On a mild summer day in 2005, Aku Wuwu and I traveled by jeep into a narrow valley in Xide County, in the Liangshan Mountains of southern Sichuan.1 Our mission was to find a folk version of The Book of Origins, which relates the origins of the life-forms of earth and sky, including the early human lineages. The epic is key to the ritual life of the Nuosu, the largest subgroup of the Yi ethnic group in southwest China. Versions of the epic are transmitted by way of oral performances and written texts in connection with various ritual events. We hoped to find a content-rich ver-sion written in Yi script, one suitable for translating into Chinese and English for local, national, and global audiences.