Beautiful Deng village.

I recently visited Lower Zayu Township in Zayu County of Nyingchi District with some colleagues to meet the Dengba people who reside there in an organized community of over 1,450 people.

At present, the Dengba have not been formally recognized and identified as an ethnic group by the government, but they have their own spoken language, which belongs to Myanmar-Tibetan language system.

There are two distinct dialects. Some Dengba people who speak Darang dialect call themselves Darang, while others who speak the Geman dialect call themselves as Geman. Darang is the general language in some areas of Zayu.

　　　　　　　　
Picturesque scenery.

Earthly Paradise

Below the chains of mountains in Zayu golden rape flowers in the fields, and huge fragrant camphor trees, fields of banana trees and the flourishing bamboo forests create a semi-tropical scene. The township main street, about 600 meters long, is on a slope. The population of Dengba people is not large. In the streets, we occasionally saw some old women, dressed in Dengba costume with bamboo baskets on their back and a pipe in their mouths, leisurely shopping. In the bamboo baskets were rubber overshoes, salt and other commodities as well as their favorite cigarettes.

In the suburban fields, we talked with some vegetable farmers and learnt that almost all kinds of vegetables can be planted there, and the sweet potatoes and peanuts planted in inland produce high yields there. Owing to the pleasant climate and the abundant food, even the swine there are extraordinarily fat and strong. Retailers from all over the county flock to the township to buy vegetables and fruits.

Lower Zayu Township lies in an area where the tropical and semi-tropical climate meet. Various semi-tropical plants and most tropical plants can grow there, such as longan, cacti, loquat, apricot, persimmon, Chinese chestnut, grape, orange, Bunge prickly ash, Chinese gooseberry, flax, cotton, sugarcane, ginger, peanut, taro, sweet potato, sesame, ripe and corn, all producing favorable economic and ecological benefits. The various tropical and semitropical flowers and trees can grow for more than 300 days a year.

　　　　　　　　
Industrial and hardworking Deng people.

Dengba Residences in Shape of Inverted V

Although there are some similarities between the residences of the Dengba people in Shaqun Village and those of Moinba and Lhoba people, the Dengba residence has its own features. The roof takes the shape of an inverted V, made of wooden planks or grasses. The house faces south or north with two stories. People live on the second story with a wooden floor, while livestock are fed and housed on the ground floor. The upstairs part is divided into several rooms. The families there have different number of rooms based on economic circumstances. But they have two rooms at least, one serving as a guest room and the other as the family room. In middle of the house, there is a cooking range.

Each bedroom is of several square meters and is separated by boards. It has door at the side of corridor that can be locked. The cooking range in the middle of the bedroom covers nearly 1 square meter, which has three stones as the bracket for supporting a boiler. On the right, the bamboo mat is spread for sleeping. On the left are the shelves particular for hanging clothes and blankets. There isn’t much furniture and fittings other than boilers, bowls, gourd ladles, spoons and such living articles. There are no windows, but there are doors on the northern side. As there is a large space between the boards, the sunlight is enough and the air circulates well.

The downstairs part is no more than one meter high and serves as the place to feed chicken, swine and other domestic animals. In the front and back yards are banana trees, Bunge prickly ash trees, bamboos and other beneficial plants with a stone wall higher than an ordinary person. Dengba people have separate wooden storehouses, which are over 10 meters from the residence so as to prevent fire.

　　　　　　　　
Wooden huts and granaries of Deng people.
　
Village Committee Chairman

Ngalosum, the village committee chairman, was waiting at the roadside. He seemed to be in his fifties. He was dressed in a Western-style suit and could speak mandarin fluently, as well as Tibetan language and Lhoba language. He is member of the CPPCC Tibet Committee and often attends meetings in various regions. He said he has been to many big cities such as Beijing.

Beside a wooden house in the village, an old Dengba woman was sitting at the door. She was dressed in the traditional costume, with a silver garniture on her head and two huge silver earrings. She held a long tobacco pipe and smoked leisurely.

Ngalosum said both men and women of Dengba people like smoking. Men like to smoke cigarettes while women prefer the tobacco they plant. Their pipes are made of silver or copper. Usually, women have a special pocket for carrying the pipes, tobacco, matches and etc. This convention still exists among old Dengba people but can be hardly seen among the youth.

