Ninger County History
Ning’er Hani and Yi Autonomous County belongs to Pu’er Prefecture. Ning’er is located in the southern Yunnan province, central region of Pu’er Prefecture. For its position, Ning’er is linked with Simao(思茅), Mojiang(墨江), Jiangcheng(江城), Jinggu(景谷), Zhenyuan(镇沅)five counties by mountains and rivers, and Zhenyuan(镇沅) is the seat of Ning’er government.
Ning’er Hani and Yi Autonomous County (simplified Chinese: 宁洱哈尼族彝族自治县; traditional Chinese: 寧洱哈尼族彝族自治縣; pinyin: Níng’ěr Hānízú Yízú Zìzhìxiàn) is an autonomous county under the jurisdiction of Pu’er Prefecture, Yunnan Province, China. The population of the county has a large proportion of native Hani and Yi people in a predominately Han Chinese population. As of 2003 the county records a population of approximately 190,000 people. Due to the ethnic groups, the history of Ning’er Hani and Yi Autonomous County is extremely colorful and attractive.
The History of Hani People
The Hani legend tells that their ancestors are nomads from the south of Dadu River in today’s Sichuan Province in the 3rd century BC. They gradually migrated south and settled in today’s Yunnan Province.
The History of Yi People
Some scholars believe that the Yi are descended from the ancient Qiang people of today’s western China, who are also said to be the ancestors of the Tibetan, Naxi and Qiang peoples. They migrated from southeastern Tibet through Sichuan and into the Yunnan Province, where their largest populations can be found today.
They practice a form of animism, led by a shaman priest known as the Bimaw. They still retain a few ancient religious texts written in their unique pictographic script. Their religion also contains many elements of Daoism and Buddhism.
Many of the Yi in Liangshan and northwestern Yunnan practiced a complicated form of slavery. People were split into the nuohuo or Black Yi (nobles), qunuo or White Yi (commoners), and slaves. White Yi were free and could own property and slaves but were in a way tied to a lord. Other ethnic groups were held as slaves.
The History of Tea Horse Road
The Tea Horse Road or chamadao (simplified Chinese: 茶马道; traditional Chinese: 茶馬道), now generally referred to as the Ancient Tea Horse Road or chama gudao (simplified Chinese: 茶马古道; traditional Chinese: 茶馬古道) was a network of caravan paths winding through the mountains of Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou in Southwest China.It is also sometimes referred to as the Southern Silk Road. The route extended to Bengal in the Indian subcontinent.
From around a thousand years ago, the Ancient Tea Route was a trade link from Yunnan, one of the first tea-producing regions: to Bengal via Burma; to Tibet; and to central China via Sichuan Province.In addition to tea, the mule caravans carried salt. Both people and horses carried heavy loads, the tea porters sometimes carrying over 60–90 kg, which was often more than their own body weight in tea.
It is believed that it was through this trading network that tea (typically tea bricks) first spread across China and Asia from its origins in Pu’er County, near Simao Prefecture in Yunnan.
The route earned the name Tea-Horse Road because of the common trade of Tibetan ponies for Chinese tea, a practice dating back at least to the Song dynasty, when the sturdy horses were important for China to fight warring nomads in the north.
