China’s ethnic minorities

We continue our series on China’s 55 ethnic minority groups. This month features the De’ang, Dong, and Dongxiang ethnic minorities. The De'ang ethnic minority
Population: 15,500
Major area of distribution: Yunnan
Language: De'ang
Religion: Buddhism

The number of De'ang people in China totals 15,500. Small as their population is, the people of this ethnic group are quite widely distributed throughout Yunnan Province. Most of them dwell in Santai Township in Luxi County of the Dehong Dai-Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture and in Junnong Township in Zhenkang County of the Lincang Prefecture. The others live scattered in Yingjiang, Ruili, Longchuan, Baoshan, Lianghe and Gengma counties. Some De'ang live together with the Jingpo, Han, Lisu and Va nationalities in the mountainous areas. And a small number of them have their homes in villages on flatland peopled by the Dai. The De'ang language belongs to the South Asian family of languages. The De'ang have no written script of their own, and many of them have learned to speak the Dai, Han or Jingpo languages, and some can read and write in the Dai language. An increasing number of them have learned the Han language in years after the mid-20th century.

The De'ang people have been living in the mountainous areas of Gaoligong and Nushan ranges in western Yunnan Province for generations. The climate is subtropical, and there is fertile soil, abundant rainfall, rich mineral resources and dense forests. The dragon bamboo here grows very long and has a stem with a diameter of 4 to 5.2 inches. The Zhenkang area has been famed for this kind of bamboo for the past 2,000 years. It is used to build houses and make household utensils and farm implements. Bamboo shoots are a famed delicacy.

The De'ang, who took to farming since very ancient times, grow both wet and upland rice, corn, buckwheat and tuber crops as well as walnut and jute. They learned to cultivate tea, cotton, coffee, and rubber after the founding of the People's Republic in 1949.

The De'ang have been great tea drinkers since very early times, and now every family has tea bushes growing among vegetables, banana, mango, jack fruit, papaya, pear and pomegranate trees in a garden around the house.

History
De'ang was a name given to this ethnic group in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Before that time the De'ang along with the Blang and Va ethnic minorities, speaking a south Asian language inside Yunnan Province, were called "Pu people," according to historical records. In those bygone times the "Pu people" were distributed mainly in the southwestern part of Yunnan Province, which was called Yongchang Prefecture in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-A.D. 220). Their forefathers settled on the banks of the Nujiang River (upper reaches of the Salween that flows across Burma) long before the arrival of the Achang and Jingpo ethnic minorities.

Development of De'ang society has been uneven. Since the De'ang have lived in widely scattered localities together with the Han, Dai, Jingpo, Va and other nationalities, who are at different stages of development, they have been influenced by these ethnic groups politically, economically and culturally. The Dai influence is particularly strong since the De'ang had lived in servitude under Dai headmen in feudal times. However, some traces of the ancient clan and village commune of the De'ang ethnic minority are still to be found in the Zhenkang area.

The production unit of the De'ang ethnic group is the family, and there is marked division of labor according to sex and age. The farm tools used are bought from Han and Dai regions. Generally speaking, the De'ang practice intensive farming on flatland and on farms near the Han and Dai regions or in paddy fields. Dry land is not cultivated meticulously.

In De'ang villages in the Dehong area, the cultivated land used to be communally owned. The wasteland around each village was also communally owned, but people could freely open up the land for cultivating crops. If the land was left uncultivated, it automatically reverted to communal ownership again. In later times, the selling or mortgaging of paddy fields and gardens led to the emergence of private ownership. As a result, most of the paddy fields came into the possession of Han landlords, rich peasants and Dai headmen.

Without either draught animals or funds, and burdened down with taxes and debts, the De'ang could not open up hillside land and gradually became the tenants or farmhands of the landlords, rich peasants and headmen. Many cut firewood, burned charcoal and wove in the off-hours to make ends meet.

