This article is from WeChat official account:One (ID: yitiaotv), Readme: Liu Chunyu, Editor: Chen Xing, head picture from: Picture courtesy of Liu Chunyu
Weng Ding, hailed as “the last primitive tribe in China” by “Chinese National Geographic”, disappeared completely in a fire on the third day of the Lunar New Year this year.
This was originally a place like a paradise: even distribution of materials, self-sufficiency in life, every day life is basically no money, everyone gathers together to sing and dance after work, no quarrels, no utilitarian calculations. Love confession is like reading a poem…
For the past ten years, Director Liu Chunyu has been shooting Weng Ding, recording the ten-year changes of the “last batch of primitive people”. He witnessed Weng Ding’s development of tourism and took off the hat of a poor county, but because of the intrusion of tourists and consumerism, he turned into an “imaginary Wa village”.
Liu Chunyu, director of the documentary “Weng Ding”
After the fire, he chatted with us about his ten years of shooting Weng Ding. Everyone in Weng Ding had stood in front of his camera alive, “All the plots and endings of “On Ding” , All I don’tcontrollable. The development of each culture, the change of civilization, is behind such a sigh. “
Wengding is a small village on the bank of the Lancang River in Yunnan, belonging to Cangyuan County. The Lancang River is one of the fastest rivers in the world, and Wengding is hidden in the mountains along the river.
The word “Weng” in Weng Ding means water, and “Ding” means picking up. Weng Ding in Wa means the place where two rivers meet. From the time the first tourist bus came in, Onding was placed in the two rivers of primitive society and modern society.
In 1998, Wengding began to receive tourists. According to statistics from the Cangyuan County Tourism Bureau, there were only 300 tourists a year at that time. In 2004, because of the first Sigangli “Touching You Black” Carnival, Cangyuan County successfully went out of the circle. The number of visitors to Onding has increased exponentially. By 2016, there were 300,000 visitors a year at its peak.
The Carnival of “Touching You Black” successfully made Cangyuan County where Weng Ding is located
In 2006, “Chinese National Geographic” magazine reported on Weng Ding, calling it “the last primitive tribe in China.” It retains the complete Wa traditional railing-style thatched houses and various buildings, as well as the original Wa ethnic customs. It can be said to be a living Wa cultural museum.
Soon, Wengding was included in the first batch of intangible heritage cultural protection list in Yunnan Province, and Wengdingzhai was built as a primitive tribal cultural tourism area. The face of poverty and backwardness has begun to change, and conflicts in lifestyle have also come. Wangding people have their own unique “fire pond culture”, how to reconcile with modern living style? Laozhai is difficult to rebuild, should we relocate to the new village collectively? Villagers began to fall into the constant seesaw with foreign cultures.
The title of “the last primitive tribe in China” has attracted many tourists
Before the fire in 2021, there was a raging fire in Onding in 2013. The fire drew a pause in the tug of war that was stuck at the time. Due to the fire, the county decided to cooperate with tourism companies in consideration of the safety of residence and travel, Leaving Guzhai, choose a site to build Xinzhai. Director Liu Chunyu began to intervene in filming at this time.
By 2018, the relocation of Wengding New Village has finally been completed. But what everyone didn’t expect was that in 2021, there was another big fire in the stockade, and this time the fire was so fierce that it basically burned Laozhai completely clean.
After the 2013 fire, the villagers are cleaning the burned houses
Within a month after the fire ended, Liu Chunyu ran everywhere.
He originally planned to return to Wengding in March to shoot the last few sets of empty shots, but it was too late. He published an open letter on the Internet to raise materials for the villagers. Many netizens supported him online. He quickly raised money and donated all the materials to the villagers. But he has not contacted the owner’s son, “I have never asked him about the fire, I am afraid he will not be able to bear it.”
There have been many fires in history, but Ondin has enough toughness to survive. But this time, “Weng Ding, who worshipped fire, disappeared into the fire”, Liu Chunyu said it was a metaphor.
The following is Liu Chunyu’s narrative:
20February 14, 21, that day was the Wa New Year in Wengding New Village, and all the villagers celebrated the New Year in the new village. It hasn’t rained for many days in Onding, it’s very dry. While they were cooking, there was a fire in Laozhai, which spread extremely fast. At that time, the wind reached level 6, and it burned for an hour and a half.
The only thing I can do for the 17 households in Laozhai is to run out quickly. They didn’t get any cash at home. I watched the house burn down from start to finish. Nothing in the house was burned, rice jars, grain, and 104 houses in Laozhai were all gone.
I was not there at the time. The villagers later sent me a live video, all crying behind the back.
All the plot and ending of “Onding” are beyond my control. My film started with a fire in 2013, but I didn’t expect it to end with a fire. I don’t think I am the director of “Onding”. God is the best director. I and its people are just recorders.
1. I first arrived in Wengding, it’s a paradise
In 2012, I filmed a documentary on “National Story” for CCTV, one episode for each ethnic group, and I was in charge of the Wa ethnic group in Yunnan. “Chinese National Geographic” said Wengding was the last primitive tribe, and my instinct was to go and see it.
