Description: Shui Nationality (水族) lives in Yunnan province, Jiangxi province, Guizhou proinve and Guangxi province. With an population of 340,000, it mainly distributes in Sandu Shui Autonomous County in Guizhou province.
Language: Shui nationality speaks Shui language and writes in Shui character.
Religion: Fish is the totem of Shui nationality.
Arts: Paper cutting is one of important specialties of Shui nationality. They take grass, flower, birds, animals, mountain and water as theme. Patters are ingenious design, rigorous structure and lifelike.
Festivals: Duai Festival (端节) is a custom left by the preceding generation to celebrate the harvest of paddy. Duai festival is the most grand ceremony with the most extensive range, the most people and the longest time. Fish is viewed as the most precious offering to sacrifice ancestors. Horse race has been developed into most significant entertainment for Shui people from ancestor’s war legacy.
Miao festival (卯节) is held to celebrate the rice harvest and the propagation of population, which takes ancestor worship, rice seeding worship, rain prayer and antiphonal singing as main content.
Drum festival (铜鼓节) is another traditional festival held after Qingming Festival. It is said that when ancestors settled down, all tribes fought constantly and tigers were in groups. They work together to remove the disaster. All people gather together to celebrate the victory, so the festival was formulated and handed down from generation to generation.
Arts: The main stream of Shui literature is oral literature, which is resulted that they recognize and rebuild the nature. All of these literature reflect the colorful society and the pursuit for happy life.
Shui nationality is well-known for its paper cut, embroidery, printing and dyeing and carving. Ponytail embroidery has been collected into the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage in 2006.
Sophie
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