Baima Culture

Baima Culture

The Baima people build their houses along the mountainsides, featuring colorful wooden structures. Originally, they primarily engaged in farming and animal husbandry, cultivating crops such as buckwheat, highland barley, and oats. The Baima people revere nature and worship the mountain gods. They brew their own za wine, keep bees, and women use hemp beaters to spin flax into thread, roll felt, weave cloth, and make embroidered waistbands. In recent years, most Baima people have been involved in tourism services, with over 30 tourism reception households in Baima Township,

capable of accommodating 1,000 visitors for folk tourism services.

The Baima people wear distinctive, brightly colored clothing, primarily in white, black, and floral-patterned robes and skirts, accessorized with various hair ornaments, earrings, and waist decorations. Baima women wear chest ornaments made of fishbone plaques as white as jade, and adorn their waists with several rounds of shiny ancient bronze coins. Both men and women wear round-topped, brimmed woolen felt hats shaped like lotus leaves, adorned with white pheasant feathers. The Baima people are known for their singing and dancing; famous songs include "The Za Wine Song" and "White Feathers Fluttering," while popular dances include the Chaogai Dance, Yuanyuan Dance, and Maomao Dance.

A typical traditional Baima residence is a "plank-wall earthen house," built with log frames, covered with hand-split pine planks, and finished with rammed earth walls. These houses generally have three levels: the lower level for housing livestock, the middle level for living, and the upper level for storage. (Currently, tourism reception uses newly built houses.) Such architectural structures can still be seen on the hillsides within the villages.

"Jumping Chaogai" is the most important religious ritual activity of the Baima people. The chaogai is a terrifying and fierce wooden mask carved with exaggerated features. Several participants wear sheepskin coats inside out and put on these masks, then dance to the rhythm of sheepskin drums to exorcise evil spirits and pray for peace.

In 2002, Pingwu hosted the Wanglang Baima Culture Festival, one of the eight major tourism festivals in Sichuan Province. The event included song and dance performances, academic seminars on Baima culture, ecological seminars on Wanglang, investment promotion conferences by Pingwu County, and a week-long series of tourism activities.

Baima serves as a transit point along the Jiuhuan Line and the Wanglang Nature Reserve, offering convenient transportation and fast communication. In April 2004, the installation of a mobile base station in Wanglang ensured seamless communication across the region. Friends from afar are warmly welcome to visit Baima and Pingwu.