The
Naxi
ethnic group in southwest China's
Yunnan Province has built a memorial hall in honor of Joseph F.
Rock, an Austrian-American scholar who was one of the first
westerners to spread the long-isolated Naxi culture worldwide.
The memorial hall is built at the site of Rock's former residence,
located in the Yuhu Village at the foot of the Yulong Snow Mountain
in Lijiang
area, in northwestern Yunnan.
Rock, a botanist, came to this small, quiet, mountainous village to
work 76 years ago. He spent 27 years there, studying the history
and Dongba characters of the Naxi ethnic group.
The Naxi people, numbering more than 200,000, live in the rugged
snow-capped mountains of Yunnan Province and use Dongba characters,
the world's only surviving pictographs. Before the 1920s, the Naxi
traditional culture, including the Dongba characters, remained
unknown to the outside world.
In
his 27 years in Yuhu Village, Rock mastered the Naxi language,
translated more than 100 books of Dongba sutras and wrote and
edited many books on the Naxi ethnic group.
The memorial hall was built by Huang Tai, who is a Naxi, in 1999.
Huang, who worked in the Yuhu Village for many years, was moved by
Rock's devotion to the minority people and decided to build the
hall in his name.
Huang Tai said Rock was one of the first people to introduce the
Naxi culture to the outside world, and he treated Naxi people
sincerely during his stay in the Yuhu Village. "Naxi people will
remember him forever," Huang said.
Exhibited at the memorial hall are the belongings of Rock,
including daily-life utensils, a woolen coat, his shotgun, dental
instruments, a cowhide box and carpenter's tools that were given to
villagers by Rock.
At
present, Lijiang area has turned into a famous tourism destination
in China. Each month, more than 2,000 domestic, European and
American travelers come to Yuhu Village to visit Rock's former
home.
(People’s
Daily November 7, 2001)