- Ritual
- 度戒（Dujie）
- Region and community
- 中国・雲南省金平県者米郷頂青村のヤオ族共同体
- Age at the cultural rite
- Variable or not confirmed in the source
- Transition conditions
- Religious initiation / Community initiation / Trial or training / New social responsibilities
- Legal age of majority
- China18 yearsChina · Calendar unspecified · Law and supporting sources
About the rite
In January 2026, seven Yao boys in Dingqing village, Zhemi township, Jinping County, Yunnan, underwent Dujie and were publicly declared adults. Before the ceremony they received concentrated instruction in community history, etiquette, and ritual rules. Villagers built a bamboo platform and prepared a “birth net” below it to catch the initiates.
During the earthly rite, ritual specialists in ethnic dress led prayers, scripture recitation, and dance. In the heavenly rite, each boy, dressed in red, moved from the raised platform into the net. Local participants described the act as a passage away from childhood and toward responsibility, reverence, and cultural transmission.
Dujie does not carry one uniform meaning among all Yao communities. Research in another region, in Guangxi, interprets it primarily as the transmission and ordination of religious specialists rather than a coming-of-age rite. At the 2026 ceremony in Dingqing, adulthood was explicitly proclaimed.
