Nu

The Nu religion is the traditional animism of the Nu, a Tibeto-Burman people living in the deep gorges of the Nu (Salween), Dulong and upper Irrawaddy rivers in north-western Yunnan and Kachin State. Their beliefs held that the natural world was full of living powers.

Legend gave the Nu their rope bridges. A girl named A-Rong, watching a spider's web, devised a rope to cross the flooding river, and when a chieftain tried to force her into marriage she fled into the mountains and turned to stone in a cave; the flower-fairy festival in the third lunar month honours her.

The northern Nu took to Tibetan Buddhism, while most southern and central Nu kept their animist faith. French missionaries reached the south in the second half of the nineteenth century, and a minority became Christian.