The 730,000 Lisu mainly live in compact communities in Yunnan and Sichuan Provinces.

The Lisu are believed to have migrated northwest into Yunnan from Tibet thousands of years ago. Their history is passed on from on generation to the next through a song. The song is now so long that it can take almost a week to sing.

The Lisu language belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It’s written using an alphabet created for the language by a Christian missionary in 1915.

Most of the Lisu today are Christian, though many are atheist or practitioners of Shamanism. 

The Lisu are mainly agriculturalists, growing maize paddy rice, wheat, buckwheat etc. Industrial crops include jute and sugar cane, and they also trap animals for their fur.

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