Introduction
According to the sixth national census in 2010, the Nu ethnic group has a total population of 37,523, mainly in Lushui, Fugong, Gongshan and Lanping counties in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture and in Weixi County in Diqing Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. The name “Nu” is an ethnic self-name, and there are different self-names and other names in different regions. After the founding of New China, the name was identified as “Nu”. The language ofNu belongs to the Tibeto-Burman language group of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and the dialects vary greatly, which are not intelligeable to the people from different places. They do not have a written language, but mostly borrow Chinese characters. The Nu people used to worship animistic beliefs, and some believe in Tibetan Buddhism[26], Catholicism or Christianity. The main traditional festivals are the Spring Festival, the Flower Festival[27], the Festival of the Veneration for the Grain God[28] and the Forest Festival[29]. The Nu folklore is abundant and poetry is mostly improvised, with a strong sense oflife and ethnic characteristics.
Most Nu people wear self-woven linen clothes. Women wear right overlapping tops and linen longuettes. Men generally wear hip saber at the waist and carry crossbows and a quiver made of animal skin on their shoulders. Before liberation in 1949, the Nu people did not wear shoes. In the past, the Nu people of Gongshan and Fugong still had the custom of“tattooing their faces with green patterns and binding their heads with red vines”.
In the past, due to the inaccessibility of the rivers and mountains in the areas where the Nu people live, the zip-line became the main means of transport for the Nu people.People slid along the ropes across the river in exchange for daily supplies. The special local products include lacquer, caladium and the rhizome of Chinese goldthread. Nowadays, the Nu River Gorge has been opened to the public and steel cable bridges have been set up,making the rift valley an open road.