 | |
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 677,521 (2020 census) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| China:Guizhou,Guangxi,YunnanVietnam:Hà Giang | |
| Languages | |
| Gelao | |
| Religion | |
| Taoism •Buddhism[1] |
TheGelao people (also spelledGelo;Gelao:Klau;Chinese:仡佬族;pinyin:Gēlǎozú) are anethnic group of China and Vietnam. They form one of the56 ethnic groups officially recognized by thePeople's Republic of China. However, many Gelao are also variously classified asYi,Miao, andZhuang by the Chinese government.
They number approximately 677,521 and are mainly located in Gelao autonomous counties in the western part ofGuizhou, such asWuchuan Gelao and Miao Autonomous County andDaozhen Gelao and Miao Autonomous County in Zunyi. They are also found inLiupanshui,Anshun,Dafang, andBijie. Some live in westernGuangxi (Longlin Various Nationalities Autonomous County), southeasternYunnan and southernSichuan. The main religion practiced isTaoism with a small but significantBuddhist minority.
The Gelao people are often considered to be the indigenous inhabitants ofGuizhou. The ancestors of the Gelao were theRau peoples, who made up the population of ancientYelang.
TheGelao languages belong to theKra–Dai language family. Today, only a small minority of the Gelao still speak this language. Since the various Gelao dialects differ greatly from each other,Mandarin has been used as alingua franca and is now the main language spoken by Gelaos.Hmong,Nuosu, andBouyei are also used.
Gelao men's traditional suit consists of a jacket fastened up the side and long pants. Gelao women wear short jackets and narrow skirts, divided into three parts: The top section is elaborate in red wool, while the other two parts are made of black and white bordered fabric. Both men and women wear long scarves.
The Gelao make a two-stringed fiddle with a body made from a cow horn, called thejiaohu (角胡;pinyin: jiǎohú) used in their traditional music.
The Gelao people have their own language, Gelao. At present, only a little over a thousand Gelao people can speak their traditional language. The Gelao language differs greatly from place to place due to scattered living. Most Gelao people speak several languages in the same language family, such asMandarin,Miao,Yi, andBouyei.
Gelao folk circulates oral literature such as poetry and proverbs. Ancient folk songs consist of long and short sentences of varying numbers of words. In the past two or three hundred years, they have been greatly influenced by the genre of Han poetry, and many have borrowed Chinese words and phrases.
It was previously thought that the Gelao people only had a spoken language, not a written one. However, in September 2008,The History of Jiu Tian Da Ling (English:Record of the Nine Heavens) was found in Guizhou. The book is kept by a Gelao person with a surname of Li inQianbei, whose ancestors were from theSong dynasty. A descendant of King Li Wentong of Gulao, he himself does not know what kind of book this is, but he has always inherited his ancestral teachings and treasures the book. The discovery ofRecord of the Nine Heavens fully proved that the Gelao people and their splendid culture have a long history, reaching back to ancient times. It not only has a written language, but it was also the earliest nation that advocated the concept of "harmony and harmony". The Gelao tribe invented their own words of tea, fireworks, copper, iron, etc.
Although the book identifies the distribution area of the Gelao ethnic group described inRecord of the Nine Heavens in a manner consistent with information that circulated locally during the mid-1980s (for example, it states that the origin of the Gelao is inWuchuan, but core parts ofYelang now lying inPanjiang,Chishui, andHebei are ignored), it deviates from local history records dating from theMing andQing dynasties. However, the description of the ancient song "Sue Genyou" in Gelao, and theclassical Chinese and Gelao language written inThe History of Nine Heavens contain many grammatical errors, presenting the possibility of a modern-day forgery.
The Gelao people living in the western part ofGuizhou, such asAnshun, used to have Gelao characters derived from Chinese characters, which had been used to record some folk songs.
The Gelao consist of various subgroups. Their historical exonyms, given in a provincial ethnic gazetteer from theRepublic of China era, include the following.[2]
TheYi (羿), who number no more 3,000 people, live in theChishui (赤水) area inXuyong County,Sichuan, which is on the border withGuizhou.[citation needed] They are a subgroup of the Gelao but have a distinctive history. The Yi call themselves thegau13.[3] In comparison, the Gelao of Xinzhai 新寨, Puding 普定, Guizhou, call themselves theqau13. The Yi live in:[3]
TheYi have been mentioned since theTang dynasty, and were said to have come from the north. The Yi are also noted for their belief in the Zitong (子童)Bodhisattva (菩萨).[3]
Unlike most Gelao dialects, the Yi dialect uses aLoloish-derived numeral system (Zhang 1993:424).[3]
InVietnam, the Gelao are recognized as an official ethnic group. There are 2,636 Gelaos in Vietnam (2009), mostly inhabited in the karst plateauHoàng Su Phì andĐồng Văn districts ofHà Giang province. They represent a majority in Túng Sán commune of Hoàng Su Phì.
| Sino-Tibetan |
| ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Austroasiatic | |||||||||||
| Austronesian | |||||||||||
| Hmong-Mien | |||||||||||
| Mongolic | |||||||||||
| Kra–Dai | |||||||||||
| Tungusic | |||||||||||
| Turkic | |||||||||||
| Indo-European | |||||||||||
| Others | |||||||||||
| Related | |||||||||||
Underlined: the 56 officially recognised ethnic groups ranked by population in their language families according to2020 census | |||||||||||
| Austroasiatic (Vietic) | |
|---|---|
| Austroasiatic (Bahnaric) | |
| Austroasiatic (other) | |
| Hmong–Dao | |
| Tai–Kadai | |
| Sino-Tibetan (Chinese) | |
| Sino-Tibetan (Tibeto-Burman) | |
| Malayo-Polynesian | |
| Immigrants and expatriate | |
The 54 officially recognised ethnic groups are ranked by population in their language families according to2019 census
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