Presenting the Shui

The Shui are one of the original peoples of the Guizhou province. At present the majority they concentrate the Autonomous District Sandu de los Shui. The others in the nearby areas, since I Booze, Dushan, Duyun, Rongjiang and Congjiang.

There are autonamed "Aishui" that there mean "the people Shui"

His population has evolved of the following form:

406.900 in the census of the year 2000

345.000 Shui as the census of 1990

286.000 Shui as the census of 1982

His language belongs to the family Zhuang Dong, branch Dong-Shui.

They have three dialects between which one affirms that big differences do not exist. They are called by the areas where they speak to themselves: Sandong, Yang'an and Pandong, The differences between these last two dialects scarcely reaches 30 % of the basic words. Nevertheless, considering the invasion of the daily language with names of modern devices and denominations become fashionable by the communist device, which derive from the Chinese and are equal in three dialects, the differences can be a little major.

The Shui have a writing with 2000 years of called antiquity Him Shui, which consists of 300 characters. It was constructed from the Chinese. In her there is written the "Book of the Shui". Used especially by the fortune tellers in his rites.

In the Yunnan province also there are approximately 8.000 persons (census of 1990) who are considered to be "Shui". They live in five villages of the county Gugan of the district Fuyuan. Close to the border of Guizhou. "In many aspects they are different from Shui de Sandu" there says Wang Shaozhu (1) who studied his religion.

In fact "for the long time it was not possible to determine to that minority they belonged". It seems clear that it is a different ethnic group framed with the Shui for political and administrative expediency. His language and customs also are different from those of Shui de Sandu. They have some resemblances with the Buyi of the outskirts.

(1) Wang Shaozhu. - Yunnan Shuizu zongjiao wenhua qian shu (Brief notes on the religion of Shui de Yunnan). In You Zhong. - Zhongguo Minzu shi yanjiu (Investigations on the history of the minorities of China). Kunming. 1997

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