title: Subcomandante Marcos

text: Marcos has been compared to popular figures such as England's folklore hero Robin Hood, Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, Argentine guerrilla Che Guevara, India's pacifist independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela, and even U.S. president John F. Kennedy in the 1960s, on account of his "popularity in virtually all sectors of Mexican society."


title: Subcomandante Marcos

text: Marcos is often credited with putting Mexico's indigenous population's poverty in the spotlight, both locally and internationally. His popularity also served the Zapatista cause well in two very concrete ways. Most immediately, it deprived the Mexican government of the option of militarily crushing them. Second, Marcos was able to capitalize on his popularity to win public support, garner international solidarity, and attract media attention to the Zapatistas.


title: Subcomandante Marcos

text: Marcos has continued to attract media attention, and to be seen both in the company of celebrities and as a celebrity himself. For example, he was photographed alongside Mexican actors Gael García Bernal and Ilse Salas in November 2018, and Diego Luna in December 2019.


title: Subcomandante Marcos

text: Apart from cheering for local Liga MX side Chiapas F.C., which relocated to Querétaro in 2013, Subcomandante Marcos and the EZLN also support the Italian Serie A football club Inter Milan. The contact between EZLN and Inter, one of Italy's biggest and most famous clubs, began in 2004 when an EZLN commander contacted a delegate from Inter Campus, the club's charity organization which has funded sports, water, and health projects in Chiapas.


title: Subcomandante Marcos

text: In 2005, Inter's president Massimo Moratti received an invitation from Subcomandante Marcos to have Inter play a football game against a team of Zapatistas with Diego Maradona as referee. Subcomandante Marcos asked Inter to bring the match ball because the Zapatistas' ones were punctured. Although the proposed spectacle never came to fruition, there has been continuing contact between Inter and the Zapatistas. Former captain Javier Zanetti has expressed sympathy for the Zapatista cause.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Katara is a fictional character in the Nickelodeon animated television series "" and "The Legend of Korra". The character, created by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, is voiced by Mae Whitman in the original series and Eva Marie Saint in the sequel series, "The Legend Of Korra". She is and Kya’s daughter and Sokka’s younger sister. In the 2010 live action film "The Last Airbender", she was played by Nicola Peltz.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Katara is a 14-year-old "waterbender", meaning that she has the ability to telekinetically control water and ice. At the beginning of the story, she is the only person with such abilities in the Southern Water Tribe, one of three known communities in which waterbending is practiced. She and her older brother, Sokka, discover an "airbender" (one who can telekinetically control and manipulate air) named Aang frozen in an iceberg. They free him and accompany him on his quest to defeat the imperialistic Fire Nation and bring peace to the war-torn world. She later earns the title of Master Waterbender from Master Pakku of the Northern Water Tribe.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: According to the , Katara's name was originally 'Kya'. Nickelodeon's legal department vetoed the name when they discovered there was already a video game character named Kya, so they had to change it. 'Kanna' was first proposed to replace Kya, but it was used to name her grandmother instead. 'Kya' was later used for Katara's then-unnamed deceased mother. In "The Tales of Ba Sing Se", Katara's name was written as 卡 塔 拉. Kǎ (卡) means to check, block, or card; Tǎ (塔) means pagoda; and Lā (拉) means to pull. The character 'Lā' appears in the first season's finale as the name of the Ocean Spirit, while the character 'Kǎ' also appears in Sokka's name.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino originally conceived Aang, Katara, and Sokka as younger characters, but they were all aged-up by two years during development at the insistence of executive producer Eric Coleman, who said that Nickelodeon was not looking for coming-of-age stories. When the show began, Aang went from being 10 years old to 12, Katara from 12 to 14, and Sokka from 13 to 15 years old.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: In the commentary of the unaired pilot episode, co-creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino state that Katara's "hair loopies" were intended to hang downward. The idea for her tied-back hair loopies came from Tin House animation director Yoon Young Ki, making it so that her hair was easier to animate.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: In "The Women of Avatar: The Last Airbender" special on "The Complete Book Three Collection," Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko have stated that they envision Katara as the deuteragonist of the series, as well as the "person the story is being told through".


