The Nakhi, Nashi, or Naxi (simplified Chinese: 纳西族; traditional Chinese: 納西族; pinyin: Nàxī zú; Naxi: Naqxi) are a people inhabiting the Hengduan Mountains abutting the Eastern Himalayas in the northwestern part of Yunnan Province, as well as the southwestern part of Sichuan Province in China.

Nakhi culture is largely its own native Dongba religious, literary, and farming practices, influenced by the Confucian roots of Han Chinese history.

Nakhi temples are decorated on the interior with carvings on poles, arches and wall paintings that often exhibit a unique combination of Dongba and Buddhist influences.

The mural paintings depict Dongba gods, and stylistically are derived from Han Chinese interpretations of Tibetan Buddhist themes.

The Nakhi women wear wide-sleeved loose gowns accompanied by jackets and long trousers, tied with richly decorated belts at the waist.

However, with the opening to tourism and the exile of some inhabitants, manners tend to change, some Na (Mosuo) people conforming to the monogamous couple.

[4] Cremation has been a tradition since ancient times, although burial was adopted in most Nakhi areas during the late Qing Dynasty and remains the preferred method of disposing of the dead today.

After being pushed south by other conquering tribes, the Nashi settled in the very fertile Baisha and Lijiang areas by the year 3 CE.

Historians have decided that between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, agricultural production in Lijiang replaced livestock breeding as the main occupation of the people.

The Ming relied on the Mu family as the mainstay for the control of the people of various ethnic groups in northwestern Yunnan Province.

In the old town, the Nakhi rent buildings to Han merchants[citation needed] who run shops catering to tourists.

Nakhi legend traces Dongba's origins to a Bön shaman from eastern Tibet named Ton-pa Shen-rab (丁巴什罗), who lived in a cave near Baishuitai during the 12th century.

Bön lamas are believed to have settled among the Nashi as farmers, and to have begun to practice exorcisms as a way of earning a little money on the side; they were thus in competition with the native ritual specialists, locally known as Llü-bu, or Ssan-nyi.

This is disputed, largely because the Bon religion is so adulterated by Tibetan Buddhism today that it is difficult to find pure and authentic practitioners to use as a basis for comparison.

By the early nineteenth century, the Dongba priests had created a huge religious vocabulary accompanied by a variety of rituals, and had largely displaced the Llü-bu.

The Dongba priests practice rituals such as the "Shv Gu" to appease these spirits and prevent their anger from boiling into natural disasters such as earthquakes and droughts.

Their attitude towards nature is clearly illustrated by the story of He Shun, a Dongba priest, who forbade his three sons to cut down more trees than they personally needed, as this would anger the gods and bring misfortune to his family.

One of the most widely practised Dongba rituals, Zzerq Ciul Zhuaq (literally, to repay the debts of a tree), has been described in the village of Shuming.

Green pine needles are used as a ground covering in courtyards during celebrations) The elders, locally known as Lao Min (老民), would watch all these activities.

Known as Jjuq-ssaiq or Jjuq-Hal-Keel by the local people, this refers to the regular logging of trees and firewood every two to three years in the forested area near the particular village.

Many of the Nakhi embrace the Kagyu lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, resulting from the presence of the eighth and the tenth Karmapas in the Lijiang area during the fourteenth century.

The king, worried about the safety of the Karmapa on his long journey to Lijiang, dispatched an army of four generals and ten thousand soldiers to accompany him.

The king prostrated himself before the Karmapa, the elephants broke their tethers and bowed down three times before him, and raised their trunks to the sky trumpeting loud as thunderclaps.

Peter Goullart's book Forgotten Kingdom describes the life and beliefs of the Nakhi and neighboring peoples, while Joseph Rock's legacy includes diaries, maps, and photographs of the region, many of which were published in National Geographic.