纳西族，中国少数民族之一，现今总人口二十七万八千多人。主要分布在云南、四川，西藏三省区毗连的澜沧江、金沙江和雅砻江流域。语言属汉藏语系、藏缅语族彝语支。

纳西族古老的象形表意文字由名叫“东巴”的祭司掌握，因而又叫“东巴文”。东巴象形文是一种从从图画字向象形字过渡的文字，这种文字的形态比苏美尔和巴比伦的楔形文字，古埃及的圣书文字、中美洲马雅文字和甲骨文更原始，它对人类原始图画文字如何演进到象形文字，和甲骨文之前汉字发生演变的研究都具有十分重要的学术价值。由于至今还有人能读懂和运用这种文字，因此在国际学术界有“唯一保留完整的活着的象形文字”之誉。

用“东巴文”书写的经典叫“东巴经”。东巴经是纳西先民古代社会生活的百科全书，其内容包括历史传说，诗歌。格言、宗教、祭祀、天文、医药、占卜、风俗习惯等。

现存的二万六千多卷东巴经都是东巴用野生植物制的土纸和松明油烟和锅灰等制的墨水书写而成的，即使在水中浸泡数日也不会褪色，且不会被虫蛀。

Dongba Scrolls of the Naxi Nationality

One of the minority nationalities of China with a population of 278,000, the Naxis live mainly in the valleys of the Lancang River,the Jinsha River and the Yalong River which run border areas of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces and the Tibetan Autonomous Region. 

The ancient ideographs of the Naxi nationality are used by Naxi Dongba preachers, and are thus called Dongba scrolls, a category of writing developed from picture writing to pictographs. These ideographs are older than the cuneiform scripts of Mesopotamia, Persia, ancient Egypt, or the Mayas, and even inscriptions on bones or tortoise shells of China's Shang Dynasty. They are of great academic value to the study of the development of writing, especially the process from primitive picture writing to pictograph writing and the earliest emergence of Chinese characters. Because Dongba scrolls are still used today, scholars around the world call this writing system “the only living pictographic writing”.

The Dongba scrolls are regarded as the encyclopedia of the social life of the Naxi ancestors. They include Naxi history, legendry, poetry, maxims, religious rites, astronomy, medicine, divination and customs.

There exist some 26,000 Dongba scrolls in the entire world, and are on paper made from wild plants; the ink is made of pinewood tar and soot. Despites having been exposed to the elements, these scriptures have retained their color and clarity.

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