In the Zhenkang Prefecture, which had plenty of dry land and little paddy land, private ownership of land and usury had been uncommon. Yet feudal ownership and tenancy show such traces of communal ownership of land as strict demarcation lines between the land of different villages and clearly-marked signs between communally owned land, woods and small privately owned plots. Communal land in each village was managed by headmen. And anyone, from other villages who wanted to rent the communal or private plots, had to get the permission of village headmen.

Some De'ang people still retain some traces of the communal system in the way they live. A clan commune was formed by many small families with blood relations. Usually thirty to forty people shared one outsized communal house, but each individual family had its own fireplace and kept its own account. Primitive distribution on an equal basis was practiced in farming. But exploitation had appeared with some families owning more cows and working less.

The De'ang people everywhere used to live under the sway of the feudal lords of the Dai ethnic group. De'ang headmen in the Dehong region were either appointed by Dai chieftains or were hereditary. To control and exploit the De'ang people, Dai chieftains granted official titles to De'ang headmen and let them run the villages, impose levies, and collect tributes. Some De'ang people who lived in or near areas under the Jingpo's jurisdiction had to pay "head taxes." This constituted another burden for the De'ang who paid heavy taxes and rents to Dai chiefs or the Kuomintang government.

Landlords and rich peasants of the De'ang ethnic group made up only two percent of the population. Many of them were appointed headmen of Dai chiefs. Being tenants or farmhands of either Han landlords and rich peasants or Dai headmen, most De'ang lived in dire poverty.

Post-1949 Development
A new day dawned for the De'ang people when Yunnan Province was liberated in 1951. The first thing the De'ang did was to restore social order and develop farm production after helping the government round up remnant KMT troops who had turned bandits. In 1955 land was distributed to the De'ang people who made up half of the population on the flatland and in the semi-hilly areas of Zhenkang, Gengma, Baoshan and Dehong in an agrarian reform in which both the De'ang and Dai people participated. Not long afterwards, the De'ang set up agricultural cooperatives. At the same time, the rest of the De'ang people living in the mountainous areas of Dehong, like the Jingpo dwelling there, formed mutual aid groups to till the land, carried out democratic reforms and gradually embarked on the socialist road.

The De'ang people, who lived in compact communities in Santaishan in Luxi County and Junnong in Zhenkang County, established two ethnic township governments. In July 1953, the Dehong Dai-Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture was established, and the De'ang had 12 representatives in the government. Many functionaries of the De'ang people are now serving in government offices at various levels. Some De'ang in Yunnan Province have been elected deputies to local people's congresses and the National People's Congress.

The economy in the De'ang areas has been developing apace. Take Santaishan in Luxi County for example. People here started farmland construction on a big scale with their Han and Jingpo neighbors in the wake of agricultural cooperation. Today, the land here is studded with reservoirs and crisscrossed by canals, and hill slopes have been transformed into terraced plots. Tea and fruit are grown, and large numbers of goats, cows and hogs are raised. The cropped area has increased enormously, and grain production is four times the 1951 level.

As the people of this minority group could scarcely make enough to keep body and soul together, no De'ang went to school in pre-liberation days. Those who could read some Dai words in those days were a few Buddhist monks. Pestilence and diseases due to poor living conditions were rampant, and there were no doctors. People had but to ask "gods" to cure them when falling sick.

Today De'ang children can attend primary schools established in villages where the De'ang live. Priority is given to enrolling De'ang children in other local schools. Large numbers of illiterate adults have learned to read and write, and the De'ang people now have even their own college students, teachers and doctors.

Smallpox which had a very high incidence in localities peopled by the De'ang people has been eradicated with the assistance of medical teams dispatched by the government. Malaria, diarrhea and other tropical diseases have been controlled.

Life Style
Like most people in the sub-tropical regions, the De'ang live in houses made of bamboo. While some dwell in large communal houses, those in the Dehong area have a two-story house to every family. The upper floor serves as living quarters, kitchen and storeroom, and beneath it is a stable for animals and poultry. There are also sheds in which are stored firewood and foot-pedaled mortars used in husking rice.

