Mythologies of the Hani/Ho Tribe

 

The Hani or Ho people (Hani: Haqniq; Chinese: 哈尼族; pinyin: Hānízú; Vietnamese: Người Hà Nhì / 𠊛何贰) are a Lolo-speaking ethnic group in Southern China and Northern Laos and Vietnam. They form one of the 56 officially recognized nationalities of the People’s Republic of China and one of the 54 officially recognized ethnic groups of Vietnam. In Laos, the Hani are more commonly known as Ho. There are 12,500 Hani living in Lai Châu Province and Lào Cai Province of Vietnam. The Ho reside in the mountainous northern regions of Phongsaly Province in Laos, near the Chinese and Vietnamese borders. Over ninety percent of present-day Hani peoples live in the Province of Yunnan in Southern China, located across the Ailao Mountains, between the Mekong River and the Red River (Yuanjiang river).

The Cultural Landscape of Honghe Hani Rice Terraces, China covers 16,603-hectares in Southern Yunnan. It is marked by spectacular terraces that cascade down the slopes of the towering Ailao Mountains to the banks of the Hong River. Over the past 1,300 years, the Hani people have developed a complex system of channels to bring water from the forested mountaintops to the terraces. They have also created an integrated farming system that involves buffalos, cattle, ducks, fish and eel and supports the production of red rice, the area’s primary crop. The inhabitants worship the sun, moon, mountains, rivers, forests and other natural phenomena including fire. They live in 82 villages situated between the mountaintop forests and the terraces. The villages feature traditional thatched “mushroom” houses. The resilient land management system of the rice terraces demonstrates extraordinary harmony between people and their environment, both visually and ecologically, based on exceptional and long-standing social and religious structures. The landscape reflects an integrated four-fold system of forests, water supply, terraces and houses. The mountain top forests are the lifeblood of the terraces in capturing and sustaining the water needed for the irrigation. There are four types of forests, the ancient ‘water recharge’ forest, sacred forest, consolidation forests, and village forests for the provision of timber for building, food and firewood. The sacred forests still have strong connotations. Above the village are places for the Village God “Angma” (the soul of the village) and for the Land Protection God “Misong”, where villagers pray for peace, health and prosperity.

The Hani people on the border of Vietnam in southern Yunnan may be the most traditional and least assimilated of the ethnic minorities in southern China. There are about 2 million in China. They make remarkable terraced rice paddies and are known for their tea culture. They grow excellent teas including the often costly but delicious and healthful variety called Pu’er. Tourists like to visit their towns and tribal villages, eat their cuisine, buy and drink their teas, and experience their lifestyles. About 90% of the 2,000,000 Hani (or Hani) in China live in Yunnan Province. They are concentrated on the southwestern corner of Yunnan along the Vietnam border in counties along the lower reaches of the Honghe River. About 30,000 live on the other side of the Vietnam border, and almost 400,000 more are in other Southeast Asian countries. There are 200,000 in Burma.

Hani, also called Woni or Houni, an official nationality of China. The Hani live mainly on the high southwestern plateau of Yunnan province, China, specifically concentrated in the southwestern corner. There are also several thousands of Hani or related peoples in northern Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam and in eastern Myanmar (Burma). Altogether they numbered some two million in the early 21st century. Thirteen subgroups of this official classification call themselves by other names, but they speak mutually intelligible Tibeto-Burman languages of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Classified as tribes of the larger Yi ethnic group, the Hani are believed to be a branch of the ancient Qiang from the north, appearing in the Dadu River region in Han times. They were slightly infiltrated by Thai who were fleeing the Mongols. Contemporary Hani are mostly farmers who produce two excellent types of tea and are also known for their remarkable terraced rice paddies. A distinct subgroup of the Hani known as the Akha live in China, as well as parts of Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. They are believed to be of Chinese origin, though, for a variety of reasons, they have lived a wandering life. A notable feature of female dress is an elaborate headdress made with silver or white beads and silver coins. This and other features of the Akha culture are dissipating under pressure of both missionary work and other outside forces.

The Hani are one of China’s 56 officially recognized ethnic groups. They number around 1.6 million and are primarily located along the Hong River in the deep southern province of Yunnan. Many Hani are also located in Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand. Most tourists visiting Yunnan have likely run into a Hani person, perhaps without even knowing it. This is because the Hani homeland is extremely beautiful and attractive to outsiders. Over 90 percent of China’s Hani live in the mountains between the Hong and Mekong rivers, where some of China’s most striking rice terraces are found. In fact, the agriculturally adept Hani are the ones who originally terraced the land in many cases. In addition to being beautiful, the area is also ecologically diverse and rich with mineral resources. The capital of the Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture is known as China’s “Tin Capital.”

