YINING CHEN explores the materialistic and symbolic embodiments of fire in the Wa community. Based on her fieldwork in Cangyuan, a mountainous region near the China-Myanmar border, she examines the adaptations that the Wa people have taken under housing relocation, governmental regulation and modernization in the twentieth century. This fieldwork report argues that the primary reason why Wa people are still able to claim their ethnic identity against these challenges is the resilience of family as a tight-knit social unit.

Around fire the Wa arised 
syllables afloat, stories alive 
Above fire the Wa aligned 
steps abeam, songs alight 
Amidst fire the Wa awaked 
sparkling out, sprouting in. 
Cease me not. 

Practicality and Sacredness

Fire appears to be a common source for survival, since most of the primitive, if not all, were capable of making use of fire before more sophisticated equipment was invented. Typically, fire is an irreplaceable element for the Wa ethnicity in more ways than one. Almost every Wa family lights a huotang—a Chinese form of hearth—in their household and worships the God of Fire. With fire, the Wa has emerged, survived, and flourished.  

For the Wa, the significance of fire is first and foremost reflected by animism. Animism is the worldview of the Wa, embodying the way human beings are at peace with all beings. The God of Fire, along with other spirits such as the God of Mountain and the God of Water, comprises Wa’s Pantheon. In Sigang lih, the genesis story of the Wa nationality, the ancestors inhabited the middle height of the Awa Mount, where harsh weather threatened them. According to the legend, Yanqiu, the God of Thunder, was the one who first offered fire to the Wa.

Nevertheless, the village of Wa collapsed after Yanqiu mishandled the flames. The Wa swore never to use fire given by the God of Thunder again. Then Mowei, the creator of all beings, instructed the Wa people to drill wood to make fire, so they could keep warm in the cold and illuminate the darkness. 

This mythological origin continues to shape the Wa’s everyday relationship with fire. Reflections of Sigang Lih can be found in the real life of the Wa people. For example, the Wa have long been relying on fire in terms of keeping warm, cooking meals, and making tea. In Lixin Village and Shihui Village, according to several villagers in their seventies, residents began to rely less on fire with access to electricity in the late 1960s. Another informant, a 48-year-old villager in Banhong, said that their village, a more remote one in the China-Myanmar frontier, did not have electricity until 1997; only after that did they use fire less frequently. 

In addition to its practical use in daily life, the Wa imbue fire with profound sacredness. In every Wa village, it is an old tradition to gather around a huotang when discussing serious issues or religious ceremonies. Festival celebrations and sacrificial rituals are held around the huotang. Even within individual households, outsiders are not allowed to move the huotang. “Fire is divine,” said Hongming Cha, a renowned Wa artist devoted to preserving his ethnic culture.

Beyond its sacred dimension, fire also embodies the key ethnic characteristics of the Wa: vitality, wishfulness, and continuity. These qualities are reflected in Wa individuals, families, and the community as a whole. According to Chen’s field notes, many Wa villagers mentioned  “the unextinguished huotang” when asked about the essential traditions of Wa ethnicity. In fact, the necessity of fire in the Wa culture is most clear by the fact that every thatched house in Old Wengding Village, a site rebuilt for tourism after being ruined by an accidental fire in the 2000s, contains a huotang amidst the bamboo mat. Even under governmental restrictive regulations of fire, the Wa continue to fight for a place for huotang, indicating the deep significance of fire in Wa culture. 

In sum, with the practicality, sacredness, and ethnic characteristics, fire endures throughout the epochs. Fire shapes who the Wa were and are, and what they aspire to remain. 

Family is the smallest societal unit, while a village is a larger one. The following sections are going to interpret how fire plays a role in the two scopes of society, respectively.  

Fire in the Family 

In every Wa household Chen visited, a huotang could be found. In fact, it is the huotang that constructs the three central meanings of fire—practicality, sacredness, and ethnic characteristics. Resembling a hearth without walls, the huotang consists of a square firebed, a pile of firewood, and a tripod frame. In most Wa families, if not all, have the huotang sit at the center of a room that functions as both a kitchen and storehouse. 

Since the time of the Wa ancestors in Awa Mountain and up to the present day, the huotang has served the purpose of maintaining family survival and socialization. To cook meals or make tea, Wa people place an iron pan on the tripod frame and light up the huotang. Every night, they cover the fire with fire dust before bed to prevent accidental ignition and uncover the huotang the next morning to rekindle the flame. As winter falls, family members gather around the huotang to keep warm. 

Beyond its practical use, the huotang is not only a gathering place for families and friends to chat, relax and enjoy the time they spent together, but also a consulting place for the most esteemed elders in the village to organize major events such as the Spring Festival and host “Calling the Soul”, a religious ritual for ancestral remembrance and communication with animistic spirits. 

Today, the huotang remains crucial for the Wa even amid social and spatial changes. Decades ago, government housing projects required the Wa to move into newly designed homes. Despite the convenience and comfort of living in the new houses, the Wa were so stubborn that each family insisted on adding an independent room to set the huotang, demonstrating its enduring cultural importance. The elderly couples in Down Jinya Village expressed how relieved they felt to be able to keep the huotang room, which reminded them of the good old days. As Huan Xiao, a dancer in Cangyuan Culture Center, expressed: “Fire always evokes a  heartwarming sentiment.” 

