The Nuosu Book of Origins

"The two scholars are perfect collaborators. Between them, they found a rare version of the epic written in the Yi script, produced an accurate translation, and added to it a comprehensive and insightful introductory treatise to Yi culture."

"[A]n outstanding success...will undoubtedly be an essential primary source for scholars of Yi studies."

"[R]emarkable book...presents a world apart from “Western” worldviews but at the same time inspires the readers to reflect on and understand other worldviews and to scrutinize our own."

"Poetic in form, the narrative provides insights into how a clan- and caste-based society organizesitself, dictates ethics, relates to other ethnic groups, and adapts to a harsh environment."

“Hnewo” in the Nuosu language means “passed down through mouth and ears.” This long narrative poem from the Nuosu Yi people in the Cool Mountains of Southwestern Sichuan is an intimate part of their ritual life; combined with the kenre practice of verbal dueling it is a feature of the rites of passage of these mountain people—weddings, funerals, and the ceremony to send souls of the dead back to the ancestors. Recited in these ritual contexts, the epic embodies Yi people’s cognitive and emotional experience of the cycle of human life and of people’s place in the larger natural world and cosmos. Jjivot Zopqu has provided a precious resource for the world of folklore studies, while Mark Bender and Aku Wuwu have done a great service by translating this epic and introducing it to the English-reading public.

"This translation is a treasure: a window into one of China’s richest indigenous traditions. After many centuries of momentous change and political upheaval in the vast empire that surrounds it, Nuosu culture remains alive and remarkably well in its rugged heartland of Liángshān. It also remains remarkably complex, maintaining a working script and written literature of its own side by side with a deep-rooted oral tradition. We are all now indebted to the Nuosu elder Jjivot Zopqu, the Nuosu poet Aku Wuwu, and the American scholar Mark Bender for sharing what they know of this beleaguered and beautiful world."

"An extremely important work that fills a major gap in the literature on a prominent Indigenous group in Southwest China and contributes to the scholarship on the folk, religious, and epic traditions of China."