Naku Buyi Ancient Village

Naku Buyi Ancient Village

Naku Buyi Ancient Village

Naku is an ancient Buyi ethnic village with a history of over 600 years. It is located in Zhexiang Town, Zhenfeng County, Qianxinan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, approximately 15 kilometers from the county seat of Zhenfeng. Nearly 100 households in the village are all of the Buyi ethnic group. The name “Naku” is a homophonic rendering in the Buyi language, which translates roughly as “bountiful harvest.” In the seventh year of the Tongzhi reign during the Qing Dynasty (1868 AD), Luo Guochang, a native of Naku Buyi Ancient Village who had distinguished himself in battle and was appointed as a “Qianzong” (a military officer rank), relocated the local market to within the village to make it more convenient for villagers to trade goods they produced or needed. As a result, the village’s economy flourished — locally woven cloth, textile tools, and other native products were traded at the market and sold as far away as Guangxi and Yunnan.