically, the Bai had also been called Minjia (民家) by the Chinese from the 14th century to 1949. The origin of the name Bai is not clear, but scholars believe that it has a strong connection to the first state Bai people built in roughly the 3rd century AD. This state, called ''Baizi Guo'' (白子國, State of Bai), was not documented in Chinese orthodox history but was frequently mentioned in the oral history of Yunnan Province. It was believed to be built by the first king, Longyouna (龍佑那), who was given the family name " Zhang" (張) by

Zhuge Liang Zhuge Liang ( zh, t=諸葛亮 / 诸葛亮) (181 – September 234), courtesy name Kongming, was a Chinese statesman and military strategist. He was chancellor and later regent of the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms period. He is ...

, the chancellor of the state of

Shu Han Han (; 221–263), known in historiography as Shu Han ( ) or Ji Han ( "Junior Han"), or often shortened to Shu (; pinyin: ''shŭ'' <

Midu County Midu County () is a county in the Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture located in west-central Yunnan province, China. Administrative divisions Midu County has 6 towns, 1 township and 1 ethnic township. ;6 towns ;1 township * Deju () ;1 ethnic town ...

, Yunnan Province.

Modern identity

The Bai people are one of the most sinicized minorities in China. Although technically one of China's 55 official ethnic groups, it is difficult to qualify them as a distinct ethnic minority. As early as the 1940s, some rejected their non-Chinese origin and preferred to identify themselves solely as Chinese. The Bai ethnic label was not widely used or known until 1958. Today the Bai people accept minority status for pragmatic reasons but are culturally nearly indistinguishable from Han Chinese.

Location

Bai people live mostly in the provinces of

Yunnan Yunnan , () is a landlocked province in the southwest of the People's Republic of China. The province spans approximately and has a population of 48.3 million (as of 2018). The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders the ...

( Dali area), and in neighboring

Guizhou Guizhou (; Postal romanization, formerly Kweichow) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province in the Southwest China, southwest region of the China, People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Guiyang, in the center of the pr ...

(

area) and

Hunan Hunan (, ; ) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the South Central China region. Located in the middle reaches of the Yangtze watershed, it borders the province-level divisions of Hubei to the north, Jiangx ...

(

area) provinces. Of the 2 million Bai people, eighty percent live in concentrated communities in the

in Yunnan Province.

History

The origin of Bai was heavily debated over roughly the past century. Ironically those debates were of the groups of people who were assimilated into Bai, rather than the issue per se. According to archaeological excavations around the Lake Erhai, Bai people could have originated in the lake area. The earliest human site was discovered in the early 20th century, which was called the paleolithic Malong relics of Mt. Cangshan (苍山马龙遗址), dated circa 4000 bp. The late sites include Haimenkou of Jianchuan (剑川海门口, 3000 bp), Baiyangcun of Binchuan (宾川白羊村, 3500 bp), and Dabona of Xiangyun(祥云大波那, 2350 bp). The Bai are mentioned in

Tang dynasty The Tang dynasty (, ; zh, t= ), or Tang Empire, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 618 to 907 AD, with an Zhou dynasty (690–705), interregnum between 690 and 705. It was preceded by the Sui dyn ...

texts as the 'Bo (or Bai) People'. If the Bo transcription is correct then it would mean the earliest mention of the Bai was in the third century BCE in a text called ''Lushi Chunqi (Spring and Autumn Annals of Master Lu Buwei).'' It was then mentioned again in Sima Qian's ''Records of the Grand Historian'' in the first century BCE. The Bai made up one of the tribes who helped establish the Nanzhao Kingdom (649-902). The Dali Kingdom (937-1253) was founded by a Bai named Duan Siping whose family had played major roles in the Nanzhao Kingdom. It's likely that the Bai were one of the elite ethnic groups that ruled and composed the population of the two kingdoms. After the collapse of the Dali Kingdom by the Mongols, the Bai never again enjoyed full political independence.