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Katara is described as "smart, capable", and as "kind, brave, and passionate." In many situations, Katara appears as a mother to the other protagonists: a role attributed to her tribe's losses to raids and the departure of many members to war, which required her (as well as her brother Sokka) to assume responsibilities beyond her age. Katara tends to be kind and generous, but is often stubborn or confined by her morals; becomes angry if doubted, insulted, or betrayed; and carries resentment for years on end. She is commonly a mother figure to Sokka, who sometimes resents her for this but also takes her for granted.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: When Katara was eight years old, her mother, Kya, sacrificed her life during a Fire Nation raid in order to protect Katara, since she was the only waterbender in the southern tribe. Though her interests lay in developing her waterbending skills, she resigned herself to cooking and cleaning duties while her brother, Sokka, trained to become a warrior. Three years later, Katara's father , and the other warriors journey to the Earth Kingdom to oppose the Fire Nation, leaving Katara, Sokka, and their grandmother to look after the tribe.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: The events of "Avatar: The Last Airbender" begins six years later, when Katara and Sokka find Aang in suspended animation and identify him as the Avatar, a messianic figure. To assist the Avatar and to further her mastery of waterbending, Katara joins Aang in his quest to reach the and find a waterbending master, with Sokka alongside them. Upon arrival, Master Pakku refuses her apprenticeship because the customs of the Northern Water Tribe dictate that women cannot learn waterbending as a martial art, but upon noticing Katara's necklace, which he himself gave to Katara's grandmother, he agrees to teach her. Katara having achieved her own expertise, Pakku deems her sufficient to teach Aang.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Katara then accompanies Aang to the Earth Kingdom for him to learn earthbending. At an Earth Kingdom stronghold, General Fong places Katara's life in danger to induce Aang's Avatar State, but achieves only destruction. After the earthbender Toph BeiFong joins the group to teach Aang, Katara and Toph initially quarrel but thereafter become friends. In the Earth Kingdom's capital, Katara encounters antagonist Prince Zuko and his sister Azula; during the battle, Aang is injured by Azula's lightning, whereupon Katara takes him to safety and eventually mostly heals his physical wounds.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: In a village burdened by the Fire Nation's pollution, Katara disguises herself as the river spirit the Painted Lady in order to help the village. While staying with the semi-reclusive Hama, the protagonists learn she is a waterbender from the Southern Tribe who was imprisoned by the Fire Nation. Later, she offers to teach Katara a waterbending technique called "bloodbending", which enables physical control of animals and humans. When Katara refuses to learn this technique, Hama uses it on Aang and Sokka, forcing Katara to use the technique herself on Hama. When Prince Zuko joins the protagonists after the Invasion fails and gains everyone's trust, he fails to do so with Katara until he assists her in finding the man who was responsible for killing her mother, during the process of which she uses bloodbending. Though deciding not to take her revenge nor forgive, she does come to terms with Zuko and accepts him as her friend.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: During the four-part series , Katara assists Zuko in preventing Azula from becoming Fire Lord and battles her, eventually defeating her, and heals Zuko. When the war ends, she is seen in Ba Sing Se with the other protagonists and shares a kiss with Aang, starting a romantic relationship with him.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: In the sequel series "The Legend of Korra", Katara, now eighty-five, is one of the three surviving members of the original Team Avatar, along with Zuko and Toph. She is a high-ranking member of the White Lotus and took it upon herself to train Korra in waterbending, becoming the latest in a line of masters to serve as a teacher to multiple Avatars. Katara and Aang are also revealed to have had three children: the non-bender Bumi (who later acquires the ability to airbend), the waterbender Kya, and the airbender Tenzin. She plays a minor role in the first season of the series, only giving Korra her blessing to leave for Republic City to train with Tenzin and attempting to unsuccessfully heal her after she loses her waterbending, earthbending, and firebending abilities to Amon.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: In the second-season premiere "Rebel Spirit", Katara is seen celebrating with her children at the Southern Water Tribe's Glacier Spirits Festival. While together with them, Katara, holding her new grandson Rohan, watches sadly as she notices Kya and Bumi joking at Tenzin's expense. At the end of the episode, Katara implores that Tenzin take his brother and sister with him to the Southern Air Temple, saying that he will enjoy looking back on the time he had to spend with his siblings and that it might be best for the three to visit their father's home together. In "Harmonic Convergence", Katara is seen in her healing hut tending to injured Southern Water Tribe soldiers, and later used healing to keep her granddaughter Jinora's body alive while her soul was trapped in the spirit world. In "Light in the Dark", she is seen listening to Avatar Korra addressing the independent Southern Water Tribe and how she decided to have spirits and human coexist by leaving the spirit portals open.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: In the fourth season episode "Korra Alone", Katara aids Korra in healing her body after being poisoned by Zaheer at the end of the third season, enabling her to walk again after being a wheelchair user for over six months.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Katara's abilities develop considerably throughout the series. At the outset, she has little control over her waterbending and often loses control in moments of frustration or anger. Thanks to diligent practice, an instruction scroll, and tutelage under a master, her skill improves until she is deemed a master herself. She was chosen to be Korra's master, and taught her waterbending and healing.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Katara is highly skilled in waterbending, which utilizes Chinese martial arts techniques of "internal style" T'ai chi ch'uan and Jeet Kune Do; Katara is the only surviving master of "Southern style waterbending" after the 100-year war.<ref name="avatar2/index.jhtml"></ref> The series' creators consulted a professional martial artist in the design of the show's fighting style. Waterbending represents the element of change – a shapeshifter constantly changing forms – and is categorized as the most adaptive or pliable of the "four bending arts". Waterbending emphasizes "softness and breathing" over "hard aggression"; fluid and graceful, acting in concert with the environment; and creating opportunities where none exist. This "flow of energy" allows their defensive maneuvers to translate into focus on control and counter-offenses, turning their opponents' momentum against them. Despite these advantages, waterbending is almost entirely dependent on inertia; it is essential for practitioners to not be rigid, but to be fluid and able to adapt to any situation.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Katara has demonstrated to be a formidable opponent to her enemies, able to fight on equal terms with Azula and Long Feng; she eventually outmatched the Fire Nation princess to demonstrate the extent of her skill. Katara can use water to cut through objects; summon lashing waves and whips of varying sizes; cover herself with a sheath of water; surf on a length of ice; run and stand on the surface of water; melt and control existing ice; form ice into various shapes; freeze water and objects surrounded by water with little effort; create walls of mist and steam; transform steam into ice; evaporate large amounts of water; or derive a weapon from any moisture including her own perspiration. She can control huge amounts of water at a time, forming huge waves and bubbles of water. On one instance, Katara knocked down the entire Dai Li, Zuko, and Azula while riding atop a giant wave. As with all waterbenders, Katara's powers increase under the influence of a full moon.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Katara demonstrates the ability to levitate and control water-based liquids, as well as pure water, in the episode "The Southern Raiders", wherein Katara bends ink onto a map. She is also seen bending soup (which allows her to cook meals), and bends perfume while battling a smell-dependent monster. In the episode "The Painted Lady," she uses her bending to create a thick fog. Katara also demonstrates the ability to bend sweat and the ability to manipulate mud with Toph, who manipulates the dirt while Katara controls the water.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Katara is one of the few waterbenders born with the sub-ability of healing injuries or wounds, first demonstrated after she is burned by Aang's first attempt at firebending. She strengthens this ability under the tutelage of the Northern Water Tribe's healer Yagoda. She uses it thereafter to relieve sickness; overcome brainwashing; and heal wounds such as burns and bleeding injuries. Nevertheless, she cannot cure all sicknesses, mend brain damage, or heal internal injuries and birth defects. Using special water she obtained from the Northern Water Tribe's Spirit Shrine, she was able to heal a fatal wound Azula inflicted upon Aang, thus reviving him from death. She speculated that she would be able to use that same water to heal the scar on Zuko's face, but was interrupted before she could do so. By the time of "The Legend of Korra", Lin Beifong (Toph's metalbender daughter) claims that she is the best healer in the world.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Katara knows another waterbending technique known as "bloodbending". She first used this technique in the eighth episode of . This ability consists in manipulating the water inside a creature's body, leaving the target unable to move or resist in any way. Once she has taken control, she can make it move in any manner she desires. She is only able to bloodbend during a full moon, when her waterbending power is at its peak. Katara was forced to learn bloodbending by Hama, an elderly Water Tribe woman who originally developed the technique and who wanted Katara to learn it for it to be passed on to others. However, Katara abhors this technique and has only used it twice in times of great stress. In later years, she worked to make the practice a criminal offense.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Nicola Peltz portrayed Katara in the 2010 film adaptation of the series, "The Last Airbender", directed by M. Night Shyamalan. The film was universally panned by critics and audiences. Many reviewers cited inconsistencies within the plot and between the screenplay and the source material, as well as the acting, characterization, writing and casting and has been considered to be one of the worst adaptations ever made.


title: Katara (Avatar: The Last Airbender)

text: Kiawentiio will portray Katara in the upcoming live-action television series adaptation, "". DiMartino and Konietzko were initially announced to be the executive producers and showrunners, but they later left the production.


title: Zhuang people

text: The Zhuang (; ; ; ) are a Tai-speaking ethnic group who mostly live in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in Southern China. Some also live in the Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou, and Hunan provinces. They form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China. With the Bouyei, Nùng, Tày, and other Northern Tai speakers, they are sometimes known as the Rau or Rao people. Their population, estimated at 18 million people, makes them the largest minority in China, followed by the Hui and Manchu.


title: Zhuang people

text: The Chinese character used for the Zhuang people has changed several times. Their autonym, "Cuengh" in Standard Zhuang, was originally written with the graphic pejorative , (or "tóng", referring to a variety of wild dog). Chinese characters typically combine a semantic element or radical and a phonetic element. John DeFrancis recorded was previously Tóng, , with "dog radical" and "tóng", phonetic, a slur, but also describes how the People's Republic of China eventually removed it. In 1949, after the Chinese civil war, the logograph was officially replaced with a different graphic pejorative, ("Zhuàng" or "tóng", meaning "child; boy servant"), with the "human radical" with the same phonetic. Later was changed to a different character , (meaning"strong; robust").


title: Zhuang people

text: The Zhuang, Nùng, and Tày people are a cluster of Tai peoples with very similar customs and dress known as the Rau peoples. In China, the Zhuang are today the largest non-Han Chinese minority with around 14.5 million population in Guangxi Province alone. In Vietnam, as of 1999, there were 933,653 Nùng people and 1,574,822 Tày people. Recently the Tày and Nùng have been referred to as a combined Tày-Nùng minority. However these ethnonyms are a recent phenomenon and did not exist until the modern age. According to Keith Taylor, the Vietnamese terms were "categories of French colonial knowledge" used to differentiate highlanders from lowlanders. The ethnic Zhuang was a product of the "ethnic identification project" pursued in 1950s China.


