A matrilineal family epic that spans a century, and the fate of four generations of Mosuo women
In the winter of 1932, at the foot of the Goddess Gemu Mountain, the eighteen-year-old Achema knelt in front of the extinguished fire pit and placed offerings on the Guozhuang Stone for the first time. She didn't know that from this day on, she would become the longest living person in this courtyard and would also become the "root" of four generations.
From the bells on the Tea Horse Road to the flower belts on the wedding bridge, from the years of plague to the wave of tourism development, "Matrilineal Manor: A Centennial Watch of the Eastern Daughter Country" uses Lugu Lake as a mirror and Gemu Goddess Mountain as evidence to tell the story of four generations of women from a Mosuo matrilineal family -
Akema established the family motto "Family does not separate" by the firepit; the second brother learned that "women can still laugh after crying" after losing their husband; Erqing guarded the wedding bridge and waited for her sister's return for thirty years; Lamu carried the bronze drum on his back and walked the ancestral path again, letting the lost dance steps resound...
Some of them married away, some married far away, some stayed, and some returned. But no matter how far they go, the flower belt at the wedding bridge will always be tied - that is the way home for Mosuo women.
Mountains and rivers are not the background, but the protagonist of the story. Goddess Gemu Mountain silently watches the joys and sorrows of generations. The water of Lugu Lake reflects the changes of the times. The wooden boards on the walking wedding bridge are decayed and replaced with new ones. The fire in the fire pit has been burning for a hundred years.
This is neither an elegy nor a display of curiosity. What it wants to ask is: When all solid things disappear, what kind of family structure can make people live warm and free? The Mosuo people have used thousands of years of practice to give an answer, and the answer itself is being rewritten by the times.
