A Panoramic View of Dongba Culture
This article introduces Dongba culture, the living primitive culture of the Naxi people in southwestern China's Yunnan-Sichuan-Tibet border region. Unlike ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Indian, and Chinese civilizations whose traces survive only in relics and inscriptions, Dongba culture remains a living tradition, preserved due to the region's natural geographic isolation (Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Tiger Leaping Gorge, Lugu Lake, Baishuitai). Since its discovery in the early 20th century, it has attracted global scholarly attention. The article details Naxi pictographic script ("Dongba script"), called "senjiu lujiu" (marks left on wood and stone), used by Dongba priests to write scripture. It describes traditional handmade paper (from mulberry-family bark), bamboo or copper pens, homemade ink (roasted wheat, hide glue, pine soot), and mineral pigments, plus the linear drawing technique for depicting animals and objects in this pictograph-to-ideograph transitional writing system.
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