1.1 Songpan’s location in Sichuan Province under the PRC 5
1.2 16th century Songpan garrison, with Longan prefecture and principal tsowa (buluo) 21
2.1 16th century Ming and 18th century Qing Songpan (rough overlay) 70
2.2 Greater Songpan and the 72 buluo in late Qing 73
2.3 Songpan garrison city in late Qing and early Republic 89
2.4 A tea porter carrying a load of 300 lbs. on a trade route in Western Sichuan, 1920s 114
3.1 View of Songpan town in 1924 129
3.2 Songpan’s ethnic composition in the 1930s: an official view 131
4.1 Snow Mountain/Shar dung ri (part, with colored pools) 174
4.2 The Yellow Dragon’s scales 175
4.3 “Shifan” (Xifan) pilgrims in 1924 181
4.4 Diagram of three Bon pilgrimage circuits at Shar dung ri 182
4.5 “Carpet of Golden Sand” at Huanglong 193
4.6 Sketch map of Huanglong/Sertso (with early 21st century site names) 196
4.7 Yellow Dragon the Perfected in 1924 199
5.1 Counties in Aba Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in 1950s 236
6.1 Huanglong as a World Heritage Site 286
6.2 Songpan’s reconstruction: Gusong Bridge 292
6.3 Huanglong tourist numbers, 1983–2009 296
6.4 The new Huanglong Temple festival, with guards and Tibetan monks in the front 298
6.5 Tourists on the Huanglong boardwalk 302
7.1 Statue of Songtsan Gampo and Princess Wencheng at Songpan’s North Gate 316
7.2 Statuary of Red Army Soldiers in the Long March at Chuanzhusi 321
7.3 Rear Temple, seen with “sleeping beauty” on horizon (head to left) 323
8.1 Yellow Dragon the Perfected in 2005 339
8.2 The Daoist priest and Han pilgrims 342
8.3 Casting lungta at Bird Cemetery mountain 349
8.4 The Gamel confederation in summer 2005 350
8.5 The grave marker of Yao the Good 365
9.1 The Upper Mosque outside Songpan’s North Gate 386
9.2 Hanzu and Zangzu honoring the dead at the City God Festival 392
For sources, see at each figure. Photographs taken by authors unless otherwise noted.