A brief description of the woodblock prints of the "Naxi Pictographs and Geba Script Comparative Lexicon" in the Lijiang Museum collection.

This article focuses on the historical significance and cultural context of the "Naxi Pictographs and Geba Script Comparative Lexicon," a set of woodblock prints preserved by the Lijiang Museum that represent the only existing woodblock prints of the Naxi script and are classified as national third-class cultural relics. The lexicon was part of a 20th-century movement led by Dongba ritualists, notably He Siquan and He Xuedao, to standardize and unify the Naxi pictographic script and the syllabic Geba script, both used by the Naxi people in Lijiang Basin. Despite partial completion and the carving of woodblocks, the project was interrupted by He Siquan’s death and subsequent social upheavals, leaving the unification unfinished. The article also examines the linguistic features of the scripts, the cultural and social challenges faced by the Dongba ritualists, and the broader historical printing traditions of Lijiang that framed this unique effort to transition a pictographic script into woodblock printing.