People dress in traditional costumes studded with silver ornaments. Men wear turbans. Boys look handsome with their silver necklaces. Most women wear dark dresses lined with extra large silver buttons at the front, and skirts with red and black flower patterns. Rattan waistbands and silver earrings add grace and harm. Nowadays, De'ang boys have the same hairstyle as the Hans and do not like to burden their bodies with heavy ornaments. Men have the custom of tattooing their bodies with designs of tiger, deer, bird and flower.

Monogamy is practiced by the De’ang. People of the same clan do not marry with one another. Intermarriage is rare with people of other ethnic groups.

Young people have the freedom to choose their own partners, and courtship lasts for a long time. When a girl hears a love song under her window, she either ignores it or responds. If she likes the boy singer, she tosses a small blanket down to him. Then she opens the door and lets him in. The boy covers his face with the blanket, enters her room, and meets the girl by the side of the fire. The parents are happy and do not interfere.

The lovers often meet and chat until midnight or dawn. After a few dates, the boy gives her a necklace or waistband as a token of his love. The more waistbands a girl gets, the more honored she is. To show his devotion, the boy wears earrings. The number she gives him is a mark of her love.

If the courtship goes well, the boy would offer gifts to the girl's family and send people to propose marriage. Even if the girl's parents disagree, the girl can decide for herself and go to live in the boy's house.

A De'ang wedding party is gay and interesting. Each guest is sent two packages, one containing tea and the other cigarettes. This is an invitation. They bring gifts and firecrackers to the bride and groom.

The new couple first enters the kitchen and put some money in a wooden rice tub. This means they have been nurtured by the cereal, and now show their gratitude. Water-drum dancing is an important part of the wedding ceremony. The drums are made of hollowed trunks into which water is poured to wet the skin and center to determine its tone. Water-drum dancing has a legend behind it. In ancient times a young De'ang man's beautiful fiancée was snatched away by a crab monster. He fought the crab, vanquished it, ate it, and made a drum of its shell. At today's wedding ceremonies, water-drum dancing symbolizes true love.

The De'ang bury their dead in public cemeteries but those who die of long illness or difficult labor are cremated.

The De'ang are Hinayana Buddhists. Most villages have a temple. The monks live on the offerings of their followers. Their daily needs are provided by the villagers in turn. Formerly the De'ang did not raise pigs or chickens. A rooster was kept in each village to herald the break of day. Today this old custom has died, and chickens are raised. People do not work during religious holidays or sacrificial days. Being Buddhists, the De'ang in some localities do not kill living creatures. This has its down side -- wild boars that come to devour their crops are left unmolested. This at times results in quite serious crop losses

The Dong ethnic minority
Population: 2.5 million
Major area of distribution: Guizhou, Hunan and Guangxi
Language: Dong
Religion: Polytheism

Nestled among the tree-clad hills dotting an extensive stretch of territory on the Hunan-Guizhou-Guangxi borders are innumerable villages in which dwell the Dong people.

The population of this ethnic group in China is 2.5 million. Situated no more than 186 miles north of the Tropic of Cancer, the area peopled by the Dong has a mild climate and an annual rainfall of 48 inches. The Dong people grow enormous numbers of timber trees which are logged and sent to markets. Tong-oil and lacquer and oil-tea camellia trees are also grown for their edible oil and varnish.

The most favorite tree of the people of this ethnic group is fir, which is grown very extensively. Whenever a child is born, the parents begin to plant some fir saplings for their baby. When the child reaches the age of 18 and marries, the fir trees, that have matured too, are felled and used to build houses for the bride and groom. For this reason, such fir trees are called "18-year-trees." With the introduction of scientific cultivation methods, a fir sapling can now mature in only eight or 10 years, but the term "18-year-trees" is still current among the Dong people.

Farming is another major occupation of the Dong, who grow rice, wheat, millet, maize and sweet potatoes. Their most important cash crops are cotton, tobacco, rape and soybean.

