Derong

ALTERNATE NAMES: Qiao, Qiumen
LOCATION: China (Derong River Valley)
POPULATION: About 7,500
LANGUAGE: Derong
RELIGION: Polytheism
RELATED ARTICLES: Vol. 3: China and Her National Minorities

INTRODUCTION

The Derong is a nationality of limited population, amounting to less than 7,500 people. Their history has been overshadowed by several larger nationalities that exerted a marked influence on them. They lived for centuries in a canyon surrounded by great mountains, isolated from the rest of the world. Nobody was aware of their existence until the 13th century, when an ancient Chinese book recorded their presence and called them "Qiao." They were called "Qiu men" in the Yuan (1271–1368), Ming (1368–1644), and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties. Administered by local officials, headmen of the "Mu" clan, of Naxi nationality, they led a primitive life up to this century.

They still preserve many remnants of the primitive commune. There are 15 clans (nile) consisting of 54 family groups (ke'en). Each family group constitutes a village. There are two, three, or more "extended family houses" in a village, in each of which dwell three to four generations of family members, altogether 20 to 30 people. Collective cultivated land, granary, hunting, fishing, and gathering areas are owned and used by the whole village community. The Derong practice collective labor and egalitarian distribution of goods and commodities. Another form of collective labor is limited to a small portion of people. Small collectives of two to four individual families (mostly brothers, uncles and nephews of the patrilineal line) have their own land, cultivated collectively. All of these collectives are now splitting into smaller ones, mainly into individual farms.

Members of a family group (ke'en) belong to a common pedigree, acknowledge a common ancestor, and keep a joint name system. Every family group selects a head, generally of a senior position in the family hierarchy, and having a glib tongue. He takes charge of both internal and external matters of his village, including command of the collective labor, organization of sacrifice offering rituals, arbitration of quarrels, and negotiation of treaties with other villages, as well as participation in collective labor. Although members of a clan (nile) may share a bitter hatred of the enemy ("blood feud") when any one of them is treated unjustly or murdered, there is no unified organization of the Derong nationality, even to administer justice.

LOCATION AND HOMELAND

The population of the Derong amounts to about 7,430 living around the reaches of the Derong River Valley in 2000. The valley extends about 161 km (100 mi), walled in to the east by the Gaoligong Mountains and to the west by the Dandangli Mountains, both chains reaching more than 13,000 ft. Influenced by a maritime current from the Indian Ocean, the rainfall exceeds 100 in per year. There is a great disparity in the temperature at the peak and at the foot of the mountains. The snow cap on peaks over 13,000 ft lasts more than seven months a year, while the annual average temperature in the river valley reaches 74°F. Vast areas of the mountains are covered by a thick primeval forest.

LANGUAGE

The Derong language is classified as belonging to the Sino-Tibetan family, Tibeto-Burman group, branch undecided. They can communicate with the people of the Nu nationality. They have no writing system.

FOLKLORE

The Derong have myths concerning human origins and the flood. A long, long time ago, there was no human being on earth. One day, two gods, Gamei and Gasha, descended on a big rock. They scraped some soil from the rock and kneaded the soil into a man, Pu, and a woman, Mu. Gamei and Gasha blew air into their bodies and the man and the woman began to breathe. The gods taught them how to work and how to have children. Mu was more clever than Pu, because the gods put more soil into her ribs. Human beings grew in number day by day. When they died, they were buried underground, for they should return to the soil from which they were created.

Another myth relates how human beings lived with ghosts in ancient times. They were friends, so close that they brought up each other's children as a kind of exchange of their friendly feelings. The children of ghosts were brought up nicely by the humans, while the human children were all eaten up by the ghosts. Thereafter, they became enemies. The humans chased ghosts away by means of tree branches. Vengeful, the ghost king attempted to destroy mankind by throwing a large redhot iron ball into the river, creating a catastrophic flood. All the humans drowned except for a brother and a sister who made a narrow escape to a high mountain. Two snakes that climbed on the same mountain were also spared. That is why snakes are so numerous nowadays. Later, the brother and sister married. Nine sons and nine daughters were born. They married each other and lived on the shores of nine different rivers. They are the ancestors of the Derong, the Nu, the Tibetans, and other nationalities.

RELIGION

The Derong believe in a spiritual world. They ascribe spirits to animals, plants, and many other objects. They call ghosts bulan, which means "endowed with a supernatural force." The shaman is not a professional, but usually holds a concurrent post as family group head. The Derong offer sacrifice to the Mountain God at regular intervals each year. This is a group affair, each household offering its own cake, meat, and dough figurines of humans and animals on the slope of the mountain by the village. The villagers are arranged in such an order that the men stand in front while the women are in the rear. Everybody prays to the god for safe and successful hunting. Then they sing and dance around a bonfire. The Harvest God is also revered. Each family offers some of the crops, a chicken, and several cakes to the field after harvest. Illness is always ascribed to the Mountain Ghost. When someone falls ill, the family hangs two bottles of wine and two chickens on a tree as propitiatory offerings. If this does not work, one offers a pig or an ox. The patient should be moved outdoors while the shaman recites the scripture for the diseased. Then, the animal is butchered.

