Analysis of the Features of the Vernacular Plank Houses of the Qiang Ethnic Group in Southern Songpan County: A Case Study of Xiaoxinggou

Li Yingtao

Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences

Ma Zhitao*

Southwest Jiaotong University

Abstract: The Qiang ethnic group in southern Songpan county lives in vernacular plank houses (VPHs) with an architectural tradition that dates to the period of the ancient Di people. VPHs are now mainly constructed in settlements of ethnic groups such as Baima Tibetans, Amdo Tibetans, and the Qiang people living in Wenxian county, Longnan city of Gansu province,and Maoxian, Lixian, Wenchuan, and Beichuan of Sichuan province respectively. Although VPHs of the Qiang people living in southern Songpan share many similarities with those of adjacent Tibetans in structure, construction, and spatial layout, they feature the Qiang people"s unique architectural culture, and reflect a style transition from VPHs in the north to blockhouses in the south. The VPHs, as represented by those in Xiaoxinggou, play a significant role in the diversified architectural culture of this ethnic group. Their unique cultural value is worthy of further exploration and protection.

Keywords: Qiang ethnic group, vernacular plank houses, Songpan

The upper reaches of the Minjiang River (“the Reaches”), as an important part of the Tibetan-Qiang-Yi Corridor, had been a vital channel for prehistoric ethnic migration since time immemorial. A number of ethnic groups or tribes had thus migrated to and settled down here,including the Yi and Qiang people. The Reaches, located at the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, feature numerous alpine ravines and valleys of various sizes which were generated by the Minjiang River and its branches. These ethnic groups, although lived somewhat separately amid such high mountains and lofty hills, still had many chances to interact with one another, thus giving rise to a diversified and composite cultural form in this area. As the physical carrier and visual representation of ethnic culture, architectural culture of ethnic groups living in the Reaches inherently reflects a characteristic of diversity and compositeness, leading to the coexistence of multiple types of architectural forms.

Since the Han Dynasty, the Qiang people originating from the Hequ region of the Yellow River, have gradually moved southward along the Ethnic Corridor in western Sichuan into the Reaches. As they became increasingly acculturated with local people, they ultimately abandoned their previous nomadic ways of production near rivers and settled down in alpine valleys, mostly in the Reaches. Their production mode was also changed to depend on alpine tillage which was supported by graziery. To suit the change in their mode of production, the ancient Qiang people stopped using tents or yurts for accommodations and chose instead to build houses for permanent habitation by adopting the architectural techniques and culture of the local people. During this process, they inherited and carried on varied architectural forms that had existed in the Reaches for ages and gradually developed their own unique architectural style with diversified types of buildings. As an ethnic group now living in the Reaches, the Qiang people"s architectural culture has a distinct feature of diversity and compositeness and can be regarded as a typical example of the diversified architectural cultures in the region, thanks to their unique historical origin and customs.

Traditional Qiang Architectural Culture Featuring the Coexistence of Diversified Forms

The Reaches has long seen the coexistence of diversified architectural cultures. As early as the Neolithic period, there existed various kinds of architectural forms in the region. Archaeological studies on Yingpanshan, a typical ancient site of the Neolithic period show that primitive people at that time already built houses with wooden frames and mud walls (Chen, Chen ＆ Fan, 2004). This architectural form spread to the Chengdu Plain when groups who favored the tradition of stone coffin burials migrated to and inhabited the valleys of the Minjiang River. In this way, this type of structure became the typical architectural form in ancient cultures such as Baodun and Sanxingdui Ruins.

