Tujia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tujia Bizika
Total population
approx. 8 million
Regions with significant populations
China (Hunan · Hebei)
Languages
Tujia (traditional), Mandarin Chinese
Religions
Animism, Taoism

The Tujia (own name: Bizika) (土家族) are an ethnic group numbering about 8 million, living in the Wuling Mountains of China's Hunan and Hubei provinces. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. Their name Bizika means "native dwellers".

1 History
2 Culture
3 Language
4 See also
5 External links

[edit] History

There are different accounts of their origins, though their history can be traced back over twelve centuries, and possibly beyond, to the ancient Ba people who occupied the area around modern-day Chongqing some 2,500 years ago. Over the centuries they have come into extensive contact with the country's Han Chinese majority, but it was only after the Qing Dynasty imposed direct rule in the 1730s that the Tujia's native culture began to disappear as a result of acculturation and assimilation.

[edit] Culture

Today, traditional Tujia customs can only be found in the most remote areas.

The Tujia are renowned for their singing and song composing abilities and for their tradition of the Baishou (摆手舞) hand dance, a 500 year old collective dance which uses 70 ritual gestures to represent war, farming, hunting, courtship and other aspects of traditional life. They are also famous for their richly-patterned brocade, known as 'xilankapu', a product that in earlier days regularly figured in their tribute payments to the Chinese court.

[edit] Language

Tujia is a Tibeto-Burman language and is usually considered an isolate within this group, although it has grammatical and phonological similarities with Yi (though its vocabulary is very different).[1]

Today there are at most 70 thousand speakers of the Tujia language, all of whom live in the northern part of Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in north-western Hunan Province. Tujia is a member of the Sino-Tibetan language group; many consider it an isolate within this group.

The vast majority of the Tujia use Chinese; a few speak Miao. Few monolingual Tujia speakers remain; nearly all are bilingual in Chinese. Children now learn fluent Chinese from childhood and most young Tujia prefer to use Chinese when communicating among themselves. It is estimated that the language may reach extinction by the 22nd century. [2] Among fluent Tujia speakers, Chinese borrowings, and even sentence structures, are common.