Maonan of the Huanjiang Karst and Their Flower-Bamboo Hats

In the karst hills of the northwest of Guangxi, in the mountainous south of China, live the Maonan, one of the smallest of the country’s recognised peoples, numbering only around a hundred thousand. Close kin to the Dong, the Sui, and the Mulao, they dwell above all in the county of Huanjiang, tilling the valleys and raising a fine breed of cattle, and they are famed for the delicate flower-bamboo hat, the carved stone of their building, and the masked dramas of the Fenlong festival.

This account follows the Maonan from their origins among the ancient Yue peoples of the south, through their karst villages, their clans, and their cattle, into their Kam-Sui language, their worship of the ancestors and the masked rites of the ritual masters, and the bamboo hat, the stone carving, and the Fenlong festival that mark them. It ends with the Maonan of today, one of the smallest peoples of China, keeping their crafts and their festivals alive in the limestone hills of the south.

The Cattle-Raisers of the Huanjiang Hills
Maonan, Anan, and the Name of the People
The Maonan Tongue and Its Kam-Sui Kindred
The Karst Hills of Northwest Guangxi
The Villages, the Clans, and the Old Order
The Clan, the Village, and the Bonds of the Maonan
The Ancestors, the Spirits, and the Rites of the Feast
The Bamboo Hat, the Stone Carving, and the Ways of the Maonan
The Hat-Weavers, the Stone-Carvers, and the Makers of Cloth
Rice, Beef, and the Table of the Hills
The Fenlong, the Ancestor Rites, and the Feasts
From the Ancient Yue to the People of Modern China
The Maonan in Modern China

The Cattle-Raisers of the Huanjiang Hills

In the karst hills of the northwest of Guangxi, in the mountainous south of China, live the Maonan, one of the smallest of China’s recognised peoples, numbering only around a hundred thousand. They dwell above all in the county of Huanjiang, set aside as their autonomous home, among the sharp limestone hills and green valleys of the region, close kin to the Dong, the Sui, and the Mulao of the Kam-Sui world.

The Maonan belong to the Kam-Sui branch of the great Tai-Kadai family, kin in the deep past to the Dong, the Sui, and the Mulao who live near them, and more distantly to the Zhuang and the Tai peoples. Their forebears are counted among the ancient Baiyue, the many Yue peoples who once spread across the whole of southern China, and the Maonan are among their heirs in the Guangxi hills.

Settled in the karst country of northwest Guangxi, the Maonan became over the centuries a distinct people, keeping their own tongue and customs while living close among the Zhuang, the Han, and their other neighbours. Farmers of the valleys, they became known above all as skilled raisers of cattle, and the fine breed of oxen they bred was famed across the region.

To speak of the Maonan is to speak of one of the smallest peoples of China, a folk of the Guangxi karst close kin to the Dong and the Sui, keepers of their own Kam-Sui tongue and of distinctive crafts, the fine bamboo hat and the carved stone, and of the lively festival of the Fenlong. Living among their neighbours in the limestone hills, they hold their own place among the peoples of the Chinese south.

Maonan, Anan, and the Name of the People

The people are known as the Maonan, the name they give themselves, and it is by this name that the state recognises them as one of its nationalities and sets aside the Huanjiang Maonan autonomous county in northwest Guangxi. The name is their own word for who they are, binding together the small communities of the karst hills.

In the old records the Maonan and their forebears appear under various renderings, for they were long a small people of the Guangxi hills, at times counted with their Zhuang or Dong neighbours. The modern surveys marked them as a people in their own right, distinct in tongue and custom, under the name Maonan, one of the smallest of the recognised nationalities.

The Maonan are close kin to the Sui, the Dong, and the Mulao, so near in the Kam-Sui branch of the Tai world that their languages are related and their customs share much, yet the Maonan are a distinct people with their own name, their own home in the Huanjiang hills, and their own traditions of the hat, the stone, and the feast.

Whatever the rendering, the people know themselves as one, the Maonan, a small folk of the Guangxi karst, keepers of their tongue, their ancestors, and their festivals. The name Maonan marks them among the peoples of China as kin to the Dong, the Sui, and the Mulao, a distinct and very small people of the limestone hills of the south.

The town of Huanjiang in the Maonan country

The Maonan Tongue and Its Kam-Sui Kindred

The Maonan speak a language of the Kam-Sui branch of the Tai-Kadai family, closely akin to the tongues of the Sui, the Dong, and the Mulao, and more distantly to Zhuang and to Thai. Like these it is a tonal language, distinguishing meaning by the pitch of the voice, and it is the everyday speech of the small Maonan communities of the Huanjiang hills.

