Customs of the Dulong

The social life of the Dulong was organized concerning 15 patriarchal clans, each one with several families with his territory.

Earlier the Dulong had the habit of living on top of the trees, but this custom has already disappeared almost completely. Now in the villages (or ke'eng in his language) there lives in wife's houses the progeny of the same forefather, directed by a kashan with administrative and ceremonial duties, directing the war and coming up in the disputes. The decisions take in quite democratic meetings of the advice. The life was realized together, taking care of elders, orphans and poor. They were receiving warmly the strangers.

When someone kills a glutton, it does equal pieces for every family of the village, and even for the possible present strangers.

His feeding was based on a palm tree that grows in his grounds called "Dongzongshu", with whose ground pulp they were doing a pasta called "Alei". For them it is a sacred tree since it has been vital for his survival. In fact an a little big tree can change for a cow.

In the holidays, on the other hand, pig and chicken cooked with liquor usually eat. A liquor of few graduation that they distill themselves by means of different cereals.

Earlier men and women were going waist nudes for above, dressing sheets skirts or woven with animals skins. Then they began dressing themselves for external influence. This garment, which in the official publications presents itself as the traditional suit of the Dulong, a few coarse, badly sewed cloths are only, without any type of cultural meaning for the Dulong.

The Dulong were practising cultivation of groove and fire. Pigs and chickens raise some domestic animals, like cows, they go fishing with baskets in the mountain rivers and complement his diet with the hunting and the compilation. The territory to be cultivated was splitting into common plots and other private roads.

Honest and pacific, when they go out of fighter they are leaving bundles of meal hung by the trees, which they gather to the return. They have the habit of laughing with the foreigners like hospitality sign. Nevertheless, if there is some crime, they use the "judgments of fire" a little in the style of the Middle Age in Europe.

Copyright © 2004 www.wuhancom.net