Pumi People - Lifestyle

Lifestyle

Owing to its cold weather and its close proximity to Tibet, the lifestyle of Prinmi-speaking Tibetans closely resembles to that of the Tibetans. On the other hand, the Pumi living in Yunnan have adopted a liftstyle similar to that of the Chinese. For instance, rice has become the staple food for most Pumi. Even in villages where the climate is too cold to grow the crop, many will trade rice for potatoes at the market place. A variety of vegetables and fruits such as the Chinese cabbage, beans, eggplant and melons serve as supplements.

Generally, the Pumi are a patrilineal and monogamous society, although polygamy is accepted in places like Yongning in northern Ninglang. Alongside the Mosuo, the Pumi here adopt a matriarchal system linked to the Azhu system, which literally means friendship, and families are formed by virtue of consanguinity instead of marriage.

The traditional way to preserve pork is to remove all the inner organs and the feet of a large pig. Lean meat is made into sausages while the entire slaughtered pig is sewed up after salt is added inside the body. The sewed-up salty body wrapped in pork skin, large in the bottom and small in the head, resembles the shape of a pipa after it is dried up. It is thus known by the Chinese nickname of Pipa meat and the whole body can be preserved for years.

A traditional beer-like drink called pri is brewed by every Pumi family in villages. It is an essential drink at wedding ceremony and hence the word for 'to marry' is expressed as 'to drink pri' in Prinmi.