Introduction

According to the sixth national census in 2010, the Bai people in Yunnan had a total population of 1,561,000, mostly in the flat areas oflowland landscape, with a small number living in the high and cold mountains. The main settlements of the Bai are a low latitude plateau monsoon climate, with a three-dimensional climate of “four seasons on one mountain” due to the disparity in altitude. With forest coverage of 33.6%, it is one of the major forest areas in Yunnan Province. The natural geographical conditions are favourable to the growth of many species of flora and fauna. In the CangShan mountain of Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture alone, 182 families and about 3000 species of higher plant have been identified. The total number ofbird species in the prefecture is over 150, and there are hundreds of mammal species. The Bai areas are rich in mineral resources too, including marble in the Cang Mountains and lead-zinc mines in Lanping County, which are the rare very large deposits in the country.

The Bai people, meaning white people, call themselves Bai Zi, Bai Ni, Bai Huo, and some other 60 different names. The Bai language belongs to the Tibetan-Burmese group of the Sino-Tibetan language family^[1], with an undefined linguistic branch, which is said to be the Yi branch or a separate Bai branch. The vocabulary is mostly Chinese loanwords, and most of the people are fluent in Chinese. During the Tang and Song dynasties, the ancient Bai script was created by borrowing from Chinese characters , known as the Bai reading style of Chinese characters. The authoritative view ofthe origin ofthe Bai is that it can be traced back to the Stone Age in Yunnan. The establishment ofYunnan as a province during the Yuan dynastystarted the successive migration of hundreds ofthousands of Han Chinese soldiers and people who contributed to the transformation from a seignorial economy^[2] to a landlord economy in the Bai areas. At the same time, the vast majority ofthe Bai, who were scattered around Kunming, Chuxiong and Baoshan, and gradually mixed with the Han.

The Bai costumes are mostly red and white in colour, highlighted the tonal harmony by contrasting bright blocks of colour. There are many traditional Bai festivals, including the Raosanling Festival, the March Street Festival, the Seedling Festival and the Butterfly Festival. The Bai people have their own religious beliefs—the Benzhu religion. The Bai people consider the Benzhu to be the guardian of the villages and therefore regularly hold rituals pray for the protection ofthe Benzhu.