The Naxi Pictographic Script
This article by Olaf Czaja introduces the pictographic script of the Naxi (also called Na-khi, Nakhi, Nashi, or Dongba), an ethnic minority of about 270,000 people living mainly in northwestern Yunnan and southwestern Sichuan, China, centered around Lijiang. Historically shaped by their powerful neighbors—China to the east, Tibet to the west—the Naxi's culture and religion reflect influences from Tibetan Buddhism and Chinese folk Taoism, traits shared with other regional minorities. What sets them apart is their unique pictographic writing system, used exclusively for religious purposes. Priests recorded prophecies, magical formulas, and ritual myths in handwritten books, which served mainly as mnemonic aids rather than complete texts, since practitioners memorized the material. Today only a few people can read these "keyword books," and fewer still can write them. The script's vivid, expressive characters vary in transparency of meaning. Pioneering researcher Joseph Franz Rock (1882–1964) spent nearly 27 years documenting and collecting Naxi materials.
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