LUGU LAKE, China — A young man clad in a white shirt, black pants and red belt suddenly scrambled up the side of a log house and slid feet first into a second-story latticed window.

中国泸沽湖——一名身穿白衬衫、黑裤子和红腰带的年轻男子突然沿着木屋侧面爬上去，从二层的花格窗跃入房间。

“This is how Mosuo men would climb into the `flower room' of the women,” Ke Mu explained to visitors as the triumphant swain stuck his head out the window of the flower room, or private bedroom, and waved his hat.

“摩梭男人就是这样爬进女人的‘花房’，”可木（音）对游客解释称。这名得意洋洋的情郎把头伸出花房的窗外，挥舞着帽子。“花房”即为女性的私人卧室。

It was morning in the lakeside village of Luoshui here in southwestern China. On a narrow side street, dusty from hotel construction nearby, a group of young workers, including Ke, 18, was preparing for another day of cultural pageantry at the Mosuo Folk Museum.

洛水村位于中国西南部的泸沽湖畔。早晨，在一条狭窄的小巷中，附近在建的旅店弥漫着灰尘，一群年轻的工作人员又在为摩梭民俗博物馆的文化盛典做准备，其中包括18岁的可木。

Their task is to showcase the traditions of the Mosuo, a minority ethnic group said to be the country's last matrilineal society, where children take their mothers' surnames and daughters are preferred to sons.

他们的任务是展示摩梭人的传统。这个少数民族据称是中国的最后一个母系社会，孩子跟母亲姓，女儿比儿子更受欢迎。

A fascination with such traditions has led to a booming tourism industry in this once-isolated region.

这种传统极具吸引力，促使这个曾经很偏远的地区成为旅游胜地。

Lured by the promise of spectacular natural beauty and exotic cultural experiences, hundreds of thousands of visitors, mostly Chinese, are making the journey to Lugu Lake, nestled on a plateau in the mountains between Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.

在壮丽的自然景观及独特的文化体验的吸引下，成千上万的游客来到位于云南与四川省交界山区高原的泸沽湖旅游，其中大部分是本国游客。

Those numbers are expected to rise with the opening of a local airport this month and later an expressway connecting Lugu Lake to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan.

随着当地的机场在本月开放使用，以及随后连接泸沽湖及四川省会成都的高速公路的开通，这些数据预计会继续攀升。

In response, a number of family-run hotels have popped up along the lake's pristine blue waters. Visitors can watch residents perform traditional dances in colorful costumes and can take boat rides on the lake as young Mosuo men serenade them with love songs in Naru, the Mosuo language.

为了迎接客人，泸沽湖湛蓝的湖水旁突然冒出了很多家庭经营的旅店。游客们可以观看当地居民身穿色彩斑斓的服装表演传统舞蹈，可以乘船游湖，欣赏摩梭青年男子用摩梭人的语言纳汝演唱情歌。

All around the village are signs that read, “Welcome to the Kingdom of Daughters.”

村庄周围有很多“欢迎来到女儿国”的标语。

Lively as its traditions seem, however, the Mosuo community is facing a crisis. As its interaction with the wider society increases, residents and outside experts fear that the group's unique cultural practices are facing a grave threat.

虽然这里的传统看起来充满活力，但摩梭社会正面临一场危机。随着与外界互动的增加，当地居民及外部专家都担心，摩梭人独特的文化习俗面临严重的威胁。

Experts say the population of Mosuo in the Lugu Lake region, estimated to be about 40,000, is decreasing as more young people marry outside the group or move to larger cities for work. And without a written language, Mosuo culture is particularly vulnerable to disappearing.

专家表示，估计泸沽湖地区的摩梭人口大约为4万，随着越来越多的年轻人与族群外的人通婚，或者前往大城市工作，这一数字在不断减少。由于没有书面文字，摩梭文化特别容易消失。

Even within the community, young Mosuo are increasingly choosing marriage over the foundation of Mosuo culture: the centuries-old practice of tiesese (pronounced tee-say-say). Known in Mandarin as zouhun, or walking marriage, tiesese is an alternative to matrimony in which men visit women at night to fulfill the need for procreation and sexual gratification. Traditionally, a Mosuo woman might have several tiesese relationships during her life, sometimes simultaneously. Though this has changed as outside values of monogamy and lifetime partnership seep in.

甚至在摩梭社会内部，年轻人也越来越多地在选择婚姻，而非作为摩梭文化基础的延续了几个世纪的走婚习俗。走婚不同于传统婚姻形式，男性在夜间来到女性家中，满足生殖及性需求。传统上，一名摩梭女性可能一生会有几段走婚关系，有时是同时保持。不过，随着外界的一夫一妻制及终生伴侣的价值观的渗入，这种传统有所改变。

“It would be great to get married one day,” said Lu Ru, 34, who is in a tiesese relationship. “Can you imagine loving someone that much?”