title: Zhuang people

text: Many scholars of the Tai peoples consider the Zhuang and Nùng to be essentially the same people, a single ethnic group. During the early 11th century, ethnic identities and boundaries were more fluid than in the modern Sino-Vietnamese borderland. The Zhuang leader Nong Zhigao was defeated in 1055 by the Song dynasty. Had he won, it's possible that he might have established a state under his own clan name, Nong. Instead, his people in China continued to be referred to as Zhuang, which in their own language means "cave", while in Vietnam they came to be known as Nùng. The majority ethnic group and now the largest minority, however, was and still is the same, the Zhuang/Nùng, who together number more than 15 million people. They are just recognized by different names in China and Vietnam. Nong Zhigao (V. Nùng Trí Cao) has sometimes been claimed by Vietnam as a Vietnamese native, but this is due to antagonism with modern China, while in previous times the Vietnamese sometimes saw him as primarily Chinese.


title: Zhuang people

text: Some ethnologists view the Zhuang ethnicity as a modern constructed ethnic identity. In the eyes of the ethnologists, the Zhuang culture was not sufficiently divergent from what the ethnologists considered "Han culture", to warrant recognition as a separate ethnic identity. The Zhuang had been interacting with the Han Chinese for over 2,200 years. As early as the Han dynasty (202 BC-220 AD), the Zhuang adopted Han cultural practices and technology such as settled agriculture, iron plows, triple cropping, and fertilization. They lived at lower elevations than other minority groups and competed more directly with Han farmers than slash-and-burn agriculturalists. As direct competitors, the Zhuang found it expedient to adopt Han dress and housing styles. After the defeat of the Zhuang leader, Nong Zhigao, in 1055, many Zhuang families and communities gave up their own language and names and completely assimilated into the Han majority.


title: Zhuang people

text: In one instance, a Zhuang student said that he had previously regarded himself as Han Chinese before being taught that he was Zhuang. The Zhuang did not perceive themselves as marginalized or in need of promotion. Zhuang peasants displayed resistance to the ideal of a formal Romanized Zhuang script, noting that they had used Han script for centuries. Formal classification of the Zhuang also ignored historical similarities between northern Zhuang and the Bouyei people.


title: Zhuang people

text: The Zhuang are the indigenous peoples of Guangxi, according to Huang Xianfan. The Zhuang's origins can be traced back to the paleolithic ancient human, as demonstrated by a large amount of contemporary archaeological evidence.


title: Zhuang people

text: The Zhuang trace their lineage to the Lạc Việt people through artworks such as the Rock Paintings of Hua Mountain, dating from to the Warring States period (475–221 BC).


title: Zhuang people

text: From 823 to 826, the Zhuang Huang and Nong clans, aided with raiders from Champa, attacked Yongzhou and seized 18 counties. The "Nung Grottoes" sought aid from Nanzhao.


title: Zhuang people

text: During the Huang Chao rebellion (874–884), the Zhuang took part in anti-rebel efforts as irregular units in the Ningyuan Army led by Pang Zhuzhao. After the collapse of the Tang dynasty in 907, the Southern Han recruited Zhuang archers to outfit its riverine forces. They took part in campaigns against Ma Chu.


title: Zhuang people

text: The Zhuang do not seem to have aspired to creating an empire after the collapse of the Tang and sought merely autonomy. In fact the opposite seemed to have occurred and the wars in the south drew more Zhuang into contact with Han Chinese as they were sought after as mercenary troops and river porters.


title: Zhuang people

text: The Song dynasty continued the Jimi system of the Tang dynasty and named the officials of those jimi prefectures "zhi". So the ruler of Nandan was called "Zhi Nandan". The Zhuang people were governed under this system but not the Yao people, who were far less numerous. Zhuang leaders sought Song approval to legitimate their position. After being recognized, they also received a salary and their family was guaranteed hereditary succession to the post. Song authority was bestowed through seals, which theoretically went to the hereditary leader, but in practice usually went to the claimant put forward by the locals, often after military conflicts. When there was no obvious heir, the seals often went to the wife of the deceased, whose accession to the post became customary. In theory the Song court could replace recalcitrant leaders like an ordinary official, but in practice this power was weighed against the cost to maintain tranquillity among the Zhuang and stability on the Sino-Viet border. As a result, Jimi rulers who were disobedient were usually sufficiently powerful to refuse replacement as well.


title: Zhuang people

text: Zhuang jimi prefectures were essentially feudal. Land was held by lesser families in perpetuity and could not be sold or transferred. As a result the Zhuang habitually entered military service under the Han Chinese to seek new land, often at the expense of other minorities such as the Yao people. Han Chinese were forbidden from buying Zhuang land or to engage in commercial activity within their jimi districts. However Zhuang-Han marriages were allowed, resulting in land titles that were nominally Zhuang held but had been subsumed under Han administration. The jimi prefectures paid a tax that was usually more a customary and semi-voluntary exaction in practice, though this depended upon the power of the lord. Even when taxed, it was at a lower rate than that of regular prefectures. Many jimi prefectures did not pay taxes but "tribute." The Mo clan paid 100 ounces of silver as tribute annually.


title: Zhuang people

text: The jimi prefectures often engaged in petty squabbles that escalated to military conflict. At one point the Mo clan of Nandan pillaged each other over the ownership of an ox before Song authorities settled the matter. Such small scale conflicts were frequent and Song authorities preferred to remain uninvolved and avoided confrontation when possible.


title: Zhuang people

text: The Zhuang provided the Song dynasty with river transportation during the Song conquest of Southern Han (970–971). Some 20,000 Zhuang also fought for Southern Han but they were defeated. Afterwards, the Mo clan of Nandan submitted to Song authority in 974 and the Meng clan of Yizhou rebelled in 1038 but was put down.


title: Zhuang people

text: In 980, the Zhuang participated in the Song–Đại Cồ Việt war as Song allies, however the expedition ended in defeat.


title: Zhuang people

text: In 1000, the Zhuang attacked Yongzhou but the attack was quelled by Zhuang troops of the Song-allied Huang clan.


title: Zhuang people

text: In 1001, Zhuang calling themselves the Troops of Chen ("chenbing") rebelled in Yizhou. Their leader, Su Chengzhun, titled himself King of the Pacified South ("nanping wang"). The rebels took a few towns but were hampered by floods and suffered several defeats until their leader was killed three months later.


title: Zhuang people

text: In 1004, a Nong chieftain was given a banquet at a Song prefecture. The Viets reacted to this with anger and pillaged the area.


title: Zhuang people

text: In 1038, there was a disturbance at Rongzhou and Yizhou which took troops from three prefectures the loss of six high-ranking officials to suppress. The prefect of Yizhou blamed the unrest on bad administration and that the problem was the result of systematic neglect of the south on the throne's part: administrators received inadequate salaries and local troops only received supplies sporadically. As a result, the temptation to raid barbarian lands was irresistible.


title: Zhuang people

text: In 1044, Ou Xifan of the Ou clan rebelled to the northwest of Yizhou. Ou Xifan had received a jinshi degree and served as an officer but grew dissatisfied with his rewards. He declared the Great Tang and declared war on the Song. He was caught in 1045 and executed by vivisection.


