Day 8 Continuing up the Shennong Stream

Our trip up the Shennong Stream was a beautiful ride and had fascinating scenery, but the most amazing sight was the elevated coffins.

In Ba culture, it was important to bury the dead up high as a sign of honor, so ancient people would suspend coffins on poles in high crevices. One was so high we couldn't imagine how they got it up there. The 1st picture shows how high up these crevices are (remember, before the Three Gorges Dam, the water level was about 100 meters lower.) In this picture the coffin is in the crevice on the left. Not shown is about the same distance above the crevices to the top of the hill. The second picture shows the poles and the coffin about two thirds up a different long crevice, but about the same height up from the water.

The 3rd and 4th pictures shows more farmers working in their fields. The government allows each person in a family group to have about 1/3 of an acre to farm for commercial use. Therefore, if there are 5 people (two grandparents, two parents and a child) in the family group, they are allowed about 1 - 2/3 acres to do with as they wish. Along this trip we saw many oranges and vegetables along with wheat being grown. There is still a lot of Canola being grown in this area, but we didn't see rice until later in the trip.