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The Tu Ethnic Minority
The Tu ethnic minority, known for their simplicity and industriousness, lives in the northwestern part of China -- to the east of Qinghai Lake and south of Qilian Mountain Range and along the banks of the Huangshui and Datong rivers. It is concentrated mainly in the Huzhu Tu Autonomous County in Qinghai Province, and also in the counties of Minhe and Datong. Others are scattered in Ledu, Menyuan and the Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County in Gansu Province.
Language
The language of the Tu people belongs to the Mongolian branch of the Altaic language family. Its basic vocabulary is either the same as or similar to that of the Mongolian language, but it is much closer to the languages of the Dongxiang and Bonan ethnic minorities. Quite a number of religious terms are borrowed from the Tibetan language, while a good portion of everyday words, as well as new terms and phrases, come from the Han language, which has long been the medium of communication among the Tus of Datong County. The Tu people do not have a written language of their own; they use that of the Hans instead.
Custom
e costumes and personal adornments of the Tu people are strikingly unique. Men and women alike wear shirts with delicately designed embroidered collars whose colors are bright and well blended. Men like to dress in cloth robes, putting on high-collared fur gowns with waist belts in winter. They often dress up in felt hats with brocade brims. For women, jackets are tilted in the front with sleeves made up of five different kinds of cloth. Sometimes they slip on a sleeveless garment done in black, indicating formal attire. They used to be very particular about hairstyles, which numbered seven or eight different varieties. But this custom was suppressed under the Kuomintang regime before the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. Nowadays, simple hairstyle topped by a brocaded felt hat has become fashionable among Tu women. People of the Tu ethnic group are renowned for their talent for singing and dancing. Ballads with beautiful melodies, as well as oral literature with stirring plots can be heard everywhere in the Tu populated areas. A traditional ballad-singing festival is held once a year, when thousands upon thousands of singers and young people gather from all over the area to get together and sing to their hearts' content.
Religious Reform
e Yellow Sect of Lamaism used to have a wide-spread following among the Tu people. To strengthen their domination over the ordinary people, the ruling classes of previous regimes had, without exception, collaborated with the upper clerical elements. The latter enjoyed the support of the authorities as well as all kinds of privileges.
After 1949, the Tu people carried out a religious reform under the leadership of the people's government. They burned the feudal deeds and loan receipts of the Lama landlords and abolished all religious privileges, forced apportions and labor services.
These struggles helped further emancipate the minds of the Tu people, who threw themselves actively into the drive for socialist construction. Whereas superstition forbade the disturbing of "sacred" mountains and springs, the Tu people began transforming mountain slopes into farmlands and digging irrigation canals. Women, who began enjoying unprecedented political rights, took an active part in all these constructive endeavors.
The traditional practice of cremating the dead persists in most parts of the Tu-populated areas.
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