Gěngmǎ

Gengma lies in the Nan Ding River basin amid the mountains of southwestern Yunnan. Tai hereditary chiefs governed the Gengma basin and later held part of the neighboring Mengding basin. Local tradition traces the founding of the chiefdom to a father and son who crossed the Wa mountains and established settlements here in the late fourteenth century. The chiefdom endured under the Ming and Qing, retaining its own hereditary line of rulers.