title: Zhuang people

text: During the early Song period, the Huang clan was left in charge of the You and Zuo rivers. The Wei had settled on the Song-Viet boarder. However the power of the Nong clan increased and began to upset Huang supremacy. By the early Song, they ruled over an area known as Temo, which stretched from modern Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in the west to Jingxi in the east and Guangyuanzhou (Quảng Nguyên, now Cao Bằng province) in the south. Emperor Taizong of Song (r. 976-997) bestowed special favors on Nong leadership, acknowledging that they had succeeded the Huang in the Zuo River region.


title: Zhuang people

text: The first member of the Nong clan to gain official recognition was Nong Minfu. It is not known when he was born, but a memorial in early 977 states that the "peaceful and generous" leader Nong Minfu of Guangyuanzhou had established himself over ten neighboring villages with the support of Southern Han (907-971). Minfu had supported Duan Siping (r. 937–944) of the Dali Kingdom and was rewarded with titles. Duan rewarded another leader in Temo with the title "buxie". The Song bestowed the titles "minister of works" ("sigong") and "grand master of splendid happiness bearing the golden pocket with purple trimming" ("jinzi guanglu daifu") on Minfu. These titles were passed onto Minfu's son, Nong Quanfu (, ). He was also granted additional authority of Dangyouzhou (modern Jingxi, Guangxi). His younger brother, Nong Quanlu, controlled Wennaizhou (modern Na Rì District). Such preferential treatment was viewed with anger in Đại Cồ Việt, which attacked a Song garrison in 1004 after it held a banquet for a Nong chieftain.


title: Zhuang people

text: In 1005, a woman known as A Nong was born to a notable warrior chieftain who accepted titles from both the Song dynasty and the Early Lê dynasty of Đại Cồ Việt. A Nong learned to spin and weave from her mother. At some point she was separated from the other girls and learned the ways of a shaman. She married Nong Quanfu and became his primary political adviser. Her brother, Nong Dangdao, inherited Wulezhou near Guangyuanzhou. She gave birth to Nong Zhigao in 1025. A Nong induced Quanfu to kill his brother, the leader of the Cen clan, and take his lands. The Nong clan eventually controlled 14 major grottoes ("dong") in comparison to only 5 for the Huang clan.


title: Zhuang people

text: In 1035, Quanfu declared the founding of the Kingdom of Longevity ("Changsheng Guo" 長生國) and took for himself the exalted title "Luminous and Sage Emperor" ("Zhaosheng Huangdi" 昭聖皇帝) while A Nong became the "Enlightened and Virtuous Empress" ("Mingde Huanghou" 明德皇后). Another source says he founded the "Chang Qi Guo" and styled himself the first king of Dali, "Tu Dan Chao". The local prefect of Tianzhou requested assistance from Yongzhou to deal with the rebellion, but officials there appear to have feared involvement and refused to offer aid. In 1039, the emperor of the Lý dynasty, Lý Thái Tông, invaded the newly found kingdom, captured Quanfu and four other male members of the Nong clan, and executed them. A Nong escaped with the 14-year old Zhigao into Song territory.


title: Zhuang people

text: In 1041, Nong Zhigao and his mother seized Dangyouzhou (modern Jingxi, Guangxi) and the Leihuo grotto settlement (modern Daxin County). A Nong married a wealthy merchant but Zhigao murdered this man. A Nong married a third time to Nong Xiaqing, expanding their territory further into Temo. In 1042, Zhigao declared the founding the Kingdom of the Great Succession ("Dali Guo" 大歷國, not to be confused with the Kingdom of Dali 大理). Đại Cồ Việt sent troops and captured him. He was held prisoner for a year before he was released with an honorary title and given control of Guangyuan, Leihuo, Ping'an, Pinpo, and Silang in return for a share of their natural resources, particularly gold. In 1048, Zhigao declared another state, the Kingdom of the Southern Heavens ("Nantian Guo"), and took a reign title, "Auspicious Circumstances" ("Jingrui"). He called the Viet court's actions criminal and that his territory would not be annexed by China. In the fall of 1049, Zhigao's forces pillaged Yongzhou. In 1050, Đại Cồ Việt launched an attack on Zhigao's stronghold and evicted him, sending him fleeing into Song territory.


title: Zhuang people

text: Nong Zhigao approached the Song at Yongzhou for assistance but was denied an audience until he staged a military demonstration beneath the walls. He then presented substantial tribute (tame elephants and lumps of gold and silver) and petitioned the emperor. The prefect of Yongzhou, Chen Gong, never passed on the petition to court. However when the tribute reached the court, the Fiscal Commissioner Xiao Gu argued to the emperor that Zhigao should be granted title. The Song court refused because it considered Zhigao's service to be the right of Đại Cồ Việt. The military commander Yuan Yun was dispatched to attack Zhigao but instead he wanted to offer Zhigao protection, and returned to the capital with tribute, arguing for a change in policy.


title: Zhuang people

text: Zhigao's followers set up shop and through the mineral wealth of his holdings formed close ties with Chinese traders, including jinshi degree holders Huang Wei and Huang Shifu. He also recruited other Nong clan members such as Nong Zhizhong and Nong Jianhou. Under the influence of Huang Wei and A Nong, Zhigao decided to declare independence. In 1052, Zhigao proclaimed the establishment of the Kingdom of the Great South ("Danan Guo") and granted himself the title of Benevolent and Kind Emperor ("Renhui Huangdi"). In the spring of 1052, Zhigao ordered the villages under his control to be burnt and led 5,000 subjects on the path to Guangzhou.


title: Zhuang people

text: By summertime, he had taken Yongzhou and reached Guangzhou, where his 50,000 strong army became bogged down in a prolonged siege. Despite cutting off Guangzhou from water, the city was well stocked with provisions, and the defenders fought back with crossbow defenses. The district magistrate Xiao Zhu foiled a waterborne attack on Guangzhou by setting fire to their ships. After 57 days, Zhigao was forced to retreat as more Song reinforcements arrived. He held out at Yongzhou, defeating five Song commanders sent against him. The Song called in a veteran of the Song–Xia wars, Di Qing, to assume command of the anti-rebel forces. He gathered 31,000 men and 32 generals, including Fanluo tribal cavalry from the northwest that "were able to ascend and descend mountains as though walking on level ground." Lý Thái Tông also offered to send 20,000 troops but the offer was refused out of fear that the troops would not leave afterwards.


title: Zhuang people

text: One general, Chen Shu, attacked early with 8,000 men and suffered a defeat against the Zhuang forces. Di Qing executed him and 31 officers. He then marched his forces under cover of night and blocked the Kunlun Pass east of Yongzhou. Zhigao attacked the Song forces in early 1054. The Zhuang wore bright crimson uniforms and fought in units of three armed with long shields that advanced "like fire." One man carried a shield while the other two hurled metal-tipped bamboo javelins. In the initial stages of battle, one Song commander was killed, and the Song army was momentarily forced to fall back. In the second engagement, the Zhuang forces could not withstand the Song infantry charges. The Song infantry hacked at the Zhuang shields with heavy swords and axes while the Fanluo cavalry attacked their wings, breaking their ranks. The Zhuang fled, suffering 5,341 casualties. Di Qing retook Yongzhou and executed the jinshi-holder Huang, two of Zhigao's family, and 57 officials. Zhigao and his remaining family fled to seek help from the Zhuang clans, but he was not well liked, and the Huang chieftain, Huang Shouling, refused to aid him. He also requested aid from the Viet court, which sent the tribal commander Võ Nhị to assist the rebels. A Nong and her son Nong Zhiguang, as well as Zhigao's sons Nong Jifeng and Nong Jizong, were caught at Temo in Yunnan by Zhuang forces allied with the Song. They were executed. Zhigao failed to raise more troops in Dali.


