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With a 400 population,
the Pu peo live in concentration in the
Sino-Vietnamese border region in Dong Van,
Yen Minh and Meo Vac districts, Ha Giang
province. They are also called Ka Beo, Penti
and Lo Lo. Their language, close to that of
the Co Lao, La Chi and La Ha, belongs to the
Kadai Group.
The Pu peo economy is mainly based on
burnt-over land and terraced fields. grown
with maize, rice, rye and beans. Farm
implements include ploughs and harrows and
buffaloes and oxen serve as draught animals.
The staple food in daily meals is
steam-cooked corn flour. The attire of Pu
peo women still retains its national color
manifested through their hail style, scarf,
jupe, vest and apron; pieces of cloth of
different colors are sewn to make colorful
designs. Men dress like other ethnics in the
region.
Houses are built on the ground in tiny
clusters by the side of the Hoa and Mong.
Each family lineage has its own system of
middle names given to successive
generations. Young men and women of various
lineages enter into marriage according to
matrimonial customs: If a young man of A
lineage marries a young woman of B lineage,
then the young man of this B is not allowed
to get a wife in that A lineage. Many people
of other ethnics have become
daughters-in-law or sons-in-law of Pu peo
families. The groom's family seek marriage
for him and after the wedding party, the
bride joins the family of her husband. The
Pu peo family follows the patrilineal
system, and the father or husband is the
husband is the house owner.
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Funeral rites comprise
the burial ceremony and offerings. The Pu
peo attach great importance to ancestral
worship. On the altar are often placed small
earthen jars, each jar symbolizing a
generation. Besides wedding parties and
funerals, the Pu peo hold ceremonies to pray
for peace and the opening of the new working
season at the New Year in the firs half of
the 1st lunar month, and observe the 5th of
the 5t lunar month festival.
The Pu peo are one of the few ethnic groups
still using bronze drums, but not widely as
in the past and now only at rituals. In Pu
peo customs, there are male and female drum
set in pairs. The two drums face each other
and a person standing in between beats them
at funerals.
Although the Pu peo are not large in
population, yet the constantly join other
brotherly ethnic groups in national building
and defense and in the strengthening of the
security of the national frontier.
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