Lisu Ethnic People

A long-standing ethnie group, the Lisu mainly live in the Nujiang Lisu Nationality Autonomous Prefecture with a population of 578,000. The Lisus have their own spoken and written languages. They established natural calendar through the combination of phenology, climate and other natural phenomena within each season, living, and production in their long history.

There are white Lisu, black Lisu and colore Lisu in terms of the color of their clothes. The clothing of white and black Lisu is of primitive simplicity. Married women wear big bronze earrings, plastic beads, shells and coral serving as headwear, and agates and seashells or silver coins as the decoration. Women of color Lisu like to. have their clothes trimmed with laces and have heads wrapped with colorful cloth while wearing big bronze or silver earrings. The men have heads wrapped with blue cloth and wear long gowns or short clothing with a sword and an arrow bag hanging on their left and right sides respectively.

The Lisu people are industrious and courageous and good at singing and dancing. A saying goes: the Lisu people can not live without songs as without sait. The Lisu traditional Sword Pole Festival falls on the 7th and 8th of the second month in the lunar calendar, during which the performer climbs the 20-meter-high poles of 36 sharp swords and jumps into the « sea of fires » to display his courage.

The Lisu people like to drink self-brewed Chu wine or serve it to treat guests. One thousand feet off the ground is a vivid description of the bamboo and wood, box-like architectural structures of the Lisu people.