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🦋 Jade Dragon Mountain

According to a 1955 assessment of the Library's manuscripts for the Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnology Academia Sinica (Taipei, Taiwan, 1958) by art historian Li Lin-Ts'an, "The Yunnan Province was famous for Yunnan pines. Their wood, after being set on fire, liberates a soot which is easy to collect. This soot, when mixed with some glue and water, forms an excellent ink. During winter, the leisure season for farmers, the [Naxi] sorcerers, without any farming work to do, sat down by their fireplace and using a bamboo pen dipped it into their ink while humming to themselves, and they began to write a Sacred Book for pleasure or for some special festival usage."

Mr. Li wrote: "The books for sacrifices to those who committed suicide from frustrated love are the most romantic and poetic of the [Naxi] people. The [Naxi] youth all believe that at the upper part of the Jade Dragon Mountain, just under the white snow peaks, there is a wonderful land, with thousands of kinds of flowers covering its fields, called 'The Kingdom of the Suicide Lovers.' If any couple, who because of love frustration, climb to this wonderful place and kill themselves, they will never part from each other again and will keep their youth and beauty forever, and will be happy always."

Mr. Li reported that 440 of the volumes in the Library's collection were for funeral ceremonies. "This great number is due to the fact that the [Naxi] people look upon death as an affair of great moment." The Naxis believe the soul goes immediately to hell. One of the Dongbas' primary duties is to lead souls out of hell. Another 74 volumes were used for divination, wrote Li. "The [Naxi] people are a tribe whose members like divination above all other things."

posted morning of Saturday, February 9th, 2013
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