Dongba Cultural Research Institute

Dongba Cultural Research Institute is situated in the park of Black Dragon Pool in Lijiang, Yunnan Province, China. The dedication of a few local scholars in the 1950’s to study, record, understand and display the folklore and history of the Naxi people, and in particular the ‘dongbas’ – religious shamans who played a pivotal role in traditional Naxi society, can be seen at the museum. Researchers are primarily engaged in the laborious work of translating thousands of "dongbajing" into Chinese. These small ‘booklets’ written in an archaic and peculiar script, are read aloud and taken down syllable by syllable. Naxi meaning and grammar are unscrambled and put into Chinese form and finally a proper translation is made. Awaiting scholars are the deeper investigations into the intriguing fields of Dongba religion, mythology, origination and history.