A Mai Ni is a great poet of the Yi Minority in ancient times, whose poem with “structure of three-paragraph” are the most popular and most distinctive poetic styles in Yi language poetry. As more and more ethnic classics were discovered and collated, many Yi poems have been translated into English and spread overseas. How to convey the positive image of simplicity, wisdom and bravery of Yi people to native English readers requires translators to have sufficient knowledge and understanding of source language ecology and target language ecology. Translation, to some extent, is a process of transplanting a text from one ecology to another. The Yi and Han ethnic groups have different ways of thinking and language expression on the same thing, which inevitably leads to possible misinterpretation in cross-cultural communication, that is, the distortion of reality by language, which is very common while easily ignored. This paper explores deeply the misunderstanding or deviation in translating A Maini's poetry from Yi language to Han language due to the influence of language-transfer from translator’s Chinese language and cultural background, providing the causes to affect. The translation principles, methods and strategies will be discussed based on seeking for the independent survival of the target text in the target ecology, so as to lay the foundation for the successful construction of the Chinese national image in the eyes of overseas readers.