“如果有一天能结婚，那很好，”处于走婚关系中的34岁的鲁如（音）说。“你能想象那么深爱某个人的感觉吗？”

With tiesese, sex is kept separate from family, and men and women are generally expected to spend their lives in the houses in which they were born. As a result, sexual partners rarely occupy the same dwelling. Household harmony is valued above all else, including conjugal relationships.

在走婚关系中，性爱与家庭分离开来，男性和女性通常会在他们出生时的住所度过一生。因此，性伴侣很少生活在同一屋檐下。家庭和睦高过一切，包括婚姻关系。

In traditional Mosuo culture, family life is structured around the basic social unit, known as the “grand household,” in which children are raised by their mother and her side of the family. And while children typically know their biological fathers, maternal uncles are responsible for taking on the paternal role, helping to raise and provide for their sisters' children.

在传统的摩梭文化中，家庭生活围绕基本的社会单位“大家庭”展开。在大家庭中，孩子由母亲及母亲一方的亲人抚养长大。虽然孩子通常知道他们的生父是谁，但舅舅负责扮演父亲角色，帮助抚养其姐妹的孩子。

Men stay with their mothers, and the several generations live in the grand household together.

男性与母亲住在一起，几代人生活在一个大家庭中。

According to Chuan-Kang Shih, an expert on the Mosuo and an anthropology professor at the University of Florida, the system is underpinned by a fundamental belief that women are more capable than men, mentally and even physically. The Mosuo also believe that everything people value in the world came from a woman, not a man. All male deities are secondary to their patron goddess.

研究摩梭人的专家、佛罗里达大学(University of Florida)人类学教授施传刚(Chuan-Kang Shih)表示，这套体系的基础在于一种基本信条，即女性在心智乃至身体上都强于男性。摩梭人还认为，世界上人类所珍视的一切均源于一名女性，而不是男性。所有男性神灵都低于他们的守护女神。

“The system makes so much sense when you think about the overall ways in which family systems have to navigate between sexual desire, stability, domesticity and claims for children,” said Judith Stacey, a professor of sociology at New York University who has written about the Mosuo.

纽约大学社会学教授朱迪丝·斯塔赛(Judith Stacey)表示，“想想家庭制度需要在性欲、稳定、家庭生活和孩子的归属问题方面进行协调的方式，就会觉得这个体系非常说得通。”斯塔赛一直在撰写有关摩梭人的文章。

“But it depends on a lack of mobility, which is why now, with all of this inequality as well as economic and geographic mobility, it can't survive as a system,” Stacey said.

“但这取决于流动性的缺乏。就是因为这个原因，随着各种不平等及经济和地域流动的加强，这个体系现在无法维持，”她说。

According to historical accounts, life in the Mosuo community was relatively stable for hundreds of years. Starting in the Yuan dynasty, which ruled China from 1271 to 1368, the Mosuo were governed by a native chieftain system with a rigid social hierarchy. While they lived alongside several other ethnic groups who practiced marriage, almost all Mosuo continued to practice tiesese.

根据史料记载，数百年来，摩梭社会的生活相对稳定。摩梭人从元朝（1271年至1368年）开始实行土司制度，遵从严格的社会等级。虽然他们与实行婚姻制度的其他几个少数民族比邻而居，但几乎所有摩梭人都延续走婚传统。

That changed in 1956, when the chieftain system came to an end and the Mosuo were incorporated into the recently established Communist system. Under Communist rule, the social ranks were abolished and the Mosuo were subject to continuing efforts to change what the Communists saw as their “backward marriage customs.”

这种情况在1956年发生了改变。当时土司制度走向终结，摩梭人纳入了确立不久的共产主义制度。在共产党的统治下，社会等级被废除，摩梭人被迫努力改变共产党员眼中的“落后婚俗”。

These efforts culminated in 1975 with an official “one husband, one wife” campaign, which required Mosuo sexual partners to marry and live under the same roof.

这些努力在1975年达到顶峰。当时官方开展“一夫一妻制”运动，要求摩梭性伴侣结婚，在同一屋檐下生活。

Since the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976, the government largely receded from everyday life among the Mosuo. But experts say the increased scrutiny left many members of the group with a conflicted attitude toward tiesese.

自1976年文化大革命结束以来，政府基本上从摩梭人的日常生活中退出。但专家表示，日益加强的关注致使很多摩梭人对走婚持有矛盾的态度。

“In the late 1980s, the Mosuo were either very defensive or denied the existence altogether of the so-called walking marriage,” Shih said. “Then in the mid-1990s, when tourism began in the Lugu Lake area, they began to see it as capital to attract tourists, and they started to boast about it.”

“在80年代末，摩梭人或是有很强的戒备心，或是干脆否认有所谓‘走婚’的存在，”施传刚说。“然后在90年代中期，当泸沽湖的旅游业开始发展时，他们开始将它视作吸引游客的资本，开始宣扬。”