China, the Long March

Clip 2: Yaks in Tibet

Taken from the documentary China, the Long March (1986)

Original title classification not known – this clip chosen to be PG

Curator’s clip description

Tibetan graziers move their families and yaks 30 to 40 kilometres for fresh feeding lands. They pay no taxes but support the local school teacher.

Curator’s notes

Interesting footage of contemporary nomadic life in Tibet.

Damien Parer, curator

Teachers’ notes

provided by The Le@rning Federation

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This clip shows colour film of nomadic Tibetan graziers moving their yak herds across vast plains. A narrator explains key aspects of Tibetan life as a family group performs domestic tasks. Inside a tent a member of the group plays a flute while the rest of the family listens in front of a fire. In an interview, a Tibetan woman explains that the group moves up to ten times a year, following fresh pastures. She clarifies that while the family does not pay any taxes from their income each year, they do give food and part of their income to the school teacher to show him respect.

Educational value points

The clip shows the grasslands of Songpan in Tibet. These grasslands are particularly significant because they were traversed by the Chinese Communist Army on the Long March. While crossing these inhospitable swamp-like plains during August and early September 1935, the worst months for rain and mosquitoes, the soldiers were targets for Tibetan attack. Food and medical supplies were scarce. The troops suffered from intense cold at night and from malaria. The loss of life during this crossing is estimated as being as high as 32,000.

The Tibetan grazing lands are the highest grazing lands in the world. They lie on the highest and biggest plateau in the world and have an area of 2.5 million sq km. The southern and eastern edges of the plateau contain the area of grasslands capable of sustaining nomadic herdsmen.

Some of Tibet’s nomadic people are shown in the clip. Known as Drokpa, meaning ‘steppe-dwellers’, they are among China’s poorest people and rely on the yak for their livelihood. The soft down from the beast is woven and felted to make cloth for their tent dwellings called ‘yurts’. Yak milk, which is rich in butterfat, is used to make butter and cheese and drunk as yak butter tea. Yak milk is also sold to the villages on the edges of the grasslands. The dung is burned for fuel. Yaks are an important means of transportation, carrying everything from fenceposts to family possessions when nomadic tribes move to new pastures, as shown in this clip.

The clip provides evidence of the precarious and harsh way of life of nomadic people. The mother describes the group’s need to find fresh feed for their animals. Despite their poverty they have maintained their way of life for generations through their ability to adapt and to exploit patchy resources, one of the strengths of the nomadic way of life.

Yaks are large, buffalo-like creatures that evolved on the high plains of the Himalayan mountains of Asia. Many native peoples of south-central Asia and Mongolia are dependent on them. Wild yaks, of which there are probably fewer than 400 in Tibet and Nepal, stand about 2 m tall. Their domesticated counterparts are about half that height. Both types have shaggy black or brown hair that insulates them against the cold. They are extremely efficient feed-converting animals, having evolved in a high altitude cold climate with sparse vegetation.