Indigenous Knowledge of Natural Resource Management and Population Control for Dong Ethnic Group in Guizhou Province

Dong ethnic people have rich indigenous knowledge in terms of their daily life and production, which plays an important role in the sustainable development of their village. This paper aims to understand traditional knowledge of Dong ethnic people in resource management and population control, including traditional resource management, traditional medicinal knowledge and village regulations in Zhanli Village in Southeast Guizhou Province. The research methods include key informant interview, group discussion, participant observation and secondary data collect- ing. The results show that Zhanli villagers try their best to utilize indigenous knowledge to manage the natural resources and keep the stable population to make themselves live in a sustainable way. Indigenous knowledge plays an important role in managing their limited natural resources and keeping the population stable under an excellent condition. Zhanli villagers employ indigenous knowledge to manage natural resources and use local herbs to control the population. Village regulation terms significantly influence villagers’ awareness in resource management and birth control. Women play the chief role in employing indigenous knowledge in weaving as well as medicinal knowledge in birth control, and these kinds of knowledge are passed down through the female line. However, the inheritance style of traditional knowledge is decreasing. Indig- enous knowledge plays an important role in the sustainable development of this village, which gives implications for development practices to involve indigenous knowledge to achieve sustainable development.

Farming Ritual and Festival Folk Custom of Dong Ethnic Minority Group

In order to pray for harvest and express gratitude, Dong ethnic arranged sacrifices of farming in accordance with periodicity of rice production and its requirements to festivals and calendar. Meanwhile, New Year, Pray in Spring and Return in Autumn not only play significant roles in agricultural production, but also evolve to farming holidays which are enriched with more social connotations. Centered on husbandry and production, some folklore that is rich in local color has been formed in Dong society. The writer introduced some farming ritual of Dong ethnic group, such as, sowing, Kai Yang Men, Rain-praying, Chang Xin, reaping and Lunar New Year, summarized their belief in the land worship, festival ritual, ancestor ritual and ceres ritual. It is concluded that sacrifice is a production-related folklore, which is formed by repeated operation and constant practice. Some taboos were also prohibited in agricultural sacrifice because people were not able to change the unfavorable reality of farming with their insufficient experience and knowledge; however, they resorted to witchcraft for the purpose of harvest. It is believed that the activity of sacrifice will also be kept in the life of Dong ethnic group due to their dependency on agriculture and the land.

Genomic footprints of Kam Sweet Rice domestication indicate possible migration routes of theDongpeople inChina andprovide resources for future rice breeding

The Dong people are one of China’s 55 recognized ethnic minorities,but there has been a long-standing debate about their origins.In this study,we performed whole-genome resequencing of Kam Sweet Rice(KSR),a valuable,rare,and ancient rice landrace unique to the Dong people.Through comparative genomic analyses of KSR and other rice landraces from south of the Yangtze River Basin in China,we provide evidence that the ancestors of the Dong people likely originated from the southeast coast of China at least 1000 years ago.Alien introgression and admixture in KSR demonstrated multiple migration events in the history of the Dong people.Genomic footprints of domestication demonstrated characteristics of KSR that arose from artificial selection and geographical adaptation by the Dong people.The key genes GS3,Hd1,and DPS1(related to agronomic traits)and LTG1 and MYBS3(related to cold tolerance)were identified as domestication targets,reflecting crop improvement and changes in the geographical environment of the Dong people during migration.A genome-wide association study revealed a candidate yield-associated gene,Os01g0923300,a specific haplotype in KSR that is important for regulating grain number per panicle.RNA-sequencing and quantitative reverse transcription-PCR results showed that this gene was more highly expressed in KSR than in ancestral populations,indicating that it may have great value in increasing yield potential in other rice accessions.In summary,our work develops a novel approach for studying human civilization and migration patterns and provides valuable genomic datasets and resources for future breeding of high-yield and climate-resilient rice varieties.