title: Zhuang people

text: According to official accounts, Nong Zhigao was executed by the ruler of Dali and his head presented to Song authorities. However popular accounts claim he fled further south into modern northern Thailand, where his descendants thrive to this day. The Zhuang of Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture identify as survivors of Zhigao's rebel movement and other groups in Dali City, Xishuangbana, and northern Thailand claim to be descended from Zhigao. Many Zhuang songs refer to him as "King Nong."


title: Zhuang people

text: The Song took full control of the Zuo and You rivers, incorporating the regions into the Song bureaucracy. When Zhigao and his fellow rebel chieftains fled, they were replaced by Song-allied clans, primarily the Huang and Cen who were given hereditary posts. Chinese schools in Zhuang areas were set up and the sons of elite Zhuang who enrolled in them later took posts in the Song bureaucracy. Chinese style dress began to influence the Zhuang, who started buttoning their clothing on the right, women wearing bodices, giving up trousers for skirts, and wearing their hair in the Chinese style. Many of the former rebels were enlisted in the Song army, which paid for more than 50,000 Zhuang troops known as "Tuding" ("tubing" or "zhuangding") from 1064-1067. By 1108, more than a hundred thousand registered as soldiers from the region. The Zhuang warriors carried both a long and short double-edged sword. They were also capable of using crossbows, poisoned arrows, and elephants. A three man Zhuang unit had one man carrying a large shield while the other two hurled javelins. Although they fought for the Song, they only obeyed the orders of their Zhuang chieftains. In 1178, the vice-prefect of Guilin, Zhou Qufei, said that they "live and die at the orders of their leaders."


title: Zhuang people

text: The defeat of Nong Zhigao in Quảng Nguyên (C. Guangyuan; now Cao Bằng Province) removed the tribal buffer zone between Đại Cồ Việt and the Song dynasty. Zhigao's final defeat by the Song also had the effect of subordinating a large portion of that zone to direct Song control. The Viet court did not intervene in the matter and for 20 years after the Nong Zhigao rebellions, there was general peace along the border. However the regional power balance had been lost. Han Chinese military settlers moved in and new leaders took over the surviving communities. Several influential Nong leaders sided with the Viet court. Crucial influences for the lead up to war include the Song-court sponsored New Policies promoted by Wang Anshi and efforts by the Lý court to consolidate peripheral fiefdoms.


title: Zhuang people

text: The Song and Đại Cồ Việt treated their frontier borderland peoples in different ways. The Chinese tried to introduce "uncultured" barbarians to the benefits of the "civilized" center in the post-Nong Zhigao period. Viet leadership on the other hand created "patron-client" relationships using marriage alliances and military expeditions to maintain "satellite" partners. Successive Viet courts saw the extraction of resources from frontier vassals as a measurement of their efficacy. However by the 11th century, both the Chinese and Viet courts saw the frontier as a source of available troops famed for their ferocity. By 1065, around 44,500 militia had been recruited from these communities by the Song.


title: Zhuang people

text: Frontier unrest began anew in 1057 when Nong Zongdan (V. Nùng Tông Ðán), a kinsman of Nong Zhigao, entered Song territory. The frontier administrator Wang Han visited Zongdan's camp at Leihuo to discourage him from seeking inclusion in the Song dynasty since it would upset the Viet court. Instead he proposed that he stay outside Song territory as a loyal frontier militia leader. Wang feared that a resurgence of the Nong clan would spell trouble for the frontier. The Song court ignored his apprehensions and offered the Nong and other communities "Interior Dependency" status. By 1061, Emperor Renzong of Song (r. 1022-63) was regretting his decision and lamented that the "Nong Bandit" and his kin had strayed far from their frontier duties and might never be incorporated into the Song administration. However in 1062 when Zongdan requested his territory be incorporated into the Song empire, Renzong accepted his request. According to "The Draft Documents Pertaining to Song Official Matters", Zongdan was regarded by the Song as the prefect of Leihuo prefecture, renamed "Pacified Prefecture" ("Shun'anzhou"), and possessed the title "Personal Guardian General of the Right." Nong Zhihui (V. Nùng Trí Hội), the brother of Nong Zhigao, received the title "Personal Guardian of the Left." Other members of the Nong clan in Temo such as Nong Bing, Nong Guang, and Nong Xiaqing swore loyalty to the Song. Zhigao's former generals Lu Bao (V. Lư Báo), Li Mao (V. Lê Mạo), and Huang Zhongqing (V. Hoàng Trọng Khanh) were also granted official titles.


title: Zhuang people

text: In the view of the Song court, these titles were not merely honorary appointments. Local militia in the southwestern frontier zone were reorganized in 1065 under Guizhou prefect Lu Shen. The 45 grottoes along the You and Zuo rivers were assigned grotto militia leaders. A commissioner surveyed the region for able-bodied men to be organized under a guard commander selected from the area's prominent households, who received a specific signal banner to indicate their group's distinction. Groups of 30 men were organized into local governance units known as "tithings ("jia")", which were organized in groups of five under a troop commandant ("dutou"), groups of ten led by an aboriginal commander ("zhijunshi"), and in groups of 50 led by a commander-in-chief ("duzhijunshi"). It was perhaps this intensification of border defense that the Viet court felt threatened by, as it saw its own systems of local control eroded.


title: Zhuang people

text: Scholars also note that there was a sharp increase in the population of the Song dynasty's southwest frontier by the end of the 11th century. At the end of the 10th c., this region counted only 17,760 households while the same area had increased to 56,596 households in 1078-85. Guangnan West Circuit's population in 1080 stood at 287,723 households, a 133% increase from the Tang census of 742. Some of the increase can be attributed to including indigenous populations and improved recording methods, but the trend of increased Han Chinese settlement is clear. With the increase of Han Chinese population also came more northern-oriented cultural practices.


title: Zhuang people

text: The Lý court was also in the process of consolidating its frontier. In 1059, efforts were made to take direct control of the frontier and its manpower. The northern frontier in the Zuo-You river region was divided into new administrative units: Ngự Long, Vũ Thắng, Long Dực, Thần Ðiện, Bổng Thánh, Bảo Thắng, Hùng Lược, and Vạn Tiệp. Each of these units was assigned an official. Militia units were established among local communities conscripts had the character "Army of the Son of Heaven" ("tianzi jun") tattooed on their foreheads. This reflected a distinctly Southeast Asian way of controlling regional manpower.


title: Zhuang people

text: In the early 1060s, border conflicts began to occur along the Song-Viet frontier. In the spring of 1060, the chieftain of Lạng Châu and imperial in-law, Thàn Thiệu Tháị, crossed into Song territory to raid for cattle. Thiệu Tháị captured the Song commander Yang Baocai in the attack. In autumn of 1060, Song forces also crossed the border but were unsuccessful in recovering Yang. Fighting caused by the natives led by Thiệu Tháị claimed the lives of five military inspectors. The military commissioner Yu Jing sought aid from Champa for a joint attack on Quảng Nguyên. The Lý court caught wind of this and began directly courting local leaders.


