Bai

族About this people

The Bai people are concentrated around Erhai Lake in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture in western Yunnan, with the historical capital of Dali city as their cultural centre. Their language, Bai, is disputed in classification — it has extensive Chinese loanwords accumulated over two millennia of contact — but most linguists place it within the Sino-Tibetan family.

The Bai have a long history of political organisation: the Nanzhao Kingdom (7th–9th centuries) and the Dali Kingdom (937–1253) were both largely Bai polities that controlled the crossroads of routes linking the Indian Ocean trade with the Chinese interior. The Dali Kingdom's patronage of Buddhism left an architectural legacy including the Three Pagodas (San Ta) of Chongsheng Temple, dating from the 9th–10th centuries, which remain the most recognisable landmark of the Bai homeland.

Bai villages around Erhai are noted for their neat whitewashed houses with grey tile roofs and painted decorative walls — "three rooms and one screen wall" (sanheyuanzi) courtyard compounds that are among the most architecturally harmonious in Yunnan. The benzhu festival system — local shrine festivals dedicated to founding heroes and protective spirits, held in the first and second lunar months — is the primary communal religious event. Bai women are known for their colourful tiered headwear incorporating dried flowers. The Shibaoshan Mountain festival in the eighth lunar month is a regional pilgrimage event combining religious observance with market trading and folk opera performances.