History of the Deang

One believes that the ancestors of called Deang, were the Pu, a people mentioned in the chronicles of the history of China of the dynasty Qin (221 B.C.), like native of the Western region of the current Province of Yunnan. The power of the Chinese did not go so far as to reach so remote regions. There turns to have news about these Pu as one of the peoples submitted to the Kingdom of Nanzhao, formed in Dali in the VIIth century. Of what happened during this long period of time news does not exist.

The life of the Deang continued of habitual form, since not even the Kingdom of Nanzhao, that of Dali that did not even happen to him, not the later Kingdom of Jinchi, they had big influence in his lives.

These will change definitely in the XIVth century, when the dynasty Ming grants the government of his grounds to the Tusi (local chiefs who were governing to the minorities on behalf of the emperors) Dai. Under these leaders the peasants' emigration Dai began to the grounds Deang, which was forcing them to move back increasingly to the mountains, which grounds were much poorer. The Tusis in turn were named by a few chiefs of region or Dagang, who were dominating several villages and were gathering there the taxes for the Tusi.

The influence of the culture Dai, and of the Buddhism that came with them, provoked a series of deep cultural and social transformations between the Deang. Nevertheless, the essentials of his economic life, with a communal property of the ground on the part of the extensive family, it remained unaltered until the XIXth century, when the pressure of the Chinese colonists Is and Dai, brought new transformations.

The ground was monopolized by an invaders' fistful leading to most of the families to the misery. In the winter 1814 Deang de Dehong got up against the oppression of the Tusi, shouting "The government is not just, let's kill the government and let's gain equality." Although they were defeated, the maintenance of the conditions of development that was transforming them of peasants into day labourers or farmhands provoked a raisings rosary throughout the XIXth century.

Tusi Dai tried to decentralize the power investing some Deang as chiefs of the village, representing his politics and gathering valuations and contributions. This way there existed a Dagang or chief of several villages, and a Dajigang or chief of every village. And even below this one, there was Dapulong and Dajige taken charge of different aspects of the administration of the village, and that were directing with the Dajigang the matters of the same one.

Only in some places there worked a certain local democracy, like Zhengkai and Genma, where both the Dagang, and the Dapulong and Dajige were chosen between the villages chiefs.

Any change in the 50s of the XXth century, when the agrarian reform is realized in the villages Deang, finishing with the landowners, and returning the ground to the people. But the communist reforms also supposed new social transformations. Many Deang turned out to be forced to finish with his religious practices, especially the followers of the schools the most orthodox Buddhists, since they were accused of slowing down the progress.

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