title: Zhuang people

text: Despite increased military tensions, the Lý court sought to defuse the situation by sending a delegation led by Bi Gia Dụ to Yongzhou. The Song authorities requested the return of Yang Baocai but was denied. Emperor Renzong was also wary of further increasing tensions and instructed the local military commissions to refrain from assembling troops. On 8 February 1063, two tributary envoys from the Lý court presented to the Song emperor nine tame elephants. On 7 April 1063, the new Song emperor Yingzong (r. 1063-67) sent calligraphic compositions by Renzong as gifts to the Lý court. On the same day the Viet envoy Lý Kế Tiên prepared to depart Kaifeng, news arrived that Thàn Thiệu Tháị had attacked settlements in Guangnan West Circuit. A Guangnan official requested immediate retaliation against the southern intruders. However the Song court tried to distance Thiệu Tháị's actions from the Lý court. An envoy from Thăng Long arrived seeking forgiveness for the attack. Yingzong decided not to retaliate.


title: Zhuang people

text: On 18 November 1064, the Guizhou prefect Lu Shen reported that a military delegation from Thăng Long had crossed the border seeking Nong Rixin (V. Nùng Nậht Tân), the son of Nong Zongdan. He also reported that the delegation showed interest in encroaching on Song territory, including Wenmen grotto (Hurun, a village in Jingxi, Guangxi). The Song court took no particular action but Lu was determined to expand Song military presence in the south. Lu raised 44,500 troops from 45 aboriginal leaders along the Zuo-You River region and ordered them to repair and fortify military defenses. To gain local trust, he requested special seals be made for his militia leaders and that the Zuo-You region be exempt from taxes. The Viet officials became concerned about this development and sent a tribute envoy to Kaifeng to remind the Song court of the Viet role in settling frontier matters. Meanwhile Lu proposed a special training and indoctrination program for a local chieftain each year that would see them enter the official bureaucracy after three years.


title: Zhuang people

text: In late 1065, Zongdan switched allegiance from the Song and proposed an alliance with Lý Thánh Tông (r. 1054-72) and Quảng Nguyên chieftain Liu Ji (V. Lưu Ký). Lu Shen reported this to court, but Yingzong did not take any action other than to reassign Zongdan's titles. To offset Zongdan's defection, the Song bestowed titles on Nong Zhihui and acknowledged him as the sole leader of Quảng Nguyên.


title: Zhuang people

text: Song officials on the southern frontier were training for military action. By late 1067, the Guizhou prefect Zhang Tian reported that Liu Ji was in communication with Lu Bao, who had crossed into Song territory to seek personal glory. Zhang wished to attack Lu Bao but the Song court rejected this course of action. However by 1069, Lu Bao had offered his allegiance to the Song while Liu Ji remained in Quảng Nguyên and was nominally under the control of Thăng Long. In late 1071, the Guangnan military commissioner Xiao Gu reported that Liu Ji had been spotted near Shun'anzhou (in Quảng Nguyên) at the head of more than 200 men. The Song court expressed concerns that forces were being amassed by barbarians.


title: Zhuang people

text: In 1072, a decree ordered administrators of Zhuang regions to avoid trying to "acquire merit" by military actions, to keep Han Chinese (particularly criminals fleeing the law) out of the region, and to investigate problems which might lead to disorder.


title: Zhuang people

text: On 2 February 1072, Lý Thánh Tông died. The new ruler, Lý Nhân Tông (r. 1072-1128), was only six years old. His regents, such as the defender-in-chief Lý Thường Kiệt, consolidated power by announcing a general amnesty for all outlaws in the protected prefectures. It was reported that the local chieftain of Lạng Châu, Dương Cảnh Thông, brought to court a white dear as tribute and was rewarded with the title "Grand Guardian."


title: Zhuang people

text: In the late 1060s, Wang Anshi's New Policies combined with the sentiment of irredentism in Shenzong's court to call on greater militarization and expansion of Song territory. Wang wanted to overhaul the tribute system for barbarians in the south. Lý Thường Kiệt viewed the changing economic relationship between the Song and its frontier people as an abandonment of the traditional tribute paradigm. Wang called for military action from Song imperial troops.


title: Zhuang people

text: In early 1075, Thăng Long requested the return of an upland chieftain who had gone over to the Song with 700 followers. The Song refused. In the same year, Shenzong sent two officials, Shen Qi and Liu Yi, to govern Guizhou. They were instructed to train the locals in riverine warfare and forbid them from trading with subjects of the Viet court. Lý Thường Kiệt accused the Song of training soldiers for attacking Thăng Long. At the same time, the Quảng Nguyên (C. Guangyuan) chieftain Liu Ji launched an attack on Yongzhou and was repulsed by Nong Zhihui, the chieftain of Guihua.


title: Zhuang people

text: Lý Thường Kiệt led an invasion of the Song dynasty with support from Zhuang leaders such as Nong Zongdan, who led a contingent of uplanders towards Yongzhou. In October 1075, Zongdan led 23,000 soldiers along the Zuo River into Song territory and captured Guwan, Taiping, Yongping, and Qianlong garrisons. The forces of Zongdan and Lý Thường Kiệt retreated after the arrival of Song reinforcements. A Song counterattack saw the capture of Quảng Nguyên and Liu Ji before being stopped at Nhu Nguyệt River (in modern Bắc Ninh Province). Liu Ji deployed elephant troops against the Song army but they were defeated using scythes that cut their trunks. Several Zhuang grotto settlements in Quảng Nguyên were razed.


title: Zhuang people

text: Song forces lost about 50%–60% of their force before retreating, half of them dying to diseases. As a result of mounting casualties on both sides, Lý Thường Kiệt made peace overtures to the Song in 1077; the Song commander Guo Kui agreed to withdraw his troops but kept five disputed regions of Quảng Nguyên (renamed Shun'anzhou or Thuận Châu), Tư Lang Châu, Môn Châu, Tô Mậu Châu, and Quảng Lăng. These areas now comprise most of modern Vietnam's Cao Bằng Province and Lạng Sơn Province. Đại Việt held control of the Yongzhou, Qinzhou and Lianzhou. In 1079 the Song arrested and executed the Nong leader Nong Zhichun (V. Nùng Trí Xuân) while taking his family as hostages. In 1083, Viets attacked Guihua under the pretense of pursuing Nong Zhihui, the brother of Nong Zhigao. Zhihui plead to the military commissioner Xiong Ben for fresh troops to ward of Viet advances, but was taken in for questioning instead.


title: Zhuang people

text: In 1082, after a long period of mutual isolation, King Lý Nhân Tông of Đại Việt returned Yongzhou, Qinzhou, and Lianzhou back to Song authorities, along with prisoners of war, and in return Song relinquished its control of four prefectures and a county, including the Nong clan's home of Quảng Nguyên, Bảo Lạc, and Susang. Further negotiations took place from July 6 to August 8, 1084 at Yongping garrison in southern Guangnan, where Đại Việt's Director of Military Personnel Lê Văn Thịnh (fl. 1038–1096) convinced Song to fix the two countries' borders between Quảng Nguyên and Guihua prefectures.


title: Zhuang people

text: The Zhuang continued to cause trouble in the Ming dynasty, which used different groups against one another. One of the bloodiest battles in Zhuang history was that at Big Rattan Gorge against the Yao in 1465, where 20,000 deaths were reported. Parts of Guangxi were ruled by the powerful Cen clan (岑). The Cen were of Zhuang ethnicity and were recognized as tusi or local ruler by the Ming and Qing. The Ming launched several campaigns to civilize the non-Han southwestern people, including the Zhuang, by setting up schools. While the Zhuang became more intimately familiar with Han culture, it did not pacify them, and they continued to cause rebellions into the Qing dynasty. The Zhuang served as mercenary troops known as wolf warriors in the Ming army.


