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.

( November 7, 2001)