Moreover, even with modern technologies, the Wa people do not abandon the huotang for electricity. The younger generations prefer to use electric pans, but the huotang continues to hold emotional and cultural value. “We cook meals with electricity more often than with fire just for convenience,” said a New Wengding villager in her thirties. Among the families that the author visited in Down Jinya Village, a 58-year-old woman weaving traditional Wa dresswear explained how busy her son and daughter-in-law are, so they only use time-efficient electric pans to cook. She sighed and laughed, adding that she loves using the huotang: “A meal cooked upon the huotang always tastes better.” According to a middle-aged couple visiting their old parents in the village, the family still uses the huotang to make tea. Their father, his voice trembling with age, shared: “Tea heated by the fire gives a taste of the past. It reminds me of my childhood.” Despite the convenience of modern appliances favored by the young, the older generation remains deeply attached to the huotang for the memories it holds.

Another challenge caused by the transforming society is the concentration of job opportunities in big cities. Yet, the huotang remains a site of family reunion and belonging. From New Wengding Village and Shihui Village to Lixin Village, almost every villager the author interviewed mentioned that over ninety percent of the younger generation now work in developed regions such as Guangdong, Shanghai, and Jiangsu, far from home. In Lixin Village, a 64-year-old woman sat with her cousin at a living room table, keeping each other company while their children worked away, visiting only during the Spring Festival. “He comes every two days and we sit at the table to chat,” she said, before adding with a smile, “But of course, the table is not for family gathering occasions.” Her words helped the author realize that, even though the younger generation is working outside the village, when they come back every year, the huotang is still the place for family reunion as it was for the Wa ancestors. As local musician and coffee bean grower, Mang Ai beautifully expressed in his song Passing By My Hometown:  “The huotang is home. The huotang is love.” 

The huotang is so irreplaceable for daily life and familial bonding that it is preserved by Wa families even with the challenges of housing reformation, electricity convenience, and out-of-town working challenges. It is the resilience of the familial bond that maintains the  Wa’s ethnic identity under societal transformations. 

Fire in the Village

Fire extends beyond individual families and continues to serve as a cohesive force within the village. Through its presence in festivals and social gatherings, fire unites the Wa people and reinforces their shared identity and ethnic belonging. The New Fire festival, one of the most long-standing Wa traditions that falls on the first day of a new year on Wa’s calendar, embodies the Wa community’s worship of the God of Fire. As the name suggests, every family in the village puts off the old fire and lights up a new one at that special time annually. The ritual of renewing the old fire, hosted by the Moba, who is in charge of all the religious events and village ceremonies, begins with Mthe oba’s chant of good wishes for the coming year. Two muscled men are selected to drill the wood to make fire on the first day of the new year. After the flame of fire has risen, all the torches brought from each family would be lit up with the new fire and taken home to relight the huotang for the coming new year, throughout which the fire should not be put off. The ritual implies the Wa people’s wishes for all the bad in the previous year to vanish and all the good to come in the new year,  highlighting wishfulness and continuity as embodiments of fire. 

In fact, fire could be found in almost all major Wa festivals. During Chinese New Year in early February and the “Mud You Black” Carnival on May 1^st, villagers gather around a large communal fire at the center of the village. From children to elders, men to women, all villagers gather around the huotang and celebrate the festival by singing and dancing to Wa music. On a normal weekday evening, villagers also dance together until the sky darkens. “We, the Wa love dancing. We love dancing around the fire. If we dance for five days during the Spring Festival, the huotang burns for five days,” said an old lady in Lixin Village. 

Among all the movements involved in Wa dances, the ones most frequently used are metaphors of fire. Tread down. Stand up. Arms stretch downwards. Elbows draw inwards. The fire embodied body gestures evoke dynamic vitality and impress the viewers with delight and hope, reflecting the untamed strength in depth of the Wa ethnicity. According to Hongming Cha,  “The Wa loves fire as much as the Dai loves water. We’re trying to dance out a fire.” 

From family hearths to community festivals, fire unites the Wa across scales of belonging and community. The set of wood and fire, the dances around fire, and the sentiments derived from fire all reinforce family bonds and village solidarity of the Wa. 

Wayfinders with Fire

As one of the most legendary, historical, and experiential elements of the Wa, fire embodies vitality, wishfulness, and continuity. The embodiments have integrated intothe Wa ethnicity and the Wa people’s contemporary life, enabling them to resist social displacement. Indeed, it is because of the resilience of the family, the basic unit of the community, that the Wa people have been able to claim their ethnic identity in the transforming society. 

The Wa are just one of the numerous Chinese minority ethnic groups. As a striking instance, the family-based and village-based application of fire and the ethnical characteristics’ embodiments of fire leave room for contemplating what’s unchanged in the changes and how ethnic resilience is reinterpreting the culture of their own.

Note: Photographs and poems are by Yining Chen. Cangyuan, Yunnan, China, August 2024.

Yining Chen, SDSZ ‘26 in Beijing, China. As a future anthropologist, she has drawn insights on a wide range of topics, such as local politics, social production of space, and the performance of healing. She is currently a member of the American Anthropological Association, and her internship output is available on AAA’s LinkedIn webpage. She can be reached at evelynkagge@gmail.com