In addition to houses with wooden frames and mud walls, stone buildings were important types in the Reaches in ancient times. Their history can be traced back over 4000 years when stone houses in the Kanuo Ruins were built. Another piece of evidence is the vestiges of stone houses unmuded in the Han"eyi Neolithic Site in Zhonglu township of Danba county. These excavations demonstrate that the skill of masonry had spread to western Sichuan as early as the Neolithic period. With the spread and development of masonry,stone buildings became prevalent in the Reaches approximately during the Qin and Han dynasties. InThe Imperial Biographies of the Kings of Ancient Shu, the writer Yang Xiong depicted that Cancong, a king of the ancient Shu, “initially lived in a stone cabin in the Minshan Mountains.” This shows that such stone cabins were already a typical type of buildings in the local area at least in the Western Han Dynasty. Ancestors of the Ranmang tribe that settled down in the Reaches during the Eastern Han Dynasty, were known for buildingqionglongas recorded inThe History of Later Han Dynasty—Biographies of Minorities of Southwestern Chinathat, “They resided near mountains and built houses with stones with the highest up to 40 meters.Such houses were calledqionglong.” These kinds of towering buildings were the prototype of watchtowers typical to the Qiang people and the Gyalrong Tibetans of later ages.The History of the Northern Dynasties—the History of Fu Kingdomhas more detailed descriptions of watchtowers in the Reaches as, “They were built near valleys and to the best advantage of occupying a strategic location in the mountain. The ethnic groups built such stone houses to protect themselves from attempted reprisals from their enemies. Their houses were a minimum of 20 meters high and often up to 40 meters high. Each story was separated from the others by planks or laths. The top and bottom lengths were about 4.5 meters and 6 meters respectively so that it looked like a stupa.” According to this description, watchtowers at that time were not much different from the current ones in terms of basic spatial layout and structural form.

In addition to these distinctive watchtowers, there have long existed other types of architectural cultures in the Reaches as the ancient people already had a good knowledge of the diversity of the architectural cultures in this region. Wang Xiangzhi (1991), a geographer of the Southern Song Dynasty, cited records of vernacular houses in Maozhou (ancient name of this region) from theUniversal Geography of the Taiping Erain his book —Record of the Best Sites in the Realm(a geographic encyclopedia of the period). He mentioned that local people built multi-story stupa-likeqionglongwith stones and watchtowers with a maximum height of over 40 meters and that plank houses and mud homes were also seen. But watchtowers were not constructed in eastern Wenchuan, and to the west of Baoling, people wove woolen blankets to cover the top of their yurts.” All these records show that building types in the Reaches during this period were quite diversified as they included watchtowers, blockhouses, plank houses, and mud homes. Such diversity has been preserved and is shown in today"s Qiang architectural cultural heritage.

Contemporary scholars have classified vernacular Qiang houses into different types. For instance, Ji Fuzheng (2000) divided them by building materials into four types, i.e., stone, mud, and plank houses as well as watchtowers for inhabitance, in his bookQiang Architecture in China. Li Xiankui (2009) classified them intoqionglong, slope-roof plank houses, watchtowers for inhabitance, and chieftain"s official mansion in his monograph—Chinese Vernacular Architecture Series: Sichuan. The above two types of classification are quite exhaustive since differences in building materials, forms and functions are all considered.

Figure 1: Sketch Map of the Distribution of Qiang Architectural Culture in the Reaches

Ji holds that stone houses and watchtowers for inhabitance are two different types because unlike in other areas where watchtowers were mainly used as independent public facilities, watchtowers in Qiang enclosed villages in Qugu, Sanlong, and Heihu of Maoxian county had very unique spatial layouts that were designed mainly for inhabitance. In this case, his classification is very comprehensive since what he takes into consideration is not only building materials and structures, but also spatial layouts. But Ji"s classification does not cover the Qiang style stilt houses in the Beichuan area. In Li"s classification,qionglongis equivalent to Ji"s stone houses. Like Ji, he also lists watchtowers as a separate type and does not cover stilt houses. But he puts the chieftain"s official mansion, which had more complex functions and structures, as a single type and leaves out mud homes. Although both of their classifications have upsides and downsides, they both recognize the diversity of Qiang"s architectural types.

After taking into consideration a variety of factors such as architectural cultural origin, regional culture features, building materials, structure, and spatial layouts, we hold that traditional Qiang architecture can roughly fall into five types: blockhouse, plank house, mud homes, stone, and stilt houses. If the five types are viewed at a higher level, they can be classified into two major groups based on architectural culture, which are blockhouses and other types of houses.

