Jino people 基诺族
Jino people 基诺族, numbered about 23,000, are one of the official recognized ethnic group of China. The Jino were only recognized as a minority group in 1979 and as their name means in their language: "Descending from the uncle" what shows that the Jino lived in a matriarchal society until recent times, in which the maternal uncle's authority was the most important in the family. The Jino live by the Jinoshan Mountain 基诺山, in a series of mild hills with wet climate near Mengyang Township in Jinghong Municipality 景洪市 (92%), Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province. They live in an area of about 70x50 km. They live in subtropical rainforest, home of elephants, wild oxen and monkeys.
The Jino language belong to the Tiberto-Burman language family but very few, especially among the young generations, of them speak the language today and most adopted the Chinese writing. The Jino are mostly Animists and Buddhists.
Official portrait of a Jino family
Distribution of Jino people
Most Jino live within the Jinoshan 基诺山 (red circle). The Lancang River (blue) is nearby and becomes Mekong River when it enters Laos
Jinoshan 基诺山, one of the 7 tea mountains in Yunnan The Jino live by this mountain for thousands of years and today it's full of tea plantations, natural planted or man planted. Tea growing and processing become the biggest cash income for the Jino
创世女神 The goddess of mother nature for the jino
View from a different angle
A symbol of vitality for the Jino - a totem pole in front of every community house of a village
Every village has a community house for all village affairs and occasions. These giant drums are always here