Originally Posted by
Hokulele
Are all Daba priests male and how are they selected? I know you had mentioned earlier that Daba was penalized under the Communist system, but are the remaining priests allowed to selected and train potential new priests now?
Yes, Daba priests are exclusively male, and their teachings are usually passed on only to direct male descendants. As I've mentioned elsewhere in passing, the Daba priests are the only visible remainder of the patriarchal aspect of Mosuo culture. When the Mosuo had noble and peasant classes, the Daba priests were part of the nobility.
Thus, Daba priests do not practice walking marriages; they get married, and the woman they marry will come and live with them, and raise their children in the Daba's home. The reason for this is simple -- it is considered improper/unacceptable to train anyone outside of your own family in being a Daba priest, but in a walking marriage, his biological children would not actually be part of
his family.
Because of the past gov't policies towards Daba priests, there is a major generation gap; almost all the existing priests are old men. They were not allowed to train their sons. And because the sons were not Daba priests, most of them just went along with the walking marriage tradition, and have no sons of their own living in their family. And even where there are grandchildren who could be taught, most of them simply aren't interested.
Consider how much work it takes. With no written language, a Mosuo priest must use rote memorization to remember everything...but if written down, there would be thousands upon thousands of pages of information. Not just chants and ceremonies, but family geneologies, oral traditions, historical (or mythical) stories, etc. Virtually the entire Mosuo history/culture/heritage is stored inside the Daba priests' heads.
There are currently efforts under way to convince some of the Daba priests to "liberalize" their beliefs, and offer training to non-family members. There's even been discussion of women being trained as Daba priests (again, those seeking to present this as an idealized culture with no discrimination and problems tend to overlook the fact that Mosuo women are denied the right to be Daba priests).
For me, its an area I've got really mixed feelings on. I myself am an atheist, and feel that certain aspects of the Daba faith really do damage and hold back the Mosuo (such as the aforementioned preference for Daba rituals over medical treatment for disease). On the other hand, the Daba priests are the keystone to the entire Mosuo culture. If we lose their knowledge, we lose the vast majority of Mosuo history and culture. And, again, I don't believe it should be up to outsiders to make decisions about religion, as well as any other area of Mosuo life.
At present, the biggest barrier to training new Daba priests is the priests themselves, and their unwillingness to break traditions that stretch back literally hundreds of years. There is a brilliant documentary that was done on this by a Chinese woman, called "Daba Sings", that covers these issues, and looks at one particular Daba priest over a period of about 10 years as he tries to train his sons (but is unsuccessful). The Daba religion focuses on ancestor worship, so honoring your ancestors is of extreme importance. As he says in the documentary, "I am the 14th generation of Daba priests in our family, passed from father to son for hundreds of years. If I fail to train my sons, then our family's tradition will die with me. But if I train someone outside of our family, I will shame my ancestors." From our perspective, it may seem irrational or closed-minded; but from their perspective, it is a very personal and difficult issue.
At present, a number of Mosuo are themselves seeking to at least make audio recordings of the Daba priests, and some of the priests have agreed to do this, so that if they do die without passing it on, at least some of their knowledge will be preserved. Developing a written language is, again, another crucial step in this regard.