MAJOR HOLIDAYS

The only holiday of the Derong is the Kaqueqi Festival, their New Year. The date is not fixed, but usually falls around November or December on the lunar calendar. Each family group used to choose a lucky day by divination for the New Year. The duration also varies, usually depending upon the amount of food prepared beforehand. For the occasion, they butcher pigs and chickens, invite each other to celebrate, and give a banquet for the guests. The invitation is unique. It takes the form of a piece of wood. The number of notches carved on the wood represents the number of days before the feast. The banqueters usually bring some foods to the host. A rite of "Offering to Heaven" is held on this day. Led by the head of the family group, the villagers tie an ox to a wooden pole. A butcher kills it with a single stab. Then, the crowd of villagers wields their swords and dance, praying to Heaven to bestow good fortune.

RITES OF PASSAGE

Ground burial is practiced. The coffin is carved out of a tree trunk. After the burial, wine and meat are offered to the dead; no tumulus (an artificial hill or mound) marks the grave location. The bereaved family receives grain, chicken, and wine from relatives as condolences for the deceased. Those who died a violent death or from a foul disease undergo fire or water burial.

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS

The Derong like to share their own food with members of their community. Whoever bags an animal in a hunt or butchers a pig or an ox will naturally give a banquet to his relatives and friends. The host usually presents a gift to the guests upon their leaving. Moreover, it is a custom to entertain a stranger passing by. Quite a few households have an extra firepool ready at any time to accommodate a guest. The firepool keeps the room warm and serves for cooking. Passersby are allowed to stop on the way for a rest at their house.

In the busy season, the Derong usually move to a place by the field. On these occasions, the house door is only fastened with a small wooden rod. A tender twig tied on it tells the guest that the host is not at home and feels sorry about it. When heavy snow seals the mountains, food and tools are hung on the trees; they are never taken by other people.

A small bamboo-strip basket is usually used as a token in relations between young men and women. Young Derong men make these small baskets about 7 inches in diameter. If a young man likes a girl, he will hang a basket on her house door around midnight. The girl can usually surmise who the maker is from the style of the basket. If she likes him too, she will carry it on her arm, to show the basket-maker that she is willing to have a friendly relationship with him and to show the community and especially other young men that she has a young man of her heart.

LIVING CONDITIONS

There are two kinds of storied buildings. One is made of bamboo, usually built on a slope. Doors open to the front and the rear. One comes in and goes out by wooden ladders. The main entrance opens onto two rows of small rooms, each of which can accommodate a couple and their children. In some cases families break away from the collective houses and build their own houses and granaries. These storied houses of individual families are made of logs, usually small and low, the ground floor being dug well below the surface of the earth. The floor of the upstairs room is only 2—3 ft from the surface of the earth. The door is so low that one can enter only by bending. Most of these houses are windowless. There are usually two or more firepools in a house. One firepool symbolizes the family. A married son usually lives with his parents as well as his brothers and sisters, but he and his own family must use the second firepool. If another son gets married, he should build a new house attached to the old one.

Because of the craggy, mountainous terrain and the inclement weather, transportation is extremely inconvenient. From November to May, the mountains are sealed off and transportation is completely interrupted. After the bitter seasons, the only means of communicating with the outside world are sliding ropes and suspension bridges made of rattan or steel rope. The sliding ropes are made of steel wires, usually set up over a narrow river, between two mountains facing each other. Besides the sliding rope itself, a pulley with a few cords (sometimes a bamboo basket) is the only means available to cross the river. To see the Derong use the sliding rope and rattan suspension bridge across the turbulent waves of the Nu River is nothing less than breathtaking.

FAMILY LIFE

The Derong families are patrilineal and small. The first married son lives with his parents, although he must use the second firepool. The other sons build their own houses after marriage. These houses are adjacent to the old parental home. This is one of the remnants of the patriarchal clan commune. All Derong women participate in field work, but their position is lower than the men's. They are not allowed to bear children inside the family house: otherwise, the farming and hunting of the family, so they believe, will be seriously affected. Thus, a makeshift shed is set up for childbearing.

The Derong still preserve vestiges of the "pairing marriage." For instance, several sisters may marry one husband without disturbing the family hierarchy. Intra-clan endogamy (marriage within the clan) is strictly prohibited. The systematic practice of exogamy (marriage outside the clan) has led to the formation of a fixed circle of inter-clan marriage. For example, a girl of the Rendang clan is married off to a young man of the Bukawang clan, whose daughter is married off to the Lapian clan. A girl of the Lapian clan is married off to the Bingdang clan, whose girl is married to the Muqiantu clan. The girl of the Muqiantu clan is married off to the Rendang clan. These seven clans form a circle related by marriage, allowing for the continuation of the exogamic rule.