In Volume 5 of theHistory of Ancient Chinese Architecture, blockhouses are defined as vernacular dwellings that have stone or mud walls and flat roofs, look like forts from afar, and are built in Sichuan,Gansu, and Qinghai provinces. Local people refer to such blockhouses asdiaofang(Sun, 2002). The above definition points out the following prominent features of blockhouses in this area: Exterior walls are made of stones or mud; roofs are flat, and building elevations are relatively enclosed; they look like forts from afar. The Qiang people build two types of blockhouses for different functions. One was for residence and the other was used as a defense structure for protecting the village. In terms of architectural techniques, the two have the same bearing structure which is realized through the exterior walls. Holes were made inside the walls to support wooden beams, on which floors or roof slabs were placed. The only difference is that a blockhouse has a larger size so that in addition to exterior walls, an interior wooden framework is involved for bearing while a watchtower is generally narrower and only consists of a single room so that exterior walls are adequate for load bearing. Therefore, watchtowers can be regarded as vertical derivatives of blockhouses in terms of architectural techniques. The two types not only share the same architectural techniques, but also have a symbiotic relationship. In Qiang settlements where blockhouses are dominant, watchtowers could also be found more often than not. Blockhouses were used for residences while watchtowers were used for surveillance, signaling, and guarding the village. Moreover, the Qiang people in Sanlong, Qugu,and Heihu of Maoxian county, integrated the two types and developed a unique dwelling which gave play to both functions. Compared with watchtowers that are merely used for military defense, blockhouses were much more numerous and more closely related to the daily lives of the Qiang people. Therefore, we take blockhouses to be the representative architectural form of the Qiang people and refer to the architectural culture of blockhouses and watchtowers collectively as blockhouse culture. Traditional Qiang blockhouses were mainly located in Qiang settlements on the western bank of the Minjiang River and in the valleys along western branches of the river, such as the Zagunao River and the Heishui River.

In traditional Qiang architectural culture, there were other types of houses besides blockhouses. For instance, the Qiang settlements on the eastern bank of the Minjiang River or near the source of the river, built plank, mud, stone or stilt houses instead of blockhouses. They also did not build watchtowers but vernacular houses only. This situation is in line with what is recorded in theUniversal Geography of the Taiping Erathat, “Houses are built to the east of Wenchuan while watchtowers are not seen.” We, therefore, refer to the architectural culture of such houses collectively as “other house culture.” Although there are different forms under this type of architectural culture and roof forms also include flat-roofs and slope-roofs, such houses share the same basic architectural structure and technique—with a wooden framework instead of exterior walls for bearing the load of the beam and floor slabs. Another feature is that apart from using stones, mud,or planks for building exterior walls, such houses were also equipped with verandas and balconies. Therefore,their elevations had a weaker blocking property than that of blockhouses.

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For the distribution of such other types of houses, VPHs were mainly located in Qiang settlements in southern Songpan and northern Maoxian, which were near the source of the Minjiang River. Mud houses were mostly situated in Qiang settlements (represented by Luobu Stockaded village) on the eastern bank of the Minjiang River within Wenchuan. Stone houses were largely found in Qiang settlements on the eastern bank of the Minjiang River within Maoxian. Stilt houses were seen in Qiang settlements more eastward—in the drainage basins of the Baicao River, a tributary of the Jialing River, and the Qingpian River, a tributary of the Tuojiang River.

It is worth noting that VPHs were not an architectural form that was adopted only by the Qiang people.They also stood as traditional vernacular building forms for Baima Tibetans in Pingwu and Amdo Tibetans in Jiuzhaigou. VPHs of the Qiang people were like those of Tibetans in terms of structure types, building technology and materials, but they also had their unique cultural features. In the meantime, VPHs of different Qiang settlements possessed a certain nuance as well. VPHs of the Qiang people living in southern Songpan,especially in Xiaoxinggou, played a significant role in plank house culture of the ethnic group as they had many unique features compared with those of Tibetans in the surrounding areas and those of the Qiang people living in Maoxian (to the south of Songpan). There was also a trend of change in forms as VPHs generally existed in the north and gradually disappeared and were replaced by blockhouses in the south.

