Sakyamuni and G'ui sha

Two essays on the impact of Mahayana Buddhism among Lahu (and Wa) highlanders of the southwest Yunnan-northern Southeast Asia borderlands. The first essay—on Lahu Nyi (Red Lahu) village temples and their likely Buddhist origins—had its beginnings in the author's four-year field research experience (1966-1970) among swidden-farming Lahu Nyi villagers in upland North Thailand. The second essay reports on the author's ongoing attempt to discover from library sources (mostly in Chinese) the story of the arrival and dissemination between the seventeenth and late nineteenth century of Mahayana Buddhism in the "Luohei Shan" (Lahu Mountains) of southwestern Yunnan. Should a single theoretical observation be highlighted on the basis of these two essays, it surely must be this: the student of these often quite remote highland communities who chooses, perhaps in search for an exotic "Other", to ignore what transpires—and for centuries has transpired—in the lowlands beneath them, seriously jeopardizes any attempt to grasp the complexity of the uplanders' socio-cultural institutions.