With no written script of their own before 1949, many Dong learned to read and write in Chinese. Philologists sent by the central government helped work out a Dong written language on the basis of the Latin alphabet in 1958.

Customs and Habits
The Dong live in villages of 20-30 households located near streams. There are also large villages of 700 households. Their houses, built of fir wood, are usually two or three stories high. Those located on steep slopes or riverbanks stand on stilts; people live on the upper floors, and the ground floor is reserved for domestic animals and firewood. In the old days, landlords and rich peasants dwelled in big houses with engraved beams and painted columns. Paths inside a village are paved with gravel, and there are fishponds in most villages. One lavish feature of Dong villages is the drum towers. Meetings and celebrations are held in front of these towers, and the Dong people gather there to dance and make merry on New Year's Day. The drum tower of Gaozhen Village in Guizhou Province is especially elaborate. Standing 13 stories high, it is decorated with carved dragons, phoenixes, flowers and birds.

Equally spectacular is folk architecture that goes into the construction of bridges. Wood, stone arches, stone slabs and bamboo are all used in erecting bridges. The roofed bridges which the Dong have dubbed "wind and rain" bridges are best-known for their unique architectural style. The Chengyang "Wind and Rain" Bridge in Sanjiang is 181.5 yards long, 11 yards across and 11 to 22 yards above the water. Roofed with tiles engraved with flowers, it has on its sides five large pagoda-like, multi-tier pavilions beautifully decorated with carvings. It is a covered walkway with railings and benches for people to sit on and enjoy the scenes around.

A typical Dong diet consists mainly of rice. In the mountainous areas, glutinous rice is eaten with peppers and pickled vegetables. Home-woven cloth is used to make traditional Dong clothing; finer cloth and silks are used for decoration or for making festival costumes. Machine-woven cloth printed black and purple or blue is becoming more popular.

Men usually wear short jackets with front buttons. In the mountainous localities in the south, they wear collarless skirts and turbans. The females are dressed in skirts or trousers with beautifully embroidered hems. Women wrap their legs and heads in scarves, and wear their hair in a coil.
 
Many popular legends and poems, covering a wide spectrum of themes, have been handed down by the Dong from generation to generation. Their lyrics tend to be very enthusiastic, while narrative poems are subtle and indirect, allusive and profound. Songs and dances are important aspects of Dong community life. Adults teach traditional songs to children, and young men sing them.

Prior to 1949, the feudal patriarchal family was the basic social unit. Women were on the lowest rung of the social ladder, and they were even forbidden to touch sacrificial objects. Girls lived separately on the upper floors allowing no men to visit them. After marriage, women were given a little share of "female land" for private farming. Monogamy was and is practiced. Childless couples were allowed to adopt sons, and only men were entitled to inherit family property.

A newlywed woman continued to live with her own parents. She went to her husband's home only on holidays and on special occasions. She would go to live with her husband permanently after giving birth to her first child.

Dong funeral rituals are similar to those of the Han, but in Congjiang the deceased is put in a coffin which is put outdoors unburied. Before the founding of the People’s Republic of China, funeral ceremonies were very elaborate and wasteful. They have been much simplified since 1949. The Dong believe in ancestor worship and revere many gods and spirits. They have special reverence for a "saint mother" for whom altars and temples have been erected in the villages.
 
The Dong have many festivals -- Spring Festival, Worshipping Ox Festival, New Harvest Festival, Pure Brightness Festival and Dragon Boat Festival.

History
At the time of the Qin and Han dynasties (221 B.C.-A.D. 220) there lived many tribes in what is present-day Guangdong and Guangxi. The Dong people, descendants of one of these tribes, lived in a slave society at that time. Slavery gradually gave way to a feudal society in the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

Agriculture developed rapidly during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) in the Dong areas in southeast Guizhou and southwest Hunan provinces. Rice production went up with improved irrigation facilities. And self-employed artisans made their appearance in Dong towns. Markets came into existence in some bigger towns or county seats, and many big feudal landowners also began to do business. After the Opium War of 1840-42, the Dong people were further impoverished due to exploitation by imperialists, Qing officials, landlords and usurers.