So close is the Maonan tongue to those of its Kam-Sui kindred that scholars group them together as near relations, a reflection of the common origin of these peoples among the ancient Yue of the south. The Maonan language kept its Kam-Sui character through the long centuries of life among the Zhuang and the Han of the Guangxi hills.

For most of their history the Maonan had no writing of their own, and their store of song, legend, and lore was carried by memory and by mouth, while Chinese served for writing and for dealings with the wider world. Living close among the Han and the Zhuang, the Maonan were long familiar with Chinese, and it was the language of learning and of the wider world.

In the modern age standard Chinese has spread through schooling and daily life, and most Maonan are bilingual, using Chinese for the wider world and their own Kam-Sui tongue at home. As one of the smallest of China’s peoples, living closely among larger neighbours, the Maonan face strong pressure on their language, and its keeping among the young is a matter of real concern.

The Karst Hills of Northwest Guangxi

The homeland of the Maonan is the karst country of the northwest of Guangxi, above all the county of Huanjiang, set among the sharp limestone hills and green valleys of the region, with a few communities in the neighbouring districts. This is the classic karst landscape of the south, a country of cone-shaped hills, deep valleys, caves, and underground rivers, of great beauty but often hard for the farmer.

In this limestone country the Maonan settled the valleys and the basins where soil and water gathered, and there they led the streams into flooded paddies and cut the lower slopes into terraces, making the most of the workable land. The hills between the valleys, sharp and clothed in bamboo and scrub, framed the fields and the villages of the people and gave the materials of their crafts.

The grass and scrub of the karst hills gave grazing for cattle, and the Maonan became known above all as raisers of a fine breed of oxen, the Maonan cattle, prized across the region as strong beasts for the plough and for beef, a distinctive feature of their economy among the peoples of the south. The raising and selling of cattle was a mainstay of the Maonan.

Rooted to the valleys and hills of the Huanjiang country, and gathered in their small autonomous county, the Maonan made their homeland in the karst of northwest Guangxi. It is a land of limestone hill and green valley, of terraced field and cattle pasture, where one of the smallest peoples of China kept its tongue and its customs among the hills of the south.

The karst hills and bamboo of the Maonan country

The Villages, the Clans, and the Old Order

In the days before the reach of the modern state, the Maonan lived in their karst villages as farmers of the valleys and raisers of cattle, under the sway of custom, the guidance of elders, and the bonds of the clan. Each village was a settled community of farming households, ordered by the ties of clan and the authority of the old men, and, above them, by the officials of the empire who ruled the Guangxi hills.

The Maonan were ordered into clans, each bearing its surname and tracing a common ancestor, and the clan was the frame of society, holding the members together, honouring the shared forebears, and ordering the ties of marriage. The village, often the seat of a clan or related families, was the everyday frame of life, and the clan hall a centre of the community.

Life turned on the tilling of the valley fields, the growing of rice and other crops on the terraced land, and above all the raising of the fine Maonan cattle, whose breeding and selling gave the people much of their livelihood. Wealth was reckoned in land, in the herd of oxen, and in the standing of the clan, and the round of the farming year set the rhythm of the community.

Living close among the Zhuang and the Han, the Maonan took much from their neighbours, yet they kept their own tongue, their clans, and their festivals, and their distinctive crafts of the bamboo hat and the carved stone. Governed by custom, by elders, and by the clan, and ruled from afar by the empire, the Maonan lived as small farmers and cattle-raisers of the karst hills, keeping their identity among their neighbours.

The Clan, the Village, and the Bonds of the Maonan

Maonan society rests on the clan and the village, the ties of descent that bind the small communities of the karst valleys. Descent is reckoned through the father’s line, and the Maonan are ordered into clans, each bearing its surname and tracing a common ancestor, and the members of a clan honour the same forebears at the clan hall, owe one another the duties of kin, and marry outside the clan.

The clan hall, where the ancestors are honoured and the affairs of the clan are settled, was a centre of Maonan life, and the clan bound the households of the villages together across the hills. The village, often the seat of a clan or related families, was the everyday frame of life, guided by respected elders and the heads of the clans, for the Maonan built no wide state of their own.

Marriage was arranged by the families according to custom, marked by the exchange of gifts and by feasting, and the ties of marriage bound the clans of a district together. As a very small people living among larger neighbours, the Maonan valued their ties of clan and kin, which held the community together and preserved its identity among the Zhuang and the Han.

Women worked beside the men in the fields and, as weavers and workers of cloth, made the goods of the household, and the honouring of the ancestors and the elders ran through the whole of society. Through the clan, the clan hall, and the village, the Maonan individual was bound into a close community of the karst hills, holding to its identity as one of the smallest of the peoples of China.

