Chinese Nation – Dong nationality

Dong nationality is a minority nationality in China, whose language is Dong language. It belongs to the Dongshui branch of the Zhuang Dong language group in the Sino Tibetan language family and believes in many gods.

The ancestors of the Dong nationality are called “the head of Guizhou” in the literature before the pre-Qin period. It is generally believed that the Dong nationality developed from a branch of ancient Baiyue. The Dong people are mainly engaged in agriculture, and the agriculture is mainly rice planting. Rice planting has a long history, and they are also engaged in forestry. The production of agriculture and forestry has reached a very high level. There are many basins called “Bazi” in the Dong area.

Dong people are mainly distributed in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture and Tongren area of Guizhou Province, Xinhua Dong Autonomous County, Huitong County, Tongdao Dong Autonomous County, Zhejiang Dong Autonomous County, and Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County of Hunan Province, Sanjiang Dong Autonomous County, Longsheng Miao Autonomous County and Rongshui Miao Autonomous County of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Enshi Tujia Miao Autonomous Prefecture of Hubei Province, etc.

Dong people eat rice as their staple food, and they also eat millet, corn, wheat, sorghum, and potato, but they usually match it to adjust their taste. Meat is mainly domestic livestock, including pigs, cattle, sheep, chickens, ducks, geese, especially fish. There are many kinds of vegetables, among which vegetables, cabbage, radish, eggplant, cowpea, cucumber, pumpkin, wax gourd, white gourd, and pepper are the most common. Women often go to the mountains to collect wild bamboo shoots, fungi, ferns, and other food. Men hunt wild boars, bamboo mice, pheasants, and birds for food in their leisure time.

Wine plays a very important role in Dong People’s diet. Most of the wine is made of glutinous rice, and every family will brew and bake it by themselves. The Dong family is hospitable, with wine as a gift and wine as a pleasure, and usually uses wine to eliminate fatigue. Glutinous rice, Camellia Oleifera, pickled acid, and fish are the most popular traditional food of Dong people, which are closely related to national customs and are recognized as Dong flavor.

Most areas have three meals a day, and many places have Camellia Oleifera for breakfast, which is called breakfast. The table is low and the chopsticks are short. There are some special foods, such as beef, roast fish, plasma duck, red meat and so on.

“Camellia Oleifera”, “sour banquet” and “close meal” were used to treat the guests.

In the past, Dong clothing was mainly made of self spinning, self weaving, and self dyeing Dong cloth.

Since the 1980s, woven fine cloth has been widely used, and self-woven Dong cloth has become a gift for relatives and friends. There are many kinds of Dong costumes. Different ages and seasons have different decorations, such as left lapel, right lapel, and double Lapel; cloth buttons, copper buttons, and silver buttons; trousers and skirts; green, blue, black and white; headdress, neck ornament, chest ornament, waist ornament, hand ornament, foot ornament, etc.

Among them, there are more than 50 kinds of headwear, mainly silver ornaments, including silver corolla, silver hairpin, a silver comb, silver hair chain, silver earrings, tremella pendant, tremella thread, etc. When women dress up, they see nothing but silver. Women’s hairstyle is more special, divided into front, back, left and right bun or braid on the top of the head, there are obvious regional differences.

Dong opera is a kind of opera with a unique style, which originated in the Daoguang period of the Qing Dynasty.

Dong opera, with simple steps, simple movements, and various tunes, was first created by Wu Wencai (about 1798-1845) of lading, Liping, Guizhou, and has a history of more than 100 years. Up to now, there are nearly 500 folk troupes and nearly 1000 traditional and modern plays.

After the founding of the people’s Republic of China, traditional operas have been continuously excavated and refined, and become more perfect in terms of theme and artistic form. Modern operas reflecting the new face of the Dong people are also increasing, which are highly praised and loved by the audience. The accompanying musical instruments of Dong opera mainly include pipa, corbel, erhu, Bell, Gong, cymbal, drum, and so on.