Diorama of Nature Worship

City Museum of Naxi Culture, Lijiang, Yunnan province

The Naxi worship of nature is illustrated here, in a diorama from the City Museum that recreates various holy flags (photo center and left) and ritual texts (photo upper right) that would have been erected around venerated trees in a sacred natural space. This idea is similar to the ancient Greek worship of Dryads in sacred groves, and illustrates, perhaps, an earlier veneration of nature that we modern people have lost.