The Ancestors, the Spirits, and the Rites of the Feast

The religion of the Maonan is rooted in the worship of the ancestors and in a rich belief in the spirits of the karst world, the spirits of the hills, the caves, the rivers, and the fields. The forebears of the clan are honoured at the clan hall and the household altar, for their goodwill is held to guard the family, and the bond between the living and the dead is carefully kept through the rites of the ancestors.

Around this ancestor worship the Maonan took in, through their long contact with the Han, much of the Taoism and the folk religion of their neighbours, and the ritual masters held an important place among them, performing the rites of healing, of funerals, and of the great festivals with their chants, their masks, and their ritual dramas. The Maonan are known for the masks worn in these rites.

The masked ritual dramas of the Maonan, performed at the great festivals and the rites of thanksgiving, are among the most striking features of their religion, the ritual masters and dancers wearing carved and painted masks of the gods and spirits as they perform the sacred dramas that honour the deities and drive off ill. These masks are treasures of the Maonan and of the folk art of the south.

The Maonan held a host of gods and spirits, and among their most honoured rites were the great festivals of thanksgiving to the ancestors and the gods that guarded the people and the crop. In the modern age the old faith has weakened, yet the honouring of the ancestors, the rites and masks of the ritual masters, and the belief in the spirits of the karst remain at the root of the Maonan sense of themselves.

The karst landscape of Guangxi, homeland of the Maonan

The Bamboo Hat, the Stone Carving, and the Ways of the Maonan

The most famous craft and tradition of the Maonan is the fine bamboo hat, the huadai or flower-bamboo hat, woven of thin strips of bamboo in patterns of great delicacy, so fine and so beautiful that it became famed across the region and beyond. The hat, at once useful against the sun and the rain and a thing of art, was a treasured gift, and in the old custom a bride was given such a hat, a token of love and skill.

The carving of stone was another distinctive Maonan tradition, for the limestone of their country gave a stone that the Maonan carvers worked into the pillars, the door-frames, the tombs, and the ornaments of their building, in patterns of flowers, beasts, and figures. The Maonan stone carving is among the treasures of the folk art of the south, adorning the homes and the graves of the people.

The masked ritual dramas of the ritual masters, performed at the great festivals and the rites of thanksgiving, run as a tradition through Maonan religious life, the carved and painted masks worn in the sacred dramas that honour the gods and the ancestors. Song and dance fill the festivals, and the Maonan share in the songs and gatherings of the wider Guangxi world.

Around these run the customs of the year and of life, the courtship and the weddings with their gift of the flower-bamboo hat, the rites of the ancestors and the masked dramas, and the festivals of the crop and the gods, above all the Fenlong. Through the bamboo hat, the carved stone, and the masks, the Maonan mark the passages of life and the turning of the year in ways carried down from their forebears in the karst hills.

The Hat-Weavers, the Stone-Carvers, and the Makers of Cloth

The most celebrated craft of the Maonan is the weaving of the fine bamboo hat, the flower-bamboo hat, made of thin strips of bamboo split and woven with such delicacy and in such intricate patterns that it is counted among the treasures of Chinese folk craft. The finest hats, light, strong, and beautiful, were treasured and given as gifts, above all to a bride, and the making of them was a skill of great patience and art.

The carving of stone was the other great Maonan craft, for the limestone of the karst gave a stone that the carvers worked into the pillars, the door-frames, the tomb-stones, and the ornaments of their building, in patterns of flowers, beasts, and figures. The Maonan were noted stone-carvers, and their work adorned the homes, the halls, and the graves of the people and of their neighbours.

The women of the Maonan wove and dyed cloth, favouring a deep blue, and sewed and embroidered the dress of the household, and the making of a woman’s dress was a labour of care and a measure of her skill. The building of the houses of the karst villages, with their carved stone, the plaiting of bamboo, and the making of the tools of daily life rounded out the crafts of the people.

The raising and breeding of the fine Maonan cattle was itself a skill and a mainstay of the people, and the working of the gifts of the karst, the bamboo, the stone, and the clay, gave the goods of daily life. Yet it is for the flower-bamboo hat and the carved stone above all that the crafts of the Maonan are known, an art of delicacy and skill that marked this small people among the peoples of the south.

The Guangxi karst hills of the Maonan region

Rice, Beef, and the Table of the Hills

The food of the Maonan is the food of the Guangxi karst, built on rice grown in the flooded paddies of the valleys, with maize and other crops on the terraced slopes. Rice is the heart of every meal, boiled or steamed, and among the Maonan the glutinous sticky rice is especially prized for the festivals, when it is steamed and often coloured with the juices of plants for the great days.

To the rice is added a relish of vegetables, gathered greens, beans, and the produce of the garden, with meat as the food of festivals and welcome. As raisers of the fine Maonan cattle, the people had beef at their table more than many, above all at the great occasions, and pork from the household pigs and fish from the streams and paddies added to the fare. The Maonan share the Guangxi love of the sour and the pungent.

