A brief description of the woodblock prints of the “Naxi Pictographs and Geba Script Comparative Lexicon” in the Lijiang Museum collection

Abstract

The woodblock prints of the “Naxi Pictographs and Geba Script Comparative Lexicon” collected by the Lijiang Museum are the only existing woodblock prints of the Naxi script, and are classified as national third-class cultural relics. These prints bear witness to a Naxi script unification movement initiated by Dongba ritualists in the Lijiang Basin during the first half of the 20th century, holding significant historical importance in the development of Naxi script. This article describes the features and contents of these woodblocks; through an investigation of the historical events related to the script unification, it corrects the dating of the woodblocks and analyzes the cultural background and deeper reasons for the interruption of this Naxi script unification movement.