Historical Origin of VPHs

With a long history, VPHs have been one of the important architectural forms in western China since ancient times. Such a form was recorded as early as the Spring and Autumn period in theClassic of Poetry.①The earliest written description of plank houses can be found in “Xiaorong” in “Odes of Qin” in “Lessons from the States” in the Classic of Poetry, which includes a line: “Thinking that he would live in a plank house, I have worries filling all the corners of my heart.”They were initially built by the Rong and Di ethnic groups living in the Longxi and Longnan areas,featuring exterior walls made of planks. Such a way of plank walling was also recorded in other ancient books. For instance, it is stated in “Treatise on Geography” in theBook of Hanthat, “There are many forests in mountainous areas in Tianshui and Longxi so people there use planks to build houses.” In the “Wei River” in theCommentary on the Water Classic, it is mentioned that the Di people in Tianshui Prefecture “use planks to build houses, like what was once called Xirong plank houses in theClassic of Poetry.” Actually, the exterior walls of VPHs are not totally made of planks since stones or compacted mud is used as well. For example, it is recorded in “Di” in “Treatise 40” in theBook of Southern Qithat the Di people in the Chouchi area “all lived in plank houses with mud walls regardless of their social class.” This shows that apart from plank walling, they also had mud walls for their houses. Besides plank walling, two-slope roofing clad with wooden plate tiles is a major characteristic of VPHs. The tiles are made of China fir. Ren Naiqiang (1934)described VPHs in the Kham area inAn Illustrated History of Khamthat, “The beam and column structure is quite simple and imitates that of thatched cottages in the interior area but the roof is covered by plate tiles instead of thatch. The plate tiles are made by cutting a China fir log into 1.7-meter-long chunks, removing the bark, and slicing them with a broadsword along the texture. The thin plates have natural grooves like small channels which can act as drainage when they are used for roofing.”

Although VPHs were traditional architecture originating from the Di people, their presence was not limited to the Di area in Longnan. Historically, the Di people lived adjacent to the Yi people of the Ranmang tribe, and the two ethnic groups had interacted deeply since ancient times. In theRecords of the Grand Historian: Treatise on Southwestern Barbarians, it is described that, “To the northeast of the Ranmang tribe, there were over 10 chieftains of a variety of tribes. Among them, Baima was the biggest one. All the tribes were actually subgroups of the Di ethnic group.” With ethnic migration and cultural diffusion, the architectural form of VPHs was gradually introduced southward through the Ethnic Corridor in western Sichuan and finally reached and influenced the Qiang settlements that lived near the headwaters of the Minjiang River. In the end, it evolved into an integral part of the Qiang architectural cultural heritage. In addition to the Qiang ethnic group, Baima Tibetans in Wenxian county of Longnan city, Gansu province,and Pingwu county of Sichuan province, as well as Amdo Tibetans in Jiuzhaigou, developed an architectural culture pertaining to VPHs.

For the Baima people living in Pingwu and Wenxian, although they were classified as Tibetans after the founding of the People"s Republic of China, there are different opinions on the category and origin of their ethnicity. They are believed to be descendants either of the Tibetan regime in ancient China, or the Qiang people, or the Di people. Although scholars in this field have not reached a consensus on their origin and if we put the origin issue aside, we can easily find from the perspective of architectural culture that the area where Baima Tibetans now live highly matches that of the ancient Di people. Moreover, the Baima Tibetans" architectural culture also follows that of the Di people in terms of plank houses. It can thus be concluded that the VPHs of Baima Tibetans were well-established and a time-honored architectural cultural heritage. Jiuzhaigou was also inhabited by the Di people during the Han and Jin dynasties. Plank houses with mud walls were their typical form of architecture as well. As to the origin of Tibetans living currently in this area, academic opinions vary. A mainstream opinion is that when the Tubo regime dispatched troops eastward, two groups, which were tribes led by Dabu and Gongbu, were stationed at what is currently Nanping (Jiuzhaigou), Songpan, and Pingwu, and have lived there for generations, until the present time(Department of Archeology of Sichuan University et al, 2017). Tibetans living in the Jiuzhaigou area speak the Amdo Tibetan language. In terms of their ethnic identity, they are different from Baima Tibetans and believe in the Bon religion. From these cultural aspects, they should be classified as Amdo Tibetans and it is highly possible that their history and origin differ from those of Baima Tibetans. But in terms of architectural culture, they also build VPHs like those of Baima Tibetans and used mud for exterior walls as well. This demonstrates that although they came from the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, they absorbed the architectural culture of plank houses from the local people who had a Di origin. This is the same case for the Qiang people in the Reaches who learned the architectural culture of blockhouses from the Yi people of Ranmang. Both are typical examples showing the fusion of architectural cultures in the Ethnic Corridor in western Sichuan.