title: Zhuang people

text: Many Zhuang peasants took part in revolutionary movements such as the 1911 Revolution as part of the Tongmenghui. In the 1930s, the Kuomintang attempted to control the Zhuang people through force, causing indignation and resentment. In contrast, many Zhuang joined the communist army under the leadership of their Zhuang leader, Wei Baqun. By the 1950s, Zhuang society in Guangxi was largely organized by lineages of "zhixi" (branches) such as the Nong, Sha, and Tu. In September 1952, the People's Republic of China recognized the Zhuang as a national minority and established the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Zhuang ethnic consciousness arguably developed in the period afterwards as the region became more connected with other parts of China, especially the urban areas. Public events such as the springtime festival and song festival Sanyuesan (Sam Nyied Sam) were promoted by the government, but by the 1980s they had become more tourist attractions than a symbol of ethnic solidarity for the Zhuang. Zhuang scholars who wanted to promote Zhuang culture and writing mainly lived in the urban areas of Guangxi and Beijing while residents in rural areas were more concerned with poverty and jobs.


title: Zhuang people

text: Nong Zhigao (V. Nùng Trí Cao) is revered by Tai-speaking communities in Guangxi and Cao Bằng. Many families with the Nong (V. Nùng) surname claim descent from Nong Zhigao and sponsor public displays of pride in the 11th century leader through temples and monuments. There is more evidence of the celebration of Nong Zhigao in Cao Bằng than in Guangxi, especially prior to the modern era, after which the local leader was inserted into nationalist histories as though he were a citizen of China or Vietnam.


title: Zhuang people

text: Historically the Song general Di Qing, who defeated the rebellion, was the one who was honored. In 1053, a large stele was erected by himself in Guilin to eulogize his deeds. The "suppressing the Man barbarian" ("pingman") stele described Nong Zhigao as a barbarian bandit who committed crimes against Chinese officials. Local communities also constructed temples to commemorate those officials who died in the rebellion. There is little to no physical evidence of Nong Zhigao's commemoration in premodern China. However by the 18th century, certain communities in Guangxi did worship him. In 1956, a stele dating to 1706 was discovered in Tiandeng County. It commemorated the construction of the Zhongxiu Dujun Village Temple and describes how Nong Dalingshen Dianxia (His Highness Nùng the Great Spirit) became a lord, fought valiantly, and transformed into a spirit to protect the region. The primary patrons of the temple were the Huang, Lin and Zhao clans. After the defeat of Nong Zhigao, the Nong clan was forced to take the surname Zhao.


title: Zhuang people

text: In the late 1970s, Nong Zhigao was rehabilitated as part of the government's liberalization policies for national minorities. In the early 1980s, Huang Xianfan's "Nong Zhigao" portrayed him as a Chinese leader at the center of a rich local history. After the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979, Huang interpreted Nong Zhigao as local leader who fought against a corrupt Song court that refused to provide locals with protection from marauding bands from Đại Việt. The orthodox "Dangdai Zhongguode Guangxi" portrays Nong Zhigao as a Zhuang who rose up to protect Chinese borders from Vietnamese aggression. By the late 1980s, collections of folklore containing tales of Nong Zhigao's heroism had been published. On 8 January 1997, a group of Nong Zhigao's descendants in Jingxi erected a stele in honor of his birth. The site of the monument is supposedly where Nong Zhigao held his training grounds during his uprising. The Zhuang of Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture identify as survivors of Nong Zhigao's rebel movement and other groups in Dali City, Xishuangbana, and northern Thailand claim to be descended from Nong Zhigao. Many Zhuang songs refer to him as "King Nong."


title: Zhuang people

text: Originally Zhuang society was more egalitarian and female shamans such as A Nong were respected. Families traced their lineage through both male and female members. Men engaged in child rearing and often moved into their wives' families rather than establish their own. Men believed that their wives regularly dosed them with an elixir called the "Wugu" that would kill them if they were unfaithful. Courting was carried out in a song festival where intended marriage partners responded to each other in rhyme and meter.


title: Zhuang people

text: At some point Zhuang customs became more patrilineal as they absorbed more Han customs. Families began tracing their lineage through only men. Marriage was decided through horoscopes to match older men and younger women. The wife moved in with the husband upon marriage. Children's names were decided by their maternal uncles, who had the role of ritual support during marriage ceremonies and their parents' funerals. There was also a preference for boys to marry their maternal cousins.


title: Zhuang people

text: While Chinese scholarship continues to place the Zhuang–Dong languages among the Sino-Tibetan family, other linguists treat the Tai languages as a separate family. They have been linked with the Austronesian languages, which dispersed from Taiwan after a migration from the mainland. However, the Austro-Tai hypothesis uniting these families is now supported by only a few scholars.


title: Zhuang people

text: The Zhuang languages are a group of mutually unintelligible languages of the Tai family, heavily influenced by nearby Sinitic languages such as Cantonese. The Standard Zhuang language is based on a northern dialect, but it is closer to the Bouyei language than Southern Zhuang, so few people learn it. Due to mutually unintelligible languages or dialects, Zhuang people from different areas use Chinese to communicate with each other and Chinese was used as the "lingua franca" in areas of high Zhuang population such as the official Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.


title: Zhuang people

text: Whilst according to some semi-official sources "In Guangxi, compulsory education is bilingual in Zhuang and Chinese, with a focus on early Zhuang literacy," only a small percentage of schools teach written Zhuang. Zhuang has been written using logograms based on Chinese characters ("Sawndip") for over 1,000 years. Standard Zhuang, the official alphabetical script, was introduced in 1957 and in 1982 the Cyrillic letters were changed to Latin letters. However, the traditional character-based script is more commonly used in less formal domains and in June 2017 just over one thousand of these characters were added in Unicode 10.0 .


title: Zhuang people

text: The literate Zhuang had their own writing system, Sawndip (lit. "uncooked script"), recording folk songs, operas, poems, scriptures, letters, contracts and court documents. The works include both entirely indigenous works and translations from Chinese, fact and fiction, religious texts and secular texts.


title: Zhuang people

text: While most Zhuang people have adopted standard Han Chinese names, some have distinct surnames only found amongst those of Zhuang descent such as "" (), usually pronounced "Qín".


title: Zhuang people

text: When comes to places, some village names in China have the suffix "" (), which means ""village"" in Zhuang (e.g. , , , ).


title: Zhuang people

text: The Buluotuo Festival is a three-day event that occurs in April during which singing and chanting take place.


title: Zhuang people

text: Most Zhuang follow a traditional animist faith known as Moism or Shigongism, which include elements of ancestor worship. The Mo have their own sutra and professional priests known as "bumo" or "mogong" who traditionally use chicken bones for divination. The bumo read scriptures, perform divination, and other rituals to drive away pestilence. Their sacred scroll is the "Sanqing" (three pure ones). In Chinese the bumo are known as wushi, spiritual mediums. The "wupo", in contrast to the bumo, are elderly women considered to be chosen by god, who sing traditional mountain songs. The role of the wupo is Zhuang religion has been minimized due to influence from Chinese religious traditions.


title: Zhuang people

text: The Zhuang religion believes that the world is composed of three aspects: heaven, earth, and water. Earth is ruled by the creator god, Baeuqloxdoh (Buluotuo), water by the dragon god, Ngweg, and heaven by the thunder god, Gyaj. Baeuqloxdoh's wife, Meh Nangz, the mother goddess, is also worshiped.