A distinctive food of the Maonan is a dish of beef or other meat cooked with the tender inner lining of the ox, and the many uses to which they put the beef of their famed cattle, a mark of a people who raised oxen as a mainstay. The forests and hills of the karst yield wild plants, herbs, and game to enrich the table through the year.

Rice wine, brewed in the household, is the drink of hospitality and of ritual, poured for guests, shared at every festival, and offered to the ancestors and the gods at the Fenlong and the other rites. From the terraced rice and the coloured festival rice to the beef of the Maonan cattle and the home-brewed wine, the food of the Maonan is rooted in the valleys and the pastures of the karst hills.

The Fenlong, the Ancestor Rites, and the Feasts

The greatest festival of the Maonan is the Fenlong, held at the start of summer to honour the ancestors and the gods and to pray for rain, for the crop, and for the welfare of the people and the cattle. Led by the ritual masters with their chants and masked dramas, and kept with the whole community, the Fenlong is the high point of the Maonan year and the fullest gathering of the people.

At the Fenlong the community makes its offerings to the gods and the ancestors, prays for a good year, and holds the masked ritual dramas, the songs, and the feasting that fill the days, and among the customs is the making and eating of coloured glutinous rice and other festival foods. The festival binds the community to its forebears and its gods and renews the life of the people.

The masked dramas of the ritual masters, performed at the Fenlong and the other rites, are among the most striking features of the Maonan festivals, the carved masks of the gods and spirits worn by the dancers in the sacred plays. The third-month festival of the Guangxi world and the honouring of the deities of the crop and the cattle bring their own gatherings and observances.

The passages of life, birth, marriage, and death, gather the kin for ceremony, the wedding marked by the gift of the fine bamboo hat and by feasting and song. At all these occasions the dress and embroidery of the people, the songs, the masked dramas, and the rice wine bring colour and devotion, so that the Maonan meet the great moments of life and the year with feast, drama, and the honouring of the ancestors.

From the Ancient Yue to the People of Modern China

The Maonan are counted among the descendants of the ancient Baiyue, the many Yue peoples who once spread across the whole of southern China, and their forebears, close kin to the ancestors of the Dong, the Sui, and the Mulao, settled the karst hills of northwest Guangxi in the deep past. There they took up the tilling of the valleys and the raising of cattle, and became, over the centuries, the small distinct people known today.

Through the long centuries of imperial rule the Maonan lived in their hills under the officials of the empire, at times through native chiefs, and living close among the Zhuang and the Han they took much from their neighbours while keeping their own tongue, clans, and festivals. As a very small people, they went through the centuries without the great upheavals of some, holding to their identity in the karst.

Like other peoples of the Guangxi hills, the Maonan knew the disorders and risings that swept the south in the days of the later empire, and they shared in the turbulence of the region. Yet their small numbers and their close ties to their neighbours led them through these troubles, and they kept their crafts, their cattle, and their festivals in the limestone hills.

After the founding of the People’s Republic the Maonan were recognised as one of the official nationalities of China, and the Huanjiang Maonan autonomous county was established in their homeland. The modern age has brought roads, schools, and the reach of the market to the karst hills, and, in recent times, great efforts against poverty, drawing this small people into the wider life of the country.

The hills of Guangxi in the Maonan region

The Maonan in Modern China

Today the Maonan number only around a hundred thousand, one of the smallest of China’s recognised peoples, living still chiefly in the karst hills of northwest Guangxi, above all in the Huanjiang Maonan autonomous county, with a few communities in the neighbouring districts. A small farming and cattle-raising people, they remain rooted in the valleys and hills where their forebears settled.

Modern life has come to the Maonan hills in the shape of roads, railways, schools, and the reach of the market, and in recent years the county has been a focus of the state’s great effort against poverty, which lifted the Maonan, as a whole people, out of the deepest want, an event marked with public note. The same forces draw the young to the towns and cities.

Living so closely among the Zhuang and the Han, and being so few, the Maonan face strongly the pressures that blur the lines between peoples, and standard Chinese has long been familiar to them, so that the Maonan tongue is among the most fragile of the Kam-Sui languages. Efforts have been made to record and keep the language, the crafts, and the customs.

Yet the Maonan carry their heritage with quiet pride. The fine flower-bamboo hat and the carved stone, the masked dramas of the ritual masters, the great Fenlong festival, the fine Maonan cattle, and the honouring of the ancestors endure as marks of who they are. One of the smallest peoples of China, a folk of the Guangxi limestone hills, the Maonan keep their crafts and their festivals alive in modern China.