The Dianhai yuheng zhi is a privately composed gazetteer of Yunnan, modeled on Fan Chengda’s (1126–1193) Guihai yuheng zhi (Gazetteer for Governors of the Southern Frontier) and thus heavily focused on physical geography, local products, flora and fauna, and ethnography. The chapter on the Man 蠻 (i.e., indigenous Yunnan peoples) mostly copies content from the Yunnan tongzhi (see source 5.25), but the author also includes some original observations of the Black Luoluo 黑羅羅 elite, which are translated below. These reflect a complex blending of “barbarian” and Han customs, especially among the wealthiest families.

The author, Tan Cui (1725-1801), was a man from Anhui who passed the civil service examinations in 1761 and served as the magistrate of Luquan 祿勸 county in Yunnan from 1777 to around 1780. After his term ended, he remained in Yunnan as a teacher in private academies, traveled widely across the province, and participated in the compilation of numerous local gazetteers. In 1799, Tan decided to retire from teaching and move to the lower Yangzi region, where he died in 1801. He wrote the Dianhai yuheng zhi while leaving Yunnan, as a tribute to the province where he had spent over twenty years of his life.

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The [Black Luoluo] men farm and herd livestock on upland hills, always using fire for clearing land. As they are not skilled at irrigating paddy fields, their harvests consist of coarse grains and weeds, not fine crops. The wealth of a man is measured by how much grain he can receive in exchange for his large herds of horses and sheep.

Their women can weave wool into cloth by pegging wood planks into the ground, stringing the warp on them, sitting cross-legged, running the shuttle and weaving the weft with exceptional skill, producing strips five or six cun wide, dyed in patterns resembling carpets.

The wealthy among them are made native chieftains (tusi 土司) who dominate a region; those tilling their land are simply called “commoners” (baixing 百姓). When the native chief passes by, they must kneel and pay respects and offer tea and tobacco while kneeling; sometimes they present chicken and wine or roast pork—these must be supplied even if the chieftain does not eat them. If commoners commit a serious offense, they are placed in “horse bracelets” (mazhuo 馬鐲, a kind of pillory?); otherwise, they are expelled. The chieftains often say, “You burn the hills and drink the water in my house—how dare you oppose me!”

Their marriage customs are like those of other barbarians (Yi). If an elder brother dies, the wife marries his younger brother; one woman may successively be wife to four or five brothers. If a widow inherits her husband’s property and does not wish to remarry outside, she may call for a new husband to join her household (this is called shangmen 上門, “coming up to the door”), thereby taking control of affairs, and no relatives can interfere.

When farming in the hills, men and women sing in response to each other, like the field songs of Jiangnan (i.e., the lower Yangzi region). They usually live in stilt houses, where smoke from coal fires beneath the house blackens the walls more than lacquer, making them shiny enough to serve as mirrors. Sweeping is done only on auspicious days; excrement and other refuse is allowed to pile up, as they do not dare to clear it before the chosen day. When honored guests arrive, pine needles are spread from the gate to the main room as a welcoming mat, making the pathway green, smooth, and pleasing.

Their wealthiest families have tile roofs on their houses, the next best have plank roofs, and the poorest have thatched roofs; this is not very different from Han customs. Most of them have surnames. People of the same surname need not be blood relations: sometimes, having lived together for a long time, they adopt the same surname in sworn kinship and rank themselves as elder or younger brother.

They cremate their dead like other barbarians, but their ancestral tablets may be made of gold or silver foil and interred in the same place, such as on a high ridge. The tablets are arranged in generational order, but without burial mounds—they only point to a cliff and say, “That is our ancestral tomb.” If others trespass on it, disputes and lawsuits ensue.

During the winter festival, they engage in licentious singing and dancing. In daily life, however, a younger brother’s wife stands straight and keeps her head down before her elder brother-in-law, never daring to raise her eyes—so strict are their proprieties.

Yet, the wealthy among them often hire Han scholars as tutors and study the Six Arts to take the civil service examinations. Those of lesser wealth learn to be clerks, dressing themselves in Han-style caps and belts. They regard it as taboo to be called barbarians (Yi), and their funerals often follow Han rites, passed down for generations, with no trace of barbaric customs . One cannot tell that they are Black Man (Wu Man 烏蠻, i.e., Black Luoluo).

The barbarians (Yi) by nature fear ghosts and have many taboos. Sometimes, a family emulates Han burial customs and produces no offspring. The people ridicule them for it, and they then revert to barbarian burial customs. In cremation, the wealthy use tiger skins to wrap the corpse, while the poor use sheep skins. The corvée laborers are always commoners (baixing). Their marketplaces are called “Ox Street” and “Dog Street”, and their contracts are carved on wood—practices much the same as other barbarians.