In general, the Derong are monogamous, although polygamy does exist as a result of the sororate and levirate customs (marriage to the brother or sister of a deceased spouse).

CLOTHING

The only traditional clothing preserved by the Derong and worn by both men and women is a black-and-white or multicolored striped linen wrapping the body and tied over the right shoulder. Otherwise, their garments and trousers are the same as those of the Chinese—polo and ordinary shirts, long trousers, women's skirts, and so on. The aged and middle-aged women usually have tattoos over their faces; formerly, girls were tattooed when they were 12 or 13 years of age. Although the figures and designs were different in different clans, the girls' forebrows usually remained untattooed. Tattooing is now rare among the youngsters.

FOOD

The staple foods of the Derong include millet, corn, and buckwheat. Rice is rare. For six months a year, their food is supplemented by gathering, fishing, and hunting. They gather mainly the stem tuber of some wild plants that contain starch, such as wild yams and wild lily. They like homemade wine, tea, and tobacco; the latter is smoked in a long-stemmed pipe. They prefer roast meat to other cooking. Food and wine are divided equally by the hostess. A guest might have his share. A new firepool is added for a newly married son. Each firepool takes turns cooking for the extended family.

EDUCATION

Nobody in the Derong communities received a formal education in the past. They knew only how to keep records by notching wood or tying knots. In recent decades, more than 20 primary schools have been set up. Half of the teachers are Derong. College students and intellectuals have emerged.

CULTURAL HERITAGE

On occasions of productive labor, harvest, hunting, house building, marriage proposal, or festive activities, the Derong all sing and dance to express their thoughts and feelings. There are traditional melodies, while their lyrics are improvised for the occasion. They have only one percussion instrument, the mangluo, composed of three gongs fixed on a frame. There is a traditional group dance, niuguozhuang, accompanied by songs.

WORK

Derong agriculture is based on the slash-and-burn method, yielding very poor results. Because of grass burning and rotation farming, only half of the arable land is available for production in a given year. Rice has been introduced and some terraced fields have been built up. Unfortunately, the cold weather severely affects rice production. Hunting, gathering, and fishing are the main sources of food. Recently, livestock husbandry has been developed. Pigs, sheep, and oxen raised either by family groups or by individual families have proved beneficial to their quality of life. Hunting, fishing, and the manufacture of farm tools and of daily necessities made of wood and bamboo are specific male activities; gathering is left to the women. The Derong River, from which the nationality gets its name, has been its traditional fishing ground. Because of the swift current, small fishnets must be used, resulting in limited production. Thus, the fishing potential of the Derong is not expected to expand significantly.

SPORTS

Arrow shooting with bows or crossbows is one of the skills in which the Derong excel; it is the main means of hunting and is very popular as a competitive spectator sport during festivals. Unique skills of the Derong are vigorous and nimble movement on the sliding rope and balanced, swift steps on the rocking and undulating suspension bridge made of rattan—skills that few athletes could perform with such consummate art.

ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION

Only fearless emissaries of culture—in this case a film projection team—have accepted the challenge of striding across turbulent rivers and steep mountains 12,000 ft above sea level to bring the Derong the benefits of the seventh art in the guise of several long feature films.

FOLK ART, CRAFTS, AND HOBBIES

Although the Derong are not known for handicrafts, the small and delicate bamboo-strip baskets usually used as love tokens and the small fishnet devised by the fishermen are exquisite objects of art.

SOCIAL PROBLEMS

It is difficult to see how the Derong can overcome their poverty and illiteracy to improve their lifestyle as long as their isolation persists. It seems that the only way would be to leave their valley and accept resettlement. As of now, there is no movement in this direction.

GENDER ISSUES

The Chinese constitution states that women have equal rights with men in all areas of life, and most legislation is gender neutral. However, there are continued reports of discrimination, sexual harassment, wage discrepancies, and other gender related problems. The gap in educational level between women and men is narrowing with women making up 47.1% of college students in 2005, but only 32.6% of doctoral students.

China has strict family planning laws. It is illegal for women to marry before 20 years of age (22 for men), and it is illegal for single women to give birth. The Family Planning Bureau can require women to take periodic pregnancy tests and enforce laws that often leave women with no real options other than abortion or sterilization. While minority populations were previously exempt from family planning regulations, policy has changed in recent years to limit minority population growth. Today, urban minority couples may have two children while rural couples may have three or four.

Prostitution and the sex trade is a significant problem in China involving between 1.7 and 5 million women. It involved organized crime, businessmen, the police, and government workers, so prosecution against prostitution has limited success. In 2002, the nation removed homosexuality from its official list of mental illnesses, and though it is still a taboo topic, homosexuality is increasingly accepted, especially in large, international cities.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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—by C. Le Blanc