By SHEN XINGSHI

The Derung is one of China's smallest ethnic groups. Most of its 5,000 number live in the isolated Derung River valley region of Yunnan Province. Enclosed by Gaoligong Mountain in the east, Dandanglika Mountain in the west and south and bordering Tibet in the north, dense snow makes their habitat inaccessible for six months of the year. The Donglong believe that everything on earth has a soul. They are hospitable to visitors, and go to great pains to offer them gifts. They still farm by the slash-and-burn method, as more modern agricultural approaches are inapplicable to their hilly patches of land. Some families have, with assistance from the government, begun to engage in animal husbandry.

Until 50 years ago Derung women carried on the tradition of facial tattooing. Several theories have been raised as to the original motives behind this practice. One is that the tattoos are purely for decorative purposes, another that they enable women to find their souls after death, another again that it prevents them from being abducted, and yet another that they distinguish men from women.

Tattoos on the faces of Derung women living in the middle and upper reaches of the Derung River are of similar design, and bear no relation to tribe or family. Today only 64 Derung women have these tattoos, the oldest of them aged 108 and the youngest 50. The tradition was to tattoo the faces of girls when they were 12 or 13 to mark the onset of womanhood. An older woman would first paint the girl's face in soot with a strand of bamboo, before puncturing the skin with a thorn and daubing the wound with more soot and a kind of herb extract. The red swelling disappeared after a week, leaving a permanent dark blue design on the skin.

Kaiyuan, one of 64 remaining women whose faces are tattooed, cherishes the hope that photographic images of she and her sisterhood will be exhibited in a distinguished museum where people from all over the world might see them and share in this distinct feature of Derung culture.

Tai lives in the middle reaches of the Derung River and lives by paddy farming. She dresses in brighter clothes than the women living in the upper reaches.	Duna and her husband smoking tobacco they have grown themselves.	Zimu weaving a Derung carpet in the colors of the rainbow.
Qingnian and her granddaughter. Derung women shave their head, retaining only a tuft of hair over their foreheads.	Despite her 74-years, Nasong crosses this chain bridge as agilely as a cat.	The biggest wish of 90-year Caise is to raise successfully her fine-breed goats sent by the government.