On the Pluralistic Phenomena within Naxi Culture
Gai Xingzhi and Gao Huiyi use loanword evidence in the Naxi language to trace layers of external cultural influence -- Tibetan Bon, Han Chinese, and Bai -- on Naxi society. In Dongba culture, they identify borrowed Bon and Lamaist religious vocabulary, adopted scriptures, deities of Tibetan and Bai origin (including a Tibetan-derived etymology for Dongba Shilo, the religion's founder), and divination techniques borrowed from six neighboring peoples. In folk custom, they document how Han festivals (Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn, Dragon Boat, Qingming) were absorbed with modified content, how patrilineal kinship terminology replaced older matrilineal terms under Han influence, and how Han New Year prints, couplets, and funerary customs merged with Naxi practice. In language and literature, they cover Naxi authors writing Sinicized poetry, Naxi-Chinese bilingual humor, the spread of Han folk literature, and the Sinicization of surnames (the Mu clan lineage). The article closes by linking these findings to Fei Xiaotong's theory of the Chinese nation's "pluralistic unity," citing Naxi legends in which Tibetans, Bai, and Naxi (or Han, Tibetans, and Naxi) are described as brothers who created their own scripts.
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