Hemp and Mosuo Social Structure in Life-Cycle Rituals: A Study Based on Wa Village, Yunnan
Based on fieldwork in Wa Village, a Mosuo settlement in Ninglang County, Yunnan, this article examines the role of hemp (ma) in Mosuo life-cycle rituals—birth, coming-of-age, and funeral rites—prior to the founding of the People's Republic of China (hemp cultivation later declined and disappeared after a 1990s misidentification as cannabis). The author argues that hemp appears repeatedly in these rituals not merely as a passive object but as a culturally charged item that highlights collective identity, shapes gender distinctions between men and women, and reinforces social belonging. Because hemp holds a central material and symbolic position in Mosuo society, rituals built around it more readily achieve their intended social goals, while hemp's ritual prominence in turn strengthens its own social status. Through this reciprocal construction among hemp, people, and ritual, the study proposes a new analytical pathway—centering "important objects"—for interpreting the social structures of other ethnic communities possessing similarly significant material objects.
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