At noon we were invited to the Ngalosum family home.

He is one of the rich families in the village and his wooden building includes the main building, kitchen and granary. The roof is made of sheet iron. In the yard are planted some cacti trees and peach trees. The grape twigs, recently planted, were budding. Entering the wooden building, we saw a portrait of Chairman Mao hung in the middle of the living room with a portrait of the central governmental leaders of three generations besides. Around the portraits were various certificates of merit and tablets in praise of Ngalosum, such as excellent grass-roots official, advanced staff, etc.

Like other ethnic groups in Tibet, Dengba people like drinking. They drink wine just like tea. Ngalosum's wife held a bottle of sweet and sour wine brewed from rape and chicken-claw grain. She asked each of us to drink three cups at first and said that this is the rule in receiving guests among Dengba people. So, we drank three cups one by one.

Just when his wife was offering a toast, Ngalosum entered the bedroom and changed to the costume of Dengba men. When he reappeared, he said with a smile that, “this is the true Ngalosum.

　　　　　　　　
A Deng woman cooking at home.

The costume of Dengba people has many unique features. The main cloth material is flax. In the 1950s, Dengba men always wore the black or white handkerchief around their heads, silver earrings, short shirts mainly in black or white without sleeves or collar, chopping knife on the right, and tobacco pipe and bow and arrow on the left. Women always wore huge silver earrings, silver bracelets and finger rings. They wore a sleeveless blouse exposing the waist and skirts hanging to their feet, with a short one for kneeling outside. There were many cross lines on the skirt in decorative pattern. Both men and women would wear cape outside the blouse.

Today in the Dengba village, the old people still wear traditional Dengba costume, while the youth are dressed in modern costume as others beyond the mountains. Only on festivals and other happy events do they still will wear the traditional costume, most of which are not made of flax as before.

At the table, Ngalosum told us the history of Dengba people. We Dengba people lived in forests for generations before like wild men. After liberation, with the help of the local government and Tibetan brethren, we moved from the forests and began to reside in houses and live a happy life. Men are in charge of felling trees, opening up the wasteland, and plowing. Women are in charge of seeding, field management and harvesting. So, Dengba people always have a saying that men are the masters of the forests and women are the masters of the farm. We have opened up much fertile land for planting ripe, highland barley and etc as well as various vegetables.

　　　　　　　　
Stream flowing in an emerald mountain.

Habits and Customs

When we spoke highly of the virtue of Ngalsum's wife, Ngalosum asked jokingly Do you want to find a Dengba woman as wife If you send me 10 cattle as gift, I promise to find a virtuous wife for you.

Originally, Dengba men would ask for the hand of their chosen bride by sending some cattle, swine or other property through matchmakers. The social status of women would decide how many cattle should be sent, from one to scores.

In history, the marriage system of Dengba people was based on polygamy under a patriarch, but there were cases were a man had several wives. This resulted from two kinds of situations one was the wealthy families able to buy three or more wives; the other was that when a male passed away, his wife would be inherited by the close brothers or junior ones with the same family name, that is ‘transferred wives’.

Unmarried men and women can make friends at will or even have a sexual relationship. But this is forbidden for a married woman. Husbands have the right to confer or sell their wives but wives have no right to leave their husbands.

Ngalosum said But currently most Dengba families have only one husband and one wife.

The funeral custom of Dengba people is also very particular. For burial, Dengba people would bend the body before. But later they also carried out cremation. They would put the bent body on a firewood stack with the height of about 2 meters for cremation. After three or four days, the bones would be picked out from the ash for burying. When a person passes away, it is forbidden to mention his name, which is recognized as an irreverence or even insult to the dead person. At present, Dengba people change cremation to inhumation. They make a coffin of board and bury the coffin in the earth without any grave mound on the earth's surface.

We deeply feel the unique customs of Dengba people. But we also find that these customs are changing greatly with the passage of time.

　　　　　　　　
Bama cow skull on the wooden walls.

Form: China' Tibet Magazine
By: TextPhotos by LIU BING