第311页 Prophets of Renewal

The amphibious position of such leaders, with one foot in each of the two worlds, makes them potentially dangerous. They can, structurally, become a fifth column serving outside interests. Erik Muegller describes a Yi village in Yunnan that, realizing this danger, took quite exceptional ritual and practical steps to contain it. The crucial and potentially ruinous responsibility for hosting and feeding Han officials, sometimes accompanied by hundreds of troops, was rotated annually among a handful of prosperous families. During their year of service, the host couple was required to act as ur-Lahu and abjure anything culturally coded as Han. They wore clothing thought to have been worn by Lahu ancestors; they ate and drank from wooden vessels rather than ceramic ones; they drank only homemade wheat beer; they ate no meat associated with lowland diets (dogs, horses, cattle); and they were never to speak Chinese throughout their year of service. One could scarcely imagine a more comprehensive set of prohibitions designed to keep the host family hyper-Lahu and to keep the Han at arm’s length. Almost all social contact with the Han was relegated to a “speaker” who lodged free at the host’s house for the year. He, by contrast, drank and ate with the guests, dressed well and had cosmopolitan manners, spoke fluent Chinese, and generally entertained the dangerous guests. The speaker was, one could say, a village-level minister of foreign affairs whose job was to placate the guests, minimize their demands, and serve as a kind of cultural barrier between the Han and the internal affairs of the village. Knowing that a powerful and cosmopolitan local intermediary could as easily be a liability as an asset, the Lahu took pains to split the two roles and thus minimize the danger.