The Dong, who had all along fought against their oppressors, started to struggle more actively for their own emancipation after the founding of the Chinese Communist Party in 1921. They served as guides and supplied grain to the Chinese Red Army when it marched through the area during its Long March in the mid-1930s. In 1949, guerilla units organized by the Dong, Miao, Han, Zhuang and Yao nationalities fought shoulder to shoulder with regular People's Liberation Army forces to liberate the county seat of Longsheng.

Post-mid-20th Century Period
A momentous event in Dong history took place on August 19, 1951 when the Longsheng Autonomous County of the Dong, Zhuang, Miao and Yao peoples was founded. This was followed by the setting up of the Sanjiang Dong Autonomous County in Guangxi, the Tongdao Dong Autonomous County in Hunan, the Miao-Dong Autonomous Prefecture in southeastern Guizhou, and the Xinhuang Dong Autonomous County in Hunan.

The establishment of autonomous counties enhanced relations between various ethnic groups and eliminated misunderstanding, mistrust and discord sowed by the ruling class between the Dong and other ethnic minorities. In Congjiang County, Guizhou, the Dong in one village once warred against the Miao in another for the possession of a brook. The people of the two villages remained hostile to each other for over a century until the dispute was resolved through negotiations after the setting up of the Miao-Dong Autonomous Prefecture. They have been living in harmony since.

Another eventful change in Dong life is the carrying out of the agrarian reform, which put an end to feudal oppression under which members of this ethnic group had been groaning for centuries.

The Dong who were ruled and never ruled have their own people holding posts in the governments of the autonomous counties. Dong cadres in Guangxi number 2,950, and those in Hunan 3,040. Many Dong women, who had no political status formerly, now hold responsible government posts at the county or prefectural levels.

Achievements have also been made in many other fields in the post-1949 period. With the opening of schools, all children between 7 and 10 in Longping village, for example, are attending classes. Malaria and other diseases, which used to take a heavy toll of lives, have by and large been eliminated, thanks to improved health care and the disappearance of witch doctors. There was no industry in the Dong areas formerly. Today, small factories are turning out farm implements, chemical fertilizer, cement, paper and other products. Electricity generated by small power installations drives irrigation pumps and light homes in many Dong villages.

The Dongxiang ethnic minority
Population: 373,700
Major areas of distribution: Gansu and Xinjiang
Language: Dongxiang and Han Chinese
Religion: Islam

People of the Dongxiang ethnic minority live in the part of the Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture situated south of the Yellow River and southwest of Lanzhou, capital city of the northwest province of Gansu. Half of them dwell in the Dongxiang Autonomous County, and the rest are scattered in Hezheng and Linxia counties, the city of Lanzhou, the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and some other places.

The Dongxiang ethnic minority received its name from the place it lives -- Dongxiang. However, this ethnic group was not recognized as a minority prior to the founding of the People's Republic in 1949. The Dongxiang were then called "Dongxiang Huis" or "Mongolian Huis." The Dongxiang language is basically similar to Mongolian, both belonging to the Mongolian branch of the Altaic language family. It contains quite a number of words borrowed from the Han Chinese language. Most of the Dongxiang people also speak Chinese, which is accepted as their common written language. Quite a few of them can use Arabic alphabet to spell out and write Dongxiang or Chinese words.

The Dongxiang are an agricultural people who grow potatoes, wheat, maize and broad beans as well as hemp, rapeseed and other industrial crops.

History
Historians are divided in their views about the origin of the Dongxiang ethnic minority. Some hold that they are descendants of Mongolian troops posted in the Hezhou area by Genghis Khan (1162-1227) during his march to the west. Other historians say they are a mixture of many races -- Hui, Mongolian, Han and Tibetan groups.

