Sui

The Sui, who live in the southern mountain valleys of Guizhou and whose name, meaning water, was fixed under the Ming, are mainly polytheists who also worship their ancestors. Their religion counts more than nine hundred ghosts and gods, who can bring good fortune or bad.

Shamans, hired to pray and sacrifice for the sick and the dying, alone could read the Sui script, shuishu, a logographic script of at least five hundred characters used for divination and geomancy. Tradition credits its invention to a sage named Lu Duogong.

The year turned with the Duan festival, a harvest feast held from September to November, when bronze drums sounded and ancestors were thanked. On its eve and first morning no meat of land animals may be eaten, since breaking the taboo shows disrespect to the ancestors.