Language

An estimated 1,240,000 (as of 2003) of the Bai speak the

Bai language The Bai language (Bai: ; ) is a language spoken in China, primarily in Yunnan Province, by the Bai people. The language has over a million speakers and is divided into three or four main dialects. Bai syllables are always open, with a rich se ...

in all its varieties. As of 2004, only Bai people who lived in mountains spoke Bai as their only language, but some

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctive v ...

in Dali also spoke Bai due to local influence. Among modern Bai people, Chinese is usually used for popular media such as radio, television, and news, while Bai is relegated to folk-arts related activities. The origins of the language have been obscured by intensive Chinese influence of an extended period. Different scholars have proposed that it is an early offshoot or sister language of Chinese, or a separate group (though usually still within the

Sino-Tibetan Sino-Tibetan, also cited as Trans-Himalayan in a few sources, is a family of more than 400 languages, second only to Indo-European in number of native speakers. The vast majority of these are the 1.3 billion native speakers of Chinese languages. ...

family). According to the ''Manshu'' (Book of Barbarians) by

Fan Chuo Fan Chuo (; previously romanized as ''Fan Ch'e'' and ''Fan Zhuo'') (??? – late 9th century) was a secretary working under the Jiedu () (similar to the Byzantine thema) with headquarters located at Hanoi. Since the thema was a front of the T ...

(9th century), the ''Baimans pronunciation of Chinese was the most accurate out of all the tribes in the area. Scriptures from Nanzhao unearthed in 1950s show that they were written in the

but it does not seem Nanzhao ever attempted to standardize or popularize the script. The same was true for its successor, the Dali Kingdom. During the

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...

, the government began offering state examinations in

, which solidified

Classical Chinese Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning "literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning "literar ...

as the official language. The Bai call themselves Baizi, Baini, or Baihuo. They have 60 other names, including the Han term Minjia (for the Bai in Dali). In the Tang and Song Dynasty, Bai was written using Chinese characters in a manner similar to the way in which the

Man'yōgana is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of thi ...

(万叶假名) were used to write Japanese. A Latin-based writing system was developed in 1957.

Religion

Although most Bai people adhere to

Azhaliism Azhaliism (), also known as Dianmi or Baimi, is a Vajrayana Buddhist religion practiced among the Bai people of Yunnan, China. The name comes from lay tantric priests called ''azhali'' (Sanskrit: ''acharyas'') who are key figures in the religion, ...

, a form of

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

that traces its history back to the Nanzhao Kingdom, they also have a native religion of Benzhuism: the worship of ''ngel zex'' (), local gods and ancestors. Ngel zex could be any heroes in history, the prince of the Nanzhao regime, a hero of folklore or even a tiger (for instance, Laojun Jingdi is a tiger). Most Bai people don't belong to any religion. There are minorities practicing

Taoism Taoism (, ) or Daoism () refers to either a school of philosophical thought (道家; ''daojia'') or to a religion (道教; ''daojiao''), both of which share ideas and concepts of Chinese origin and emphasize living in harmony with the '' Ta ...

and

Christianity Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global popula ...

. George Clarke, arrived in 1881, was the first Protestant missionary to Bai population. The recent estimation of Bai Christian population is 50,000. There are a few villages in Yunnan where residents are

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

s, but speak Bai as their first language. These people are officially classified by Chinese authorities as belonging to the Hui nationality and call themselves ''Bai Hui'' ("Bai-speaking Muslims"). They usually say that their ancestors were

Hui people The Hui people ( zh, c=, p=Huízú, w=Hui2-tsu2, Xiao'erjing: , dng, Хуэйзў, ) are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the ...

, who came to Yunnan as followers of the Mongolian army in the 14th century.

Culture

Gender

Gender roles were relatively equal in Bai society and women were not considered inferior to men. Having only daughters and no sons was not considered a tragedy.

Agriculture

Most Bai were subsistence rice farmers, but also cultivated wheat, vegetables, and fruits. Unlike the Han and most other Chinese minority groups, the Bai ate cheese and made it from either cow or goat milk. The leftover whey from the process of cheese-making was fed to pigs. Those who lived around

Erhai Lake Erhai or Er Lake (), is an alpine fault lake in Yunnan province, China. Erhai was also known as Yeyuze () or Kunming Lake () in ancient times. Etymology The character "洱" (er) does not have the same meaning as ear (耳). During the Han to T ...

fished.

