Dongbagu
Rift valley shrine to the world's last living pictographic script, guarded by Naxi Dongba priests.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Dongbagu in Lijiang follows a Dongba priest who still reads a pictographic script of stick figures, curled eyes and running deer, each mark doubling as picture, word and memory. It traces how the script's more than fourteen hundred characters passed father to son for generations, and lingers on the tradition's central scroll, a long painted map a priest unrolls beside the dead to guide mourners' souls past the dangers between this world and the next. Stand at the carved stone wall nearby, where those same characters run toward the sacred mountain's gate.
This audio guide was created using AI.
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