The Shui call themselves " Ba", Shui in chinese. The same to Buyi and Dong, their ancestors were ancient Yue people.

　　With a total population of 323000, the Shui mainly live in the south of Miaolin ridge and the upper reach of Duliujiang river including Guizhou and a small region of Guangxi. They make the concentration in Guizhou, Sandu is the only one Shui autonomous county, a few Shui people make their houses in Yishan and Nandan of Guizhou.

　　The Shui have their own language, and the Shui language belongs to Sino-Tibetan language family, Dong Shui branch. The Shui have a kind of very old writing called " Shuishu", it has only some 1000 words, and it is used by the shaman on the occasion of funeral, wedding, and forturne telling, these words became a precious tresure of the Shui.

　　The Shui people mainly eat rice, they also like sticky rice, maize, fish and sour food, they particularly love fish and wine.

　　Shui women like wearing long blue and dark blue collarless clothes which is big and has wide sleeves, they wear long trousers, apron and embroidered shoes, Shui wome are good at making embroidery, the most famous one is the horse tail embroidery, the technique is often used on baby carriers and baby hats. The popular pattern on baby carriers is a big butterfly in the center surrounded by all kinds of shaped rice fields. During "Duan festival", they also wear silver necklace, bracelit and earing. The shui believe in ghosts, and there are numerous ghosts.

　　The Shui usually live in compact, and most of them are relatives, so they can not marry each other inside one village. Generally speaking, the father is in charge of the income of his family, when he dies, the oldest son will take his position and take care of the family.　　

　　The wedding ceremony of Shui is mysterious and complicated. Firstly, the match-maker from the boy's family visits the girls's family, this is called "Opening relatives". When engaged in the marriage, the boy will visit the girl's family by carring brown sugar, pork meat, silver necklace by himself. The dowry given by the girl's family includes rice, an alive pig, cloth, wardrobe and other productive and living articles. They need to drink the so called " matchmaker wine" before arranging the wedding, and the dowry of the boy's family will be displayed so as to show to the girl's family and relatives. When leading the bride to the boy's home, the groom won't meet the bride, she will be met and lead by an unmarried girl and ten boys from the groom's village. The trip of the bride from her village to the groom's home is walking with an umbrella on her hands, not sitting on sedan or riding horse. There is no any wedding ceremony on the first night, only a meal, the bride and the groom stay overnight in the same room during the first night, then she leaves for her home the next day. A few days later, the groom will visit the bride's home by himself on an auspicious day, and bring her to his home, she will take off her weddding dress, put on the daily dress and start to work for her new family. The new spouse will sleep together on the night, thus the wedding ceremony is finished, and the new marriage is annouced to come into being.

　　The Shui people's funeral ceremony is also prolonged and complicated, it will go through the process of annoucing the death, putting the body into coffin, keeping the coffin at home, choosing an auspicious day, carring the body and coffin to the grave and burying the body with coffin. There is a taboo, it's not allowed to have food with meat, but they can eat fish.

　　There are several interesting festivals among the Shui, it's " Duan festival" and " Maojie festival". During the Duan festival, the Shui will beat bronze drum, have the ancestor-worhshipping meal, after the meal, they will get together on the chosen slopne celebrate the festival, there are some interesting activities such as horse race, antiphonal singing. If you make a tour to their regions and come across the festival, that would be a wonderful experience. For more about the Duan festival, see it on the home page, check at South Guizhou.