What is the Dulong

The Dulong live mainly in the Dulong River Valley in Gongshan, Yunnan Province. Until the middle of this century, the Dulong were still in the stage of disintegration of the primitive commune. The people were mainly engaged in planting, hunting and gathering, and were clad in self-woven linen, while a few used leaves and animal skins to cover themselves. The women also advocate the custom of tattooing their faces. The Dulong language is basically the same as that of the Nu people in Guishan, and there is no written language of the people.

Customs

Whether drinking, eating and eating meat, the Dulong family within the housewife to share food. Guests are also given an equal share when they come. Generally, each family has several fire pits, and one more is added after the marriage of each child, and cooking is undertaken by each fire pit in turn.

The Dulong folk invite each other in a very unique way, usually with a piece of wood as an invitation to invite each other's invitations, when the wood to be invited to the guests to send the wood to be invited to the home of the wood engraved on the wood a few notches on the said a few days after the feast ceremony. The invited guests should bring all kinds of food to show their appreciation. Guests enter the gate of the fortress, to first drink a tube of wine with the host ***, and then sit down to dinner, and watch the songs and dances to cheer. After nightfall, men drink by the fire and read a toast, then throw the bowl of wine on the bamboo shelf on the fire, with the mouth of the bowl towards the sky as an auspicious omen.

The Dulong people are simple, even if the road to meet, but also to set up wine to treat, that there is food not to guests to eat, darkness does not stay guests live, is a kind of shameful thing. Where to build a house, wedding, funerals, are to take the initiative to help, meet the hunt or kill pigs and cattle, are to invite close neighbors to dinner, and at the end of the meal to take the initiative to give gifts.

The Dulong people mostly implement earth burial, the day of death, the village people and near and distant relatives are to send food, wine, chickens, etc. to show their condolences, generally the next day to the funeral, the third day will be led by the deceased's family members of the village to their own warehouses on the spot open barn boiled wine, together **** enjoy. At that time, family members and friends also sent gifts, the village elders also do some food to the deceased family sent. Wedding Customs The Dulongs kill pigs and chickens for wine at weddings. Whenever a wife gives birth to a child after marriage, the son-in-law has to give his father-in-law a cow or other things such as an iron pot or a knife to show his appreciation.

Food customs

The Dulong have the habit of eating two meals a day. Breakfast is usually barley fried noodles or barbecue taro; dinner to corn, rice or millet made of rice, also with a variety of wild plants ground into starch into cakes or porridge to eat. The Dulong folk still retain many ancient cooking methods, the most common of which is to use a special slate pan to cook slate poi. When branding slate poi, more than the use of Atun or Dong palm starch, with bird eggs and into a paste, and then poured on the hot slate pan, with branding with food, a distinctive flavor.

The Dulong's daily dishes include planted yams, bean pods and melons, as well as collected bamboo shoots, bamboo leafy vegetables and various mushrooms, which are usually eaten with chili peppers, wild garlic, and salt, and then boiled and eaten in a pot. Winter is the peak season for hunting in the Dulong area, and wild beef is the main meat in winter. When consuming wild beef, the beef is first air-dried, then baked over a slight fire, then pounded into silk, made into meat floss or cut into small pieces, sealed in a bamboo tube to preserve or carry.

The Dulong River also produces a variety of fish, with thin scales and thick skin fish. Dulong people like to eat fish with Ming grilled or fried after dipping seasoning to eat, and often baked fish as a drink of small dishes. Bee pupa is one of the most delicate dishes of the Dulong folk, and it is said that there are more centenarians among the Dulong people, which is related to the frequent consumption of bee pupa. Typical foods of the Dulong people include: taro cooked with river hemp, chicken stewed in soju, and Jimi.

Festivals

"Kachuowo" is the only annual festival of the Dulong people, which is held on a certain day of the winter month every year (the time varies from place to place). The length of the festival is often determined by the amount of food prepared. It usually lasts two days or four or five days. The most important ritual during the festival is the "Ox Sacrifice to Heaven". When plowing a bull, the organizer of the festival first ties the bull to a stake, then a young woman drapes a burlap blanket over the bull's back, hangs a bead chain on the bull's horns, arranges offerings, lights up a pine tree and pine tree hair (pine leaves), and finally a young man with both parents stabs the bull to death with a sharp bamboo spear, then cuts up the beef on the spot and boils it in a big pot immediately. During the festival all the Dulong people have to take the family as a unit, greet each other, *** with congratulations.