When I went to Wengding Village for the first time, I was really shocked. It is not too far from the border between China and Myanmar, and the way to go is still winding dirt roads. Once there, the entire field of vision opened up. Surrounded by mountains, there is a good paddy field on the right, and the whole village is next to the paddy field. The villagers are changing the thatch on the roof. Every stone is washed by rain, and it is green moss. It is a paradise.
The history of Onding’s existence is actually different. Later, I asked Yimeng Hongmu, a writer from the Lincang Federation of Literary and Art Circles. She once visited the Wa villages in China and Burma. It is speculated that Wengding has a history of 250 years, and the error will not exceed 30 years. .
The village of Wengding chose to settle here because Wengding belonged to the Hunter Head tribe at that time, and they were headhunted. About 300 years ago, they were driven by the Dai chieftain.
The custom of hunter heads: Every year, you must go to other tribes to chop a head back and sacrifice to the valley god of your tribe. Only then will the millet be harvested and full. This custom continued until around 1951.
It is totally right to say that it is the last primitive tribe. The Wengding people have their own worldview and their own set of rules. For 365 days a year, the Wa calendar stipulates what to do every day: which day is the Wa calendar and which dayrticle/content/202104/01/083229069768.gif?imageView2/2/w/1000/format/gif/interlace/1/q/85″ data-w=”700″ data-h=”393″>
Women gather linen, draw silk, and weave
Wengding villagers raise piglets in their backyard
Their happiness is not the same as ours now, and they don’t have many material requirements. The Weng Ding people’s concept of money is just a symbol, and they have no concept of number. Tourists take a group photo of them and give them a few hundred dollars. Their money is there, and it is not particularly clear what they can buy. Although it is an extremely poor county, it does not need to spend a penny a year.
The Wa people claim that they can talk and sing, and they can walk and dance. There is a stake in the entire stockade, which is where they think the god who guards the stockade lives. Every year during the festival, every villager would hold a torch and come to the village to make a bonfire and dance around it.
The Wa people claim to be able to speak and sing, and to walk and dance
The Wa people are actually very gentle and tolerant, and they never quarrel. I chatted with the villagers, they are very sincere to people, and there is no utilitarianism that is mixed with what you will get from you. Whenever someone gets married, the whole village will help with the arrangements, eating, singing, and dancing. Whoever gave birth to a child, I feel that the whole village is raising him, basically he grew up eating a hundred families.
They are extremely rich in spirit, their speech is very poetic. For example, when they show love, they say a bird on the horizon, and there is a bird behind it. It will always follow you. This sky is our.
In 1958, the Institute of Ethnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences made a documentary on Weng Ding in anthropology
2. Huotang is the heart of Wengding people
In 1958, the Institute of Ethnic Studies of the Chinese Academy of Sciences filmed an anthropological documentary for Weng Ding, which was exactly the same as Weng Ding before he was burnt down.
I photographed the family of the 6th generation owner Yang Yan. The village owner is the biggest power holder in the original system. When people came to visit him and said that he was the owner of the village, he was actually very proud. He would show it to others with a dart gun, which symbolized the status of the village owner.
Drinking tea by the fire pond every day is the best thing he thinks.
The owner and his wife
A group photo of the owner’s family
The Wa people are known as the “Unextinguished Fire Pond”. The fire pond is their heart. Every household in Wengding Village has a firepit, which is basically in the middle of the house. The fire pond is a square structure of about 1.5 meters, and the house is built up with soil from the ground.
In the past, tigers, bears, leopards and other wild animals would come in in the village. Fire is to drive away wild animals.
The fork room is actually inseparable from fire
The thatched house of the Wa people has a separate name, called Chachafang. Everyone thinks that thatched house is afraid of fire, but in fact it cannot be separated from fire. Because if the rain falls, there is no fire, it will rot in a few days.
Women’s childbirth is all done by the firepit. The young man sleeps at the door, the child is on the right side of the house, and the owner of the house is guarding the firepit on the left side, and cannot let it go out. Family gatherings and sacrificial ceremonies are held by the fire pond. They live by fire, which has been passed down for hundreds of years.
Every household in Wengding lives by fire
In their minds, everything is done under the guidance of gods, mountain gods, water gods, fire gods, and tree gods, guiding each of themChoices. All things have anims, which is their national belief.
Their rice tank is hollowed out of a very thick and strong wood, and has a history of more than 100 years. In each house stood an important central pillar, and the weight of the entire house was weighed on it. They believed that this pillar could reach the sky. They know the source of every tree. Every household has an ancestral house, with objects left behind by ancestors…
After staying there for a long time, you will feel that Onding is an intact sample from the ancient parallel space. How do we be kind to others? How do we view nature? How do we think about our own culture? There, we see the original person.
Three. Before being burned, Weng Ding was no longer Weng Ding
In 2013, a fire broke out because of the exposed wires sparking under the rain. In the ideology of the Wa people, all fires are caused by fire ghosts. The village is protected by the gods, and if the gods are negligent, the fire ghosts will come in. The whole village is spitting, meaning “we despise you(fire ghost), don’t come to us again Village”.
