A Brief History of Pumi Literature

Author: Yang Zhaohui
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1996-12-01
Features: The Pumi people were formerly known as "Xifan" and also called "Baju". They are scattered across five counties in northwestern Yunnan: Lamping, Weixi, Lijiang, Ninglang, and Yongsheng, living together with the Bai, Han, Naxi, Lisu, Yi, and other ethnic groups. In 1960, according to the wishes of the people of their own ethnic group, they were officially named the Pumi ethnic group. According to the 1990 population census, the Pumi ethnic group had over 29,000 people. The Pumi ethnic group is one of China's ancient ethnic groups, but due to their long history of living together with other ethnic groups, they did not develop their own writing system and commonly use the Chinese language. Their language belongs to the Qiang branch of the Tibeto-Burman language family within the Sino-Tibetan language family. Their ethnic origin traces back to the nomadic tribes of the ancient Qiang and Rong groups in northwestern China. According to the "Biographies of the Western Qiang" in the Book of the Later Han, during the Warring States period, they migrated with their livestock to the area west of the Yellow River source, which is now in Qinghai Province, and differentiated into various Qiang subgroups. Among these Qiang subgroups, according to recent research by some scholars and the author of this book, the "White Horse" subgroup, the "White Horse Di", in the northern part of Sichuan and the southern part of Gansu during the Qin and Han periods, as well as the "White Wolf Yi" in the southwestern part of Sichuan, and the "White Lan Qiang" living in the southwestern part of Qinghai during the Tang Dynasty, were the ancestors of the Pumi people. The two characters "Pumi" translate into Chinese as "white people", which largely matches the phonetic and semantic meaning of "White Horse", "White Wolf", and "White Lan" mentioned above. Additionally, it aligns with the Pumi language in the appended White Wolf language of the "White Wolf Song" sung by the White Wolf King to Emperor Ming of Han.