VPHs represent an architectural cultural heritage shared by the Qiang people, and the Baima and Amdo Tibetans. In terms of structure and form, VPHs of the Qiang people bear many similarities to those of the Tibetans, but they also have their own unique cultural features. Even for the Qiang people, VPHs in southern Songpan and northern Maoxian differ as well. As southern Songpan is the area where the Qiang settlements adjoin the Tibetan groups, VPHs in this area feature both the Qiang style and have some influences from the neighboring Tibetan architectural culture.

Analysis of the Features of the Qiang VPHs in Xiaoxinggou

The Qiang settlements in southern Songpan are mostly located in the middle reaches of Xiaoxinggou,which also has the most typical VPHs among the Qiang people. Situated in southern Songpan, Xiaoxinggou is a valley with a west-to-east orientation. It is one of the valleys along a wealth of tributaries on the western bank of the Minjiang River. In the upper reaches to its west, there is Hongtu township where Tibetans reside.To the east near the entrance to the Minjiang River, there is the ethnically mixed Zhenjiangguan township where the Han and Hui people live. As high mountains stand between the Munigou to the north where Tibetans dwell and the Songpinggou to the south where the Qiang people live, there is no road available to connect the two settlements with the Qiang people in Xiaoxinggou. Therefore, geographically speaking, the Qiang people in Xiaoxinggou are in closer contact with the Tibetans in Hongtu township, and the Han and Hui people in Zhenjiangguan township.

Xiaoxing township which is mostly inhabited by the Qiang people is in the middle reaches of Xiaoxinggou. It is composed of two administrative villages. One is Da"erbian village which consists of Da"erbian and two stockaded villages. The other is Aixi village which consists of Baihua and two stockaded villages. All these villages nestle on the sunny-side slopes amid the valleys in the south of Xiaoxinggou.Since the stockaded villages of Xiaoxinggou are in an ethnically mixed area where the settlements of Qiang,Tibetan, Han, and other ethnic groups adjoin one another, vernacular houses of the Qiang people here reflect cultural exchanges and influences among the different ethnic groups. For instance, the Qiang people of Xiaoxinggou still follow their old tradition of beliefs in polytheism. Each stockaded village worships their respective patron gods, yet all the villages believe in the same deity for protection. The places where these deities are worshipped are considered divine spaces in each village and it is forbidden to fell trees around such places (Li, 2015). VPHs in Xiaoxinggou are also decorated with a profusion of elements of Tibetan Buddhism, such as prayer flags andchuihuapillars (a short pillar suspended from the beam, with a flower pattern carved at the bottom) with colors of the Tibetan style. In addition, they often have traditional Chinese architectural ornaments such as eave-supports, sparrow braces, andfangshengpatterns as well as paintings of door gods, and couplets.

In terms of spatial layout, vernacular Qiang houses in Xiaoxinggou adopt the same three-level structure as those of ethnic minorities in western Sichuan. People live on the second floor of their houses while the first floor is used for raising livestocks and the open-sided top floor for storing grains and other goods. Such a spatial layout is a historical outcome from similar production and lifestyles of these ethnic groups living in similar geographic environments. Despite these similarities, VPHs in Xiaoxinggou still have their unique features in architectural form and spatial layouts as stated below.