However, according to legends and historical data, the Dongxiang probably originated from the Mongolians. As far back as the 13th century, Mongolian garrison units were stationed in the Dongxiang area. In these units were Mongols and military scouts and artisans Genghis Khan brought from West Asia. In time of war, the military scouts would fight as soldiers on the battlefield. And they farmed and raised cattle and sheep in time of peace. These garrison troops later took local women as wives, and their offspring at the beginning were called "military households" which became "civilian households" with the passage of time.

During the early years of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), they were offered amnesty by the Ming rulers, and they settled down permanently in the Dongxiang area.

The Dongxiang people had been groaning under national and class oppression throughout the ages. This had driven them to take up arms against their oppressors many times.

For several decades before the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, the Dongxiang people suffered under the oppressive rule of the feudal Hui warlords, Ma Anliang, Ma Qi and Ma Bufang, and Kuomintang warlord Liu Yufen.

What infuriated the Dongxiang most was the pressganging of their young men into the armed forces by the Kuomintang and Hui warlords. At one swoop in 1948, the pressgangs rounded up a total of more than 3,000 young men. Even the ahungs in some mosques were not spared. They were thrown into the army after their beards were shaved. Pressganging operations that were carried out time and again had made the Dongxiang villages and towns devoid of young men.

Religion
The Dongxiang are Muslims, and at one time there were 595 mosques and 79 other places of worship in the Dongxiang area. This gave every 30 Dongxiang households a place of worship. Apart from the 12 imams, there were more than 2,000 full-time religious workers. That means every 18 households had to provide for one religious worker. And there were 34 different kinds of religious expenses which had to be borne by the ordinary people.

The Muslims in the Dongxiang area were then divided into three sects -- the Old, the New and the Emerging sects. Carrying out a "divide and rule" policy, the ruling class sowed dissention among these sects. As a result, the Muslims were at feud among themselves. At times there were armed clashes.

Since the early days of 1950s, the Chinese government has pursued a policy of freedom of religious beliefs in the Dongxiang area and taken measures to restore unity among the Muslims population. In 1958, the Dongxiang people carried out the struggle against religious and feudal privileges and the system of oppression and exploitation. This resulted in a further liberation of the productive forces.

"Flowers" in Bloom
There are in the Dongxiang area many folk songs which the local people have dubbed "flowers" and were sung in the past by people to express their hopes for a better life and to pour out their wrath against oppression. The "flowers," which had been ruthlessly trampled down in the old days, began to blossom anew following the emancipation of the Dongxiang people.

There are quite a number of popular narrative poems and folktales in the Dongxiang area. The long poem "Meilagahei and Miss Machenglong" sings the praise of the heroism of a young couple who pitted themselves against out-moded ethics and the feudal marriage system. The folklore "Green Widow Kills the Boa" depicts the courage, wisdom and self-sacrificing spirit of Dongxiang women.

Historical Changes
Many changes took place in the Dongxiang area after the arrival of the People's Liberation Army in the autumn of 1949. On September 25, 1950, the Dongxiang Autonomous County was founded to be followed by the establishment of many ethnic minority townships in other localities. "Solidarity Committees" were set up everywhere to eliminate disunity then still existing between the Dongxiang and other ethnic groups. Many Dongxiang were trained to be government functionaries at various levels.

Trees and grass were and are being planted on barren hills to check erosion which had plagued the Dongxiang area for ages. Large tracts of farmland on hill slopes have been transformed into terraced plots. All this, coupled with the construction of irrigation facilities, has greatly raised annual grain production.

A power station and factories turning out farm implements, cement, flour, bricks and tiles have made their appearance in the area, one of the most under-developed localities in China a few decades ago. Transport and traveling have been made easier with the arrival of trucks and buses, and with the construction of a highway network that links together all the townships, and the Dongxiang area with the provincial capital of Lanzhou.

Diseases such as kala-azar and leprosy in the area have, in the main, been stamped out, thanks to improved health care and health education conducted among the people.

Source: People's Daily Online (http://english.people.com.cn/)