Clothing

The Bai people, as their name would suggest, favor white clothes and decorations. Women generally wear white dresses, sleeveless jackets of red, blue or black color, embroidered belts, loose trousers, embroidered shoes of white cloth, and jewelry made of gold or silver. Women in Dali traditionally wear a white coat trimmed with a black or purple collar, loose blue trousers; embroidered shoes, silver bracelets and earrings. Unmarried women wear a single pigtail on the top of the head, while married women roll their hair. The men wear white jackets, black-collared coats, and dark loose shorts. Their headwear and costume reflect the Bai symbols: the snow, the moon, the flower, and the wind. The modern Bai are famous for their tie dyes and use them for wall hangings, table decorations, clothing, etc. Many Bai women style their hair in a long braid wrapped in a headcloth. This style is called "the phoenix bows its head".

Arts

The Bai have a traditional form of theater called ''Chuichuiqiang''. However, this local tradition is endangered just as traditional Bai culture is in general.

Festivals

Raosanlin

The three major Bai festivals are called the Raosanlin (Walking Around Three Souls). The most important one is the Third Month Fair, held annually at the foot of Mount Cang in Dali between the fifteenth and the twentieth day of the third lunar month. Originally it was a religious activity to rally and pay homage, but it gradually evolved into a fair including performances of traditional sports and dance, as well as the trade of merchandise from different regions. The second festival is the Shibaoshan Song Festival, and the third is the

Torch Festival The Torch Festival or Fire Festival (; Nuosu language: ; YYPY ''Dut Zie''; Bai: ) is one of the main holidays of the Yi people of southwest China, and is also celebrated by other ethnic groups of the region. It is celebrated on the 24th or 25th da ...

, held on the 25th day of the sixth lunar month to wish health and a good harvest. On that evening, the countryside is decorated with banners with auspicious words written upon them. Villagers then light torches in front of their gates and walk around the fields while holding yet more torches in order to catch pests.

Tea ceremony

The Bai tea ceremony, San Dao Cha 三道茶 (Three Course Tea), is most popular among the Bai in the Dali area and is a common sight at festivals and marriages. It is both a cultural ceremony and method of honouring a guest. The ceremony is often described in Mandarin as, 'Yiku, ertian, sanhuiwei' 一苦二甜三回味 (First is bitter, Second is sweet, Third brings reflection (aftertaste)). The first tea course starts with baking the tea leaves in a clay pot over a small flame, shaking the leaves often whilst they bake. When they turn slightly brown and give off a distinct fragrance, heated water is added to the pot. The water should immediately begin bubbling. When the bubbling ceases a small amount of bitterly fragrant, concentrated tea remains. Due to the sound the hot water makes when it enters the clay pot the first course tea was, in previous times, also known as Lei Xiang Cha 雷响茶 (Sound of Thunder Tea). The second course is sweet tea. Pieces of walnut kernel and roasted rushan (乳扇, lit. ''milk fan''), a dried cheese specific to the Dali region, are put into a tea cup with brown sugar and other ingredients. Boiling water is added and the tea is then offered to the guest. This tea is sweet without being oily, so the guest can easily drink it. The third tea is made by mixing honey, Sichuan pepper, slices of ginger and cassia together in a china cup with hot Cangshan Xue green tea. The product is a tea that is sweet, coarse and spicy all at once. This Dali specialty has a noticeable aftertaste, which meant it was known as Hui Wei Cha 回味茶 (Reflection Tea). The 18 procedures of the tea ceremony are governed by strict etiquette, which follows the principles of etiquette, honesty and beauty. As such, the tea ceremony is considered by some to perfectly embody the hospitable Bai people's current customs.

Livelihood

Primary occupations

Most Bai are agriculturalists. They cultivate many crops like rice, wheat, rapeseed, sugar, millet, cotton, cane, corn, and tobacco. However, some Bai also engage in fishing and selling local handicrafts to tourists.

Cormorant fishing

Bai fishermen have trained

cormorant Phalacrocoracidae is a family of approximately 40 species of aquatic birds commonly known as cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed, but in 2021 the IOC adopted a consensus taxonomy of seven ge ...

s to fish since the 9th century. Decreases in water quality and the high costs of cormorant training have resulted in recent disuse of the practice, though cormorant fishing is still done by local fishers today for tourists.

