LEAVING MOTHER LAKE

A young woman from the matrilineal Moso culture describes her upbringing in one of China’s most distinctive minorities, assisted by an American anthropologist.

The Moso people live in the foothills of the Himalayas and ethnically resemble the neighboring Tibetans more than the Chinese. They are Buddhists but also worship their own gods, who are honored at annual festivals. Women do not marry but instead freely choose a succession of men to father their children. Men live with their mothers and only visit other women, who in turn rely on their male relatives and children to help run their households. Practicing what is called “walking marriage,” the Moso are described by Mathieu in an afterword as “the only people in the world who consider marriage an attack on the family.” Namu was her mother's third daughter; each had a different father. She vividly details village life: women work the fields while men herd the yaks; a “Skirt Ceremony” marks a girl’s arrival into womanhood; and at her grandmother’s burial a straw figure wearing a beautiful dress was put on a decorated horse and paraded around the village to represent the soul’s last ride. Born in 1966, Namu recalls the arrival of the Red Guard during the Cultural Revolution; finding the diet and the climate too daunting, they soon left. (The communist authorities have been similarly unsuccessful in imposing monogamy on the region.) At 16, Namu was chosen to sing in a competition that took her to Beijing. Briefly back home, passionately responding to her boyfriend’s embraces but fearing that pregnancy would end her dreams, she ran away and won a scholarship to the prestigious Shanghai Conservatory. Her mother broke up her room with an ax and burned the contents, but they reconciled on a subsequent visit. Though she had to live in the wider world, Namu writes, “We both knew now that I would always come back.”

Rich in local color and lore, an evocative introduction to a unique way of life.