Books about the Achang. (20120205)

Achangs treasure their oral culture and ballads, stories and folk tales. Singing alternating duets is a avourite evening recreation of young men and women. Musical instruments used by Achangs include the bamboo qin

Dali by night. Photo. (20120130)

The Old city of Dali is the main urban center of the Dali people. Centuries of Chinese influences and decades of tourism changes contributed to give this city an original air.

Namyi Sacrifice to the Mountain Deities. Video. (20111227)

This video shows some scenes of the long sacrifice to the mountain deities as performed by the Namyi people. The 5000 Namyi are one of the small minorities living in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands, officially considered as part of the Tibetan nationality. Watch video in Youtube

Naxi Popular Festivals (20111211)

Naxi festivals are closely related to their religious beliefs; the time of celebration of these festivals is related to the seasons of their productive life. Some of these festivals were registered in their Dongba classics, providing an idea of the way they were celebrated in the past

New Materials about the Zhuang (20111130)

With links to new papers about the Zhuang nationality; their language, culture and history.

Etymology of Naxi Dongba pictographs (20111126)

The book of He Baolin is particularly interesting because it deals with a big number of pictographs, building around most of them a kind of etymology of the Dongba characters.

New Materials about the Lahu (20111123)

Links to new free books and a batch of new academic articles about the Lahu people.

The magical world of the Yao. Jean pierre Cormerais. (20111018)

Along the pages of this book we reader will find a rich iconography, in which the oldest paintings of the Yao tradition, taken out of private collections, share space with more recent works, showing the evolution of this artistic movement from its religious origin.

The Dongba Culture Unveiled. Mu Lichun (20111006)

He emphasizes the important of the Sv life god, showing how the main ritual changes in the life of a person are related with his or her acquisition, preservation, and disposal of this Sv life god common to the family. The angle he uses to explore different aspects of the Naxi culture provides the reader with new and original insights in their traditional culture: birth, coming on age, marriage and death.

Allegorical architecture of the Dong: (20110523)

For the narratives of Dong architecture are on the one hand made meaningful through collective rituals. On the other hand, such narratives are not fixed on their “shells”—the architecture. The renewal of their architecture is achieved, not through a complete reinvention of new forms, but by injecting new narratives into the old “shells.”

Taizi hui (Prince Festival) in Shaxi. Ji Ying, (20110503)

Every year, on the 8th of the second lunar month, the Bai people living in Shaxi, held the Prince Festival (Taizi hui). This is their main festival round the year. This day, in a joyful environment, nobody works. After praying in their Benzhu Temple, the children are dressed up in traditional clothes and paraded in carts or bicycles.

Matriarchy in China: mothers, queens, goddesses and shamans: (20110410)

One ambitious project in which the search for traces of past matriarchal societies leads the reader to the old China culture, history and prehistory, and also to the history, culture, religion and folklore of most of the indigenous peoples living on the borders of the Chinese world.

The Ancient Nakhi Kingdom of Southwest China. Joseph F. Rock. (20110404)

The quality of the first-hand information Joseph Rock provides, has made this book the starting point of many new researches, even half a century after the publication of the book.

The Miao in The Middle kingdom: a survey of the geography, government...: (20110331)

A Chinese traveller among the Miao says that some of them live in huts constructed upon the branches of trees, others in mud hovels. Their agriculture is rude, and their garments are obtained by barter from the lowlanders in exchange for metals and grain, or woven by themselves.

Eclipse of the Gods. A Film by Gu Tao: (20110327)

Guankouni, 73 years old recalls for the journalist the days when her shamanistic religion was still alive, when this tradition was passed from one generation to the next as was done the knowledge needed to carry on their sacred functions.

Reading curses, a wise man tale. (20110221)