It is often said that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from space. It’s not true, of course; the crumbling, frequently overgrown structure is mostly no wider than a country road. But if the unaided human eye really can spot some of Earth’s engineered marvels from low orbit, then in China they must surely include the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces. Hacked from mountains in the country’s south-western Yunnan province, the sprawling terraces – hundreds of thousands of them – stack up over more than 160sq km to create one of the most spectacular and jaw-dropping landscapes on the planet. “Since ancient times, Hani people have built ditches and canals to divert spring water from mountains and forests to irrigate terraced fields,” said A Xiaoying, a Yunnan-based guide with specialist tour company China Highlights. “The amount of ditches required has been huge, needing a great deal of manpower and material resources, which individuals or villages could not afford independently.”

Yangjie Village in Yuanjiang County in southwest China’s Yunnan Province is mostly inhabited by the Hani people. They are one of the earliest farmers who built rice paddy fields on this mountainous area.  Hani people here still preserve the traditional way of living and celebrate ethnic festivals like the kuzhazha and shiyuenian. The village is also the origin place of Hani people’s palm fan dance. Yunnan Province in southwest China boasts spectacular natural landscapes, biodiversity and diverse ethnic groups. Among China’s 56 recognized ethnic groups, 25 are in Yunnan. This livestream series takes you on tour to six cities or autonomous prefectures in Yunnan to see the little-known food, scenery and folk customs. 

The Hani people mainly inhabit an area within the reaches of the Yuan and Lantsang Rivers. This is a branch of the ancient Qiang people who had been nomadic on the Tibetan Plateau and then emigrated southward. The Hani ethnic group now has a population of 1,424,990. Their language belongs to the Yi branch, Tibetan-Burman group of the Sino-Tibetan phylum. The language has no characters of its own, so in 1957 the Chinese government created a set of spelling characters based on Latin. They are convinced that everything has soul, so they worship many gods and their ancestors. In the 1920s, Christianity and Buddhism had spread to them, but with little influence. The person who is designated to hold the religious activities is hereditary and doctors cure patients with witchcraft and herbal medicine. Calculated according to the Hani calendar, the first day of the tenth month is the festival of most pomp. It is customary for the people to sing, dance and drink, even overnight, and to make sacrifice to their ancestors. Ku-Zha-Zha is celebrated for three days in the sixth lunar month. On the first day, men go to the public place to kill an ox and share with all the people in the village; the second day women get up early and clean their houses, then prepare sumptuous dinners to worship ancestors; on the third day all the people wear their flowery clothes and hold many entertainments like swinging, and singing.

The Hani ethnic group is one of the many unique tribes in Yunnan Province. With a population of 1,424,990, they are mainly distributed over the mountain areas between the Red River and the Lancang River in Yunnan Province. The Hani ethnic group shares the same origin with the Yi and Lahu ethnic groups. According to the historical records, they all evolved from the ancient Qiang people. The Qiang people used to be a nomadic tribe living in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. Later one branch of them moved south and early by the 3rd century, their forefathers had inhabited the swampland along the Dadu River and Yalong River. In the 7th century, they immigrated into the area near Mt. Ailao and Mt. Wuliang. In the Tang and Song dynasties, this area was successively reined in by the Nanzhao and Dali kingdoms. The Yuan Dynasty (1271 – 1368) established a prefecture to rule the Hani and other ethnic groups in Yunnan. The Ming Dynasty (1368 – 1644) exercised its rule through local chieftains, who were granted official posts. During the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911) court officials replaced the chieftains. The Hani ethnic group comprises over twenty subgroups. They used to be called ‘Hani’, ‘Heni’, ‘Budu’, ‘Biyue’, ‘Yani’, etc. With the founding of the PRC in 1949, following consultation with the ethnic group, it was decided to agree upon the official name of Hani ethnic group.

Hani legends tell of a lost book containing their own script. As the legend goes, the Creator God wrote their script on buffalo skin, but during a long journey, the Hani people became hungry and ate the book, leaving them without a written language. The Hani migrated from China to northern Vietnam about 300 years ago. Today they are in Vietnam, Laos, and China. Over 25,000 of them live in Vietnam, and fewer than 15 are followers of Christ. They are typically farmers and follow a mixture of religions including Taoism and animism. Currently, the Hani has a few gospel recordings in their own language.

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