Flexibility in Topographic Treatment and Spatial Layout

Compared with Tibetan VPHs in adjacent areas, Qiang VPHs in Xiaoxinggou feature more flexible building orientations based on topographical conditions. Their main ridges are either perpendicular or parallel to the contour line while those of Tibetan VPHs are consistently perpendicular to the contour line. For newly built VPHs in Xiaoxinggou particularly, their main ridges are generally parallel to the contour line. This is the same for VPHs in the Qiang stockaded villages in Songpinggou. The flexibility in building orientation according to topographical conditions is one of the main differences between Qiang and Tibetan VPHs.

Figure 2: VPHs in Baihua Stockaded Village at Xiaoxinggou (Photo by Ma Zhitao)VPHs in this area are built with the main ridge either perpendicular or parallel to the contour line. This variety in building orientation is one of the features of the Qiang people"s VPHs, showing their flexibility in tackling topographic conditions.

In term of plane layout, the Qiang people in Xiaoxinggou show their flexibility as well. Traditional Tibetan VPHs are often in a rectangular layout with a regular shape but a smaller size. Qiang"s VPHs in Xiaoxinggou, however, are of various kinds of layouts. They are either in a typical rectangular layout, or L or linear layout. Some even form an inverted U-shape, consisting of structures surrounding a courtyard on three sides. As this kind of flexibility in plane layout can also be found in Qiang"s VPHs in Songpinggou, it can be regarded as one of the shared features of VPHs of the Qiang ethnic group.

Features of Building Material and Structure

Qiang VPHs in Xiaoxinggou are unique in building materials and construction. They generally use stones, compacted mud and planks for wall materials from the base to the top. Using the three-story Baihualou (meaning a hundred-flower house) as an example, it is the oldest vernacular house in Subvillage 2 of Aixi village. The ground floor is used as a livestock pen, so it is built with stone walls;the second floor is for residence so planks are used for interior walls while compacted mud is applied for exterior walls; the third floor is like an attic for storage. For the sunny side, planks are used for walls, the gable, and a wooden balcony;for the shady side, compacted mud is applied for the gable and other cross walls. The gable at the shady side is built higher than the roof to form a fire-stopping gable wall while the two-slope roof is clad with wooden plate tiles. The architectural style of the building is very plain and unadorned.Wooden members are all their natural color without any plastering or painting as a finish.White stones are embedded as an architrave near the top of the fire-stopping gable wall and placed on the wall crown for simple decoration. Other ornamental elements include only simple architraves at the ends of the wooden cantilevered beam. Other old vernacular houses around the building are constructed with similar materials and structures. They generally have stone walls for the ground floor, exterior compacted mud walls and interior plank walls for the second floor, with an attached wooden balcony or veranda. There also exist other forms which have a combination of stone and compacted mud walls for their second and higher floors. For Qiang VPHs in Xiaoxinggou, it is typical to use the respective wall materials for the different floors or a combined application of stone and compacted mud walls, though VPHs in Songpinggou do not have compacted mud walls but stone and plank walls only. The Tibetan VPHs in Jiuzhaigou and Pingwu, use a stone masonry structure only for the base walls, and above that only compacted mud is used for walls. Unlike the old vernacular houses like Baihualou,newly built houses in the Qiang stockaded villages in Xiaoxinggou no longer use compacted mud for walls.Instead, stone walls are built for the first floor while planks are used for the above two floors to form the pattern of a stone-wall plank house. For roofing, manually-made wooden plate tiles are replaced by factorymade plate tiles. Gradually, traditional materials and processing techniques will be replaced by more modern methods and materials.

