The character "Wu" refers to a shaman. This gorge was so called after an imperial physician called Wu Xian who lived during the time of King Yao. Wushan begins the second set of gorges, Wuxia; 45km of fantastic precipices. It is fabled that the goddess Yao Ji and her eleven sisters quelled some unruly river dragons and then turned themselves into mountains, thoughtfully positioned to help guide ships downriver. Nearby, a rock inscription attributed to the Three Kingdoms strategist Zhuge Liang proclaims: "Wuxia's peaks rise higher and higher" - ambiguous words that so frightened an enemy general that on reading them he turned tail and fled with his army.
A short detour up Danning Stream takes you through the picturesqe Lesser Three Gorges (see the photo above). Towards the end, high up on cliff are hanging coffins . A burial custom of the Ba people, dating back over 2,000 years, they resemble other cliffside coffins found in Gongxian near Yibin. These hanging coffins are said to date back to the Ming dynasty (1368 - 1644). No one is sure how or why this custom came about, however the Ba people - no longer surviving - were known for other perverse behavior, such as that of protesting heaven. One such protest, for example, took the form of wearing too many clothes in summer and too few in winter.
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