Chinese Mulao People

The Mulao people are an ethnic group. They form one of the officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. In their name, ''Mulam'', ''mu''⁶ is a classifier for human beings and ''lam''¹ is another form of the name used by the , to whom the Mulam people are ethnically related. A large portion of the Mulam in Guangxi live in Luocheng Mulao Autonomous County of Hechi, Guangxi.

History

It is believed that the Mulam are the descendants of the ancient ''Ling'' and ''Liao'' tribes that inhabited the region during the time of the . During the Yuan dynasty, the Mulam lived in a feudal society and they paid a series of tributes twice a year to the emperor.

During the Qing dynasty, their territories suffered an administrative division; their lands wre divided into ''dongs'', which were composed of units for 10 dwellings. Each ''dong'' had its own local leader, responsible for maintaining the order and of collecting the taxes. Each ''dong'' was generally formed by families that shared the same surname.

Language

The Mulam speak the Mulam language, a language. The Mulam language, like that of the Dong, does not have voiced stops; however, it does contain unvoiced and voiced nasals and laterals. Its vowel system contains eleven vowels. It is a tonal language with ten tones and 65% of their vocabulary is shared with the Zhuang and Dong languages.

Since the Ming dynasty, Chinese characters have been utilized to read and write the Mulam language. The majority of the Mulam also speak Chinese as well as the Zhuang and Dong languages.

Culture

Traditionally, the marriages among the Mulao were arranged by the parents and traditionally, new wives did not live together with their new husbands until the birth of their first son.

Their homes are made out of clay with brick roofs and are composed of three rooms. The animals are maintained far away of the family dwellings.

The traditional clothing of the men consists of a jacket of large buttons, wide pants and sandal. The single women arranged their hair into two tresses that becomes a tuft when they are married.

Religion

Although the religion no longer plays a main role in the daily life, traditionally the Mulao have been mostly animists. Each month they celebrated diverse festivals. The most important one of them was the festival ''Yifan'', where diverse sacrifices of animals were carried out.

Another one of their festivals was the dragon boat festival that was celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month. During this celebration, the shamans carried out ceremonies to assure good crop harvests and to expel harmful insects.

References

* Ramsey, S. Robert. 1987. The Languages of China. Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey ISBN 0-691-06694-9