Figure 3: Combination of different wall materials (Photo by Ma Zhitao)Unlike Tibetan VPHs which have walls made only of mud, traditional Qiang VPHs in Xiaoxinggou feature stone, compacted mud, and plank walling materials from the base to the top

Natural Color and Plain Decoration Style

Traditional Qiang VPHs in Xiaoxinggou keep a very plain and unadorned style. Without being coated or painted, nor being straightened or trimmed, wooden members are generally of a natural color and used according to their natural curvature and size. Stone or compacted mud walls are not plastered either. So, the overall appearance of the houses is rough and plain, blending naturally with the surrounding environment.Decoration is simple as well. White stones are placed on top of the houses or embedded in a wall, in a horizontal line, to decorate the upper parts of the compacted mud walls as an architrave. Ornaments such aschuihuapillars are added under the eaves and simple color paintings in geometric shapes are applied on lintels. For some houses, special braces are used between peripheral columns as decoration. This particular practice is actually due to the influence of the Han architectural culture. Geographically, Xiaoxinggou is near Hongtu township where Tibetans live, so the Qiang architecture is also influenced by the Tibetan culture.Some of the VPHs here have bright colors similar to those of vernacular Tibetan houses. Tibetan people like to use pure colors such as green, red, and yellow to paint wooden members like beams and columns. Tibetan prayer flags are often used as well.

Figure 4: For Qiang VPHs in Baihua Stockaded village in Xiaoxinggou, white stone ornaments are placed on top of the house and embedded on its upper wall (left);coating-free wooden members and plaster-free compacted mud walls present a rough and plain style (middle); hollowed-out sparrow braces are installed between peripheral columns for decoration (Right). (Photo by Ma Zhitao)

Qiang VPHs in southern Songpan, as represented by those in Xiaoxinggou, are distinctive in that they have a mixed use of mud and stone walls, using stone for the walls of the first floor and compacted mud walls for the second floor and those above. This is the biggest difference between Qiang VPHs and the Tibetan VPHs in the neighboring areas. Considering the features of Tibetan VPHs to the north and east of Xiaoxinggou and the Qiang VPHs to the south, we see that there is a gradual change in the wall materials used, going from compacted mud to stone masonry. Tibetan VPHs in Pingwu and Jiuzhaigou only have mud walls, while in Songpan, stone walls account for a major portion of the house although compacted mud walls are still used. However in Maoxian county to, the south of Xiaoxinggou, compacted mud walls are no longer seen and only stone walls are utilized for VPHs.

If we take a wider scope and include blockhouses, we find that in Qiang settlements in such townships as Weicheng, south of Maoxian, which have VPHs in Songpinggou as the representative style, stone blockhouses in the township are also topped with sloped roofs covered with wooden plate tiles. Qiang blockhouses in places such as Heihu, Sanlong, and Qugu, which are further to the south, are traditional in style with stone masonry and flat roofs. There is a clear north-to-south transition in vernacular Qiang houses in this region, characterized by the following gradual changes: from compacted mud walls to stone walls,from sloped roofs clad with wooden plate tiles to flat roofs, and from plank houses to blockhouses. This reflects the gradual fusion and evolution of plank house culture and blockhouse culture in such an interfacing region.

The diversity and compositeness of the Qiang people"s architectural culture result from their ethnic migration process, long millennia of inhabitance in the Reaches, and inheritance and development of existing diverse architectural cultures. As VPHs play an important role in the Qiang architectural culture, the understanding of the influence and fusion between VPHs and blockhouses can help us enrich our knowledge of the Qiang architectural culture and inherit and better protect this cultural heritage. Currently, the general public is not aware of the diversity of Qiang architectural culture, and most people think blockhouses are the typical form. Under the influence of this cognition, many new public facilities in the Qiang area are all in the form of blockhouses or watchtowers. For instance, in Songpinggou where Qiang VPHs actually exist extensively, the tourist center of the scenic spot is built like a watchtower. This unilateral practice has caused obvious damage to the diversity of traditional Qiang architectural culture. Compared with Songpinggou which has already been developed into a tourist attraction, Xiaoxinggou is relatively enclosed so that such development-oriented damage is not that extensive. Against this reality, a comprehensive knowledge of the architectural culture of the Qiang VPHs in Songpan and studies of their basic features have become important academic tasks that need to be completed. They are also of great significance for the protection and inheritance of the diversity of traditional Qiang architectural culture.