Award: Third Prize

Time: July, 2005
Place: Xiachayu Township, Chayu County, Tibet, China

With a population of about 1500 and concentrating in Xiachayu Township, Chayu County of Tibet The Deng People, haven't been legally recognized as an independent ethic minority group. Rice is their main source of subsistence; bean and taro are grown as well.
The costumes of the Deng people are similar to clothes of ethnic minority in Yunnan Province. Women wear a long-striped oval silver slice carved with texture, a silver horn-shaped eardrum and beads or silver neck ornaments. Wearing long head towel whose material made by the Deng women binding around top of their heads, all the Deng men carried long knives with them to meet the needs for a living. However, only the elderly still wear traditional costumes and keep old life style.
The Deng people have their own oral language, which is part of Sino-Tibetan. Though without their own characters, they used to keep a record by string knotting or woodcarving. Having the faith of spirit in all things, they maintain the custom of animal sacrifice to send the ghost away. Men and women are addicted in cigarette and wine and live in long windowless rooms, whose walls and floors are knitted with bamboo or nailed with wooden board.