Did Joseph Rock get it right? Jackson's study questions the antiquity of the Naxi scripts and sheds a different light on their ceremonies. Where Rock seems to drown in detail, Jackson seeks the broader picture.
Of all the westerner who made it to Yunnan, Joseph Francis Rock was undoubtedly one of the most eccentric. A self-educated botanist and anthropologist, a recluse, a photographic pioneer, a lousy geographer and even worse writer: National Geographic's 'our man in China' left us with a string of (heavily staff-edited) NG articles and a few (almost unreadable) books. Here is our list.