PUYI

also spelled Jui, or Yoi, Wade-Giles romanization Chung-chia, ethnic group inhabiting large parts of Kweichow province in southwestern China. They have been in southern China since early times. Their language is similar to Tai, but they had no written script of their own until the Chinese Communists supplied them with one based upon the Latin alphabet. A Chinese account of 1730 relates that the Puyi were a group of former Chinese banished to Kweichow in pre-Christian times. More likely they were a Tai group forced from more favoured agricultural lowlands into the poorer valley lands of the Kweichow plateau and hills. In the late 20th century they were reported to number about 2,650,000 in Kweichow, mostly distributed at the south of the province and in the valley of the Nan-p'an River. The related Tung people, with a population of 2,620,000, inhabit the districts east of them. Many of the Puyi have become so Sinicized that they are no longer counted as tribesmen. The culture and religion of the Puyi are thus not unlike those of the Chinese around them. Their traditional beliefs involve numerous gods and spirits like those of the Chinese folk religion, although there are some Buddhists and a few Christians.