developing Lisu agriculture. The Chinese government's Religious Affairs Bureau has proposed considering Christianity as the official religion of the Lisu. , there were more than 700,000 Christian Lisu in Yunnan, and 450,000 in Myanmar (Burma). Only the Lisu of Thailand have remained unchanged by Christian influences. Animism/shamanism/ancestor worship Before Christianity was introduced to Lisu people, they were animists. Archibald Rose points that the religion of the Lisus appears to be a simple form of animism or nat-worship, sacrifices being offered to the spirits of the mountains. Most important rituals are performed by shamans. The main Lisu festival corresponds to Chinese New Year and is celebrated with music, feasting and drinking, as are weddings; people wear large amounts of silver jewelry and wear their best clothes at these times as a means of displaying their success in the previous agricultural year. In each traditional village there is a sacred grove at the top of the village, where the sky spirit or, in China, the Old Grandfather Spirit, are propitiated with offerings; each house has an ancestor altar at the back of the house. Language Linguistically, Lisu belong to the Yi language or Nuosu branch of the Sino-Tibetan family. There are two scripts in use. The Chinese Department of Minorities publishes literature in both. The oldest and most widely used one is the Fraser alphabet developed about 1920 by James O. Fraser and the ethnic Karen evangelist Ba Thaw. The second script was developed by the Chinese government and is based on pinyin. Fraser's script for the Lisu language was used to prepare the first published works in Lisu which were a catechism, portions of scripture, and a complete New Testament in 1936. In 1992, the Chinese government officially recognized the Fraser alphabet as the official script of the Lisu language. Only a small portion of Lisu are able to read or write the script, with most learning to read and write their local language (Chinese, Thai, Burmese) through primary education. See also The Art of Not Being Governed References Sources Bradley, David, 1997. "What did they eat? Grain crops of Burmic groups", Mon–Khmer Studies 27: 161-170. Dessaint, Alain Y, 1972. Economic organization of the Lisu of the Thai highlands Ph.D. dissertation, Anthropology, University of Hawaii. Durrenberger, E. Paul, 1989. "Lisu Religion", Southeast Asia Publications Occasional Papers No. 13, DeKalb: Northern Illinois University. Durrenberger, E. Paul, 1976. "The economy of a Lisu