Architecture

The Bai architecture is characterized by three buildings forming a U and a fourth wall as a screen. The middle has a courtyard. The houses are usually built out of brick and wood, and the main room is in the middle (opposite the screen wall). The screen wall is built with brick and stone. The house is painted in white with black tile paintings depicting animals and other natural images. The detailing usually is made of clay sculpture, woodcarving, colored drawing, stone inscription, marble screens and dark brink. It produces a very striking and elegant effect. Dali is well known for its marble. The name for marble is 'Dali marble' in Chinese. It is used in modern architecture by the Bai.

Notable Bai

Duan Siping Duan Siping (, IPA: ; Bai: Duainb six-pienp), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Dali, was a Chinese monarch and politician. He was the founding emperor of the Dali Kingdom. The Dali Kingdom would last until the Mongol conqu ...

(段思平) - founder of the Kingdom of Dali *

Shen Yiqin Shen Yiqin (; born 15 December 1959) is a Chinese politician of Bai ethnic heritage. She served as the Communist Party Secretary of Guizhou, a province in southwestern China, between November 2020 and December 2022. Shen is the third female p ...

(谌贻琴) - Communist Party Secretary of

Wang Xiji Wang Xiji (; born 26 July 1921) is a Chinese aerospace engineer. The chief designer of China's first sounding rocket ( T-7), first space launch vehicle ( Long March 1) and first recoverable satellites, he was awarded the Two Bombs, One Satellite ...

(王希季) - aerospace engineer, designer of the

Long March 1 The Long March 1 (长征一号), also known as the Changzheng-1 (CZ-1), was the first member of China's Long March rocket family. Like the U.S.'s and the Soviet Union's first rockets, it was based on a class of ballistic missiles, namely the D ...

rocket * (徐琳) - linguist, one of two founders of modern grammar of Bai language. *

Yang Chaoyue Yang Chaoyue (, born July 31, 1998) is a Chinese actress and singer. After finishing third in Tencent's girl group survival show ''Produce 101'', she debuted as a member of Rocket Girls 101. She was named by ''China Newsweek'' as one of the mos ...

(杨超越) - singer, former member of

Rocket Girls 101 Rocket Girls 101 () was a Chinese idol girl group formed by Tencent through the 2018 reality show Produce 101 China on Tencent Video. The project girl group consists of eleven-members that came from different companies: Meng Meiqi, Wu Xuanyi, Y ...

Yang Liping Yang Liping (; born 10 November 1958) is a Chinese dancer and choreographer of Bai ethnicity. She rose to fame for choreographing and performing "The spirit of Peacock" in 1986. She was the first dancer from Mainland China that went to Taiwan to ...

(杨丽萍) - dancer * Yang Rong (楊蓉) - actress * Yang Yuntao (楊雲濤) - dancer * Zhang Le Jin Qiu (张乐进求) - legendary ancestor of the Bai * Zhang Lizhu (张丽珠) - gynecologist * Zhang Jiebao (张结宝) - a famous bandit leader, active in the 1920s in northwestern Yunnan. * Zhao Fan (趙藩) - scholar, calligrapher and poet * Zhao Shiming (赵式铭) - scholar, the first one who studied the Bai language the most systematically. * Zhao Yansun (赵衍荪) - linguist, one of two founders of modern grammar of Bai language. *

Zhou Baozhong Zhou Baozhong (; 1902–1964) was a commander of the 88th Separate Rifle Brigade and Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army resisting the pacification of Manchukuo by the Empire of Japan. After the Chinese Civil War he was made Vice Governor of Y ...

(周保中) - military general, who led the battles against the Japanese invasion in Northeastern China. * Fiona Ma (馬世雲) - American Politician. *

Dianxi Xiaoge Dianxi Xiaoge (; born 1990) is a Chinese food vlogger and YouTuber from Yunnan. Dianxi Xiaoge, along with Ms Yeah and Li Ziqi, are the only Chinese Internet celebrities who have reached international prominence, according to the ''Southern Metro ...

(滇西小哥) - Youtuber

References

Citations

Sources

Travel China Guide - Bai minority ethnic group
* *

External links

*

' *

' {{Authority control Ethnic groups in Yunnan Buddhist communities of China Ethnic groups officially recognized by China