Liangshan Yi Slave Society Museum

The Liangshan Yi Slave Society Museum is one of the more serious ethnographic institutions in Sichuan. Its displays cover the hierarchical society that characterised Yi communities in the Liangshan mountains before 1956 — a system of four rigid hereditary strata, with slaves (who could be bought and sold as property) at the base. The museum neither sensationalises the history nor smooths it into a comfortable national narrative, which makes it more informative than most comparable institutions.

The collection includes Yi material culture — traditional clothing, weapons, religious objects, agricultural implements — alongside documentation of the social system itself. The building is modern and well-maintained. Allow two hours to do it properly. The museum is within walking distance of the city centre and is open daily except Mondays. Admission is free.

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A story
The museum documents in specific, uncomfortable detail a feudal caste system — from nobles through commoners to hereditary slaves — that operated in the Liangshan Yi regions until communist land reform in the 1950s. The institution of chattel slavery in twentieth-century China is not a subject that most Chinese national narratives address directly; this museum is unusual for the degree of specificity with which it does so, including material culture, oral history recordings, and case studies of individual families.