At that time, young people took out bowls and pans to fight the fire, and women were not allowed to participate. When the fire was put out, the old people were chanting. The Big Moba, who is responsible for the sacrificial ceremony, will gather the villagers to perform a complete set of sacrificial ceremony. All the people in the village can only face outside the village, not the village. After the ritual, the fire ghosts from the fire rescuers are driven away before they can return to the village.
On October 27, 2013, a fire broke out in Wengding
During the fire, the old people are chanting scriptures
After the fire, the idea of relocation became more and more dominant. The old people said that the reason for the fire was that God was reminding the people of Onding not to move. But young people want to leave more and more.
In those few years, the young Weng Ding worked in Fujian and Guangdong and saw some developments in society outside. Just like the villagers themselves said, “I also want to live in a small western-style building, with TV sets, refrigerators, washing machines…and we can’t keep being so poor.” The good life that young people think of is no longer idyllic. No one wants to take their poverty for you to watch.
Starting from 2012, Wengding people have gone to work in other places
The entire village of Onding moved out overnight in 2018. More than 80 households have all moved away. The young man thought that the old man was asleep, so he moved secretly at night. They also told me that for fear of being seen by the elderly, they felt that they had become Weng Ding’s sinners.
But in fact, that night, all the old people did not sleep, they were guarding by the firepit at home. Hearing the noise outside, the old people were crying at home, and the village was gone.
Since then, the village owner can’t afford to be ill
Since then, the owner of the village has become ill and suffered from cerebellar atrophy.
His mind is sometimes awake and sometimes not awake. When I am not awake, I keep calling my mother, “Am I about to become a flying ant? Where is my mother?” Weng Ding people believe that people will become children twice in their lives. The chance is once you are just born, and the other is when you are about to pass away. On the sixth day after the villagers moved to Xinzhai, the village owner left.
In fact, Weng Ding was no longer Weng Ding before he was burned down. It was originally a warm place. At night, there are dancing, singing, and falling in love. But after the young people moved away, every household looked like a tomb, and there was no anger at all in the black holes.
Wengding’s New Village
Unmanned Wengding Village
Four. The owner wants me to be Weng Ding’s son-in-law
I started shooting at the age of 30. I thought it would be done in half a year or a year, but I didn’t expect it would be 10 years.
At first they thought I was a tourist taking pictures. I didn’t understand Wa or communicate with them. They laughed at me. When I looked at the material later, the translator told me that they laughed at me and said that I was like a fool.
At the longest time, I stayed in Wengding for half a year. Every morning, I followed the villagers of Wengding and got up at 5 o’clock. Until 12 o’clock in the evening, I photographed their lives, production, and chats, many of which are relatively trivial matters. Whoever cut his foot in the field, the whole family reunited during the New Year, and went to other villages to get a bag of rice in exchange for a pig… I just followed them completely.
When Liu Chunyu first arrived in Wengding Village, he stillLong hair fluttering
By 2017, the contact time has been long, and I have experienced their lives with them. The owner of the village also invited me to sit on his stool, which is the tallest stool in the village. I said I was an outsider and couldn’t sit. The village owner said, “It’s okay to sit.” I feel that they treat me as a family member. They even introduced me to a Wa girl, trying to turn me into Weng Ding’s son-in-law.
In the most difficult time, I really couldn’t hold on, and I ran out of money. After two months of filming, I would shoot a promotional video for others in half a month or a month, be a camera, film a wedding, and I would go back to film it after earning money. After selling a house and a car, I already owe hundreds of thousands, just like tearing down the east wall to make up the west wall. In fact, there is still unpaid money.
Many kinds of machines have been changed, and several of them have been broken. I used a DV machine and a digital camera. I took the iPhone4s and iPad to shoot. Because the memory is very small, you have to pour the material while shooting. They are still laughing at me, saying “Why are you so poor?”
The happiest and most unhappy thing in these 10 years is that I didn’t expect that I would have so much determination to do this. Neither the house nor the car is the most important thing in my opinion. I want to give myself an explanation for the past 10 years.
I didn’t tell my family about these things. My family just knew that I had been shooting Onding for many years. They asked, I can see Weng Ding’s film on TV, did I make it? I said no. I did not shoot like this. So what did you shoot? I said I’m still doing it. Later they stopped asking.
The unburnt Weng Ding will always become a painting
The owner of the village happily showed his young photos during his lifetime
I did not pursue technicality when I filmed “Onding”. It was not about the structure of light and shadow, but how to look at it from a person’s perspective. Wengding Village is a mother in my heart, and I regard it as a person of flesh and blood.
Weng Ding was burned down. Unfortunately, there must be some, but I think this may be the best ending for Weng Ding. This fire is actually a sacrificial ritual for it to leave the world, “You let my child go, and I won’t let other people live in.”
The development of a culture and the change of a civilization are in fact changes. There is such a sigh behind it. If you gain something, you will lose something.
The audio and video materials are provided by Liu Chunyu,This article is from the WeChat official account:< /span>One (ID: yitiaotv), Readme: Liu Chunyu, Editor: Chen Xing