title: Zhuang people

text: Mountains are worshiped in Zhuang culture. Between winter and spring, the Zhuang make a trip to the mountains to sing in the Zhuang style, called "hun gamj gok fwen".


title: Zhuang people

text: Genetic evidence points out Zhuang possesses a very high frequency of Haplogroup O2 with most of them being subclade O2a making it the most dominant marker, one that they share with Austro-Asiatic. The other portion of O2 belongs to subclade O2a1. Zhuangs have prevalent frequencies of O1 which links them with Austronesian, but O1 is at much lower rate compared to O2a and only slightly higher than O2a1. Haplogroup O2 in Taiwan aborigines is almost completely non-existent, but they exhibit very high frequencies of O1. This suggests that in the event that the Austro-Tai hypothesis is correct, Tai-Kadai speakers would have assimilated mostly Austro-Asiatic people into their population after the separation of Tai and Austronesian.


title: Zhuang people

text: A Senior City Police Officer Pursues His Roots in China, By Marvine Howe, "The New York Times", 14 November 1985.


title: Dignitas (Swiss non-profit organisation)

text: Dignitas is a Swiss nonprofit organization providing physician-assisted suicide to members with terminal illness or severe physical or mental illness, supported by independent Swiss doctors. By the end of 2020, they had assisted 3,248 people with suicide at home within Switzerland and at Dignitas' house/flat near Zürich. They provide advisory work on palliative care, health care advance directives, and suicide attempt prevention, and legislation for right-to-die laws around the world.


text: Members who wish to commit suicide must have sound judgement, as determined by the organization; be themselves able to bring about death; and submit a formal request including a letter explaining their wish to die and medical reports showing diagnosis and attempted treatment. For people with severe psychiatric illness, an in-depth medical report prepared by a psychiatrist is additionally required per a Swiss Supreme Court decision.


text: Dignitas was founded 17 May 1998 by Swiss lawyer Ludwig Minelli, who specialises in human rights law. Swiss laws provide that assistance to suicide is legal as long as it is not motivated by selfish motives.


text: The person who wishes to die attends two private consultations (separated by time) with several Dignitas personnel in addition to an independent medical doctor who assesses the evidence provided by the patient in advance. Legally admissible proof that the person wishes to die is also created in the form of a signed affidavit countersigned by independent witnesses. If a patient is physically unable to sign a document, a short video of the patient is made in which they are asked to confirm their identity, that they wish to die, and that their decision is made of their own free will, without persuasion or coercion. This evidence of informed consent remains private and is preserved only for use in any possible legal dispute.


text: Finally, a few minutes before the lethal overdose is provided, the person is once again reminded that taking the overdose will kill them. Additionally, they are asked several times whether they want to proceed, or take some time to consider the matter further. This gives the person the opportunity to stop the process at any time. However, if at this point the person states that they are determined to proceed, a lethal overdose is provided and ingested.


text: In general, Dignitas uses the following protocol to assist suicides: an oral dose of an antiemetic drug, followed approximately half an hour later by a lethal overdose of 15 grams of powdered pentobarbital dissolved in a glass of water. If necessary, the drugs can be ingested through a drinking straw. The pentobarbital overdose depresses the central nervous system, causing the patient to become drowsy and fall asleep within 3–5 minutes of drinking it; anaesthesia progresses to coma, followed by respiratory arrest and death, which occurs within 30–40 minutes of ingesting the pentobarbital.


text: Exceptionally, in four cases in 2008, Dignitas used helium gas as a suicide method instead of a pentobarbital overdose.


text: The medical supervision was still observed, however, and the method avoided controlled drugs, which reduced the risk of medical authorities disciplining the medical doctor who authorized the accompanied suicide.


text: In two referendums on 15 May 2011, voters in the Canton of Zürich overwhelmingly rejected calls to ban assisted suicide or to outlaw the practice for non-residents. Out of more than 278,000 ballots cast, the initiative to ban assisted suicide was rejected by 85 percent of voters and the initiative to outlaw it for non-residents was turned down by 78 percent.


text: Ludwig Minelli said in an interview in March 2008 that Dignitas had assisted 840 people to die, 60% of them Germans. By 2010, that number had exceeded a thousand assisted suicides.


text: Most people contacting Dignitas do not plan to die but wish for insurance in case their illness becomes intolerable. Of those who receive the so-called "provisional green light", 70% never return to Dignitas.


text: 21% of people receiving assisted suicide in Dignitas do not have a terminal or progressive illness, but rather "weariness of life".


text: According to the official Dignitas website, Dignitas charged its patients 7,000 Swiss Francs (approximately £5,180/US$7,980) for preparation and suicide assistance, or 10,500 Swiss Francs (approximately £7,770/US$11,970) in case of taking over family duties, including funerals, medical costs and official fees. Dignitas has been known to waive certain costs where there is hardship. Under Swiss Law, Dignitas operates as a non-profit organization, but does not open its finances to the public, which has elicited criticism from some quarters.


text: Although it is mainly Germans who turn to Dignitas for so called 'assisted suicide', , approximately 300 British citizens have travelled to Switzerland to die at one of Dignitas' rented apartments in Zürich.


text: Dignitas has faced difficulties over the years. In September 2007, Dignitas was evicted, blocked or locked out of three flats, and so Minelli offered assisted suicide in his private house. This, however, was then prohibited by the local council. In October 2007, Dignitas was again prevented from working in a private house by the local council and refused rooms on an industrial site. In December 2007, an interim judgment prevented Dignitas from working in a building next to a busy brothel. The media frenzy led to several people offering Dignitas flats or houses, of which one turned out to be suitable. Since 2009, Dignitas has a house at an undisclosed location where accompanied suicide for people from abroad has taken place.


text: In certain right-to-die organisations, an age restriction is in place for potential patients, so as to prevent young people from using their services.


text: In April 2010, private divers found a group of over 60 cremation urns in Lake Zürich. Each of the urns bore the logo of the Zürich Nordheim crematorium () also used by Dignitas. Soraya Wernli, a former employee, had told "The Times" 18 months previously that Dignitas had dumped at least 300 urns in the lake. She claimed that Minelli dumped them there himself, but later asked his daughter and another member of staff to do it. In 2008, allegedly two members of Dignitas were caught trying to pour the ashes of 20 dead people into the


text: lake. However, it was never established whether Dignitas had anything to do with it and no charges were taken. In Switzerland, it is not against the law to scatter cremation ashes out into nature.


text: In 2008, the documentary film "Right to Die?" was broadcast on Sky Real Lives (rebroadcast on PBS "Frontline" in March 2010 as "The Suicide Tourist"). Directed by Oscar-winning Canadian John Zaritsky, it depicts the assisted suicide of several people who have gone to Switzerland to end their lives. It includes the story of Craig Ewert, a 59-year-old retired university professor who suffered from a motor neurone disease. Ewert traveled to Switzerland where he was assisted by the Dignitas NGO. The documentary shows him passing away with Mary, his wife of 37 years, at his side. It was shown on the Swiss television network SF1 and is available as a web movie on the Dignitas website.


text: The BBC produced a film titled "A Short Stay in Switzerland" telling the story of Dr Anne Turner, who made the journey to the Dignitas assisted suicide facility. On 24 January 2006, the day before her 67th birthday, she ended her life. The film was shown on BBC1 on 25 January 2009.


text: Maestro Sir Edward Downes, conductor of the BBC Philharmonic and the Royal Opera, who struggled as his hearing and sight failed (but was not terminally ill), died with his wife, who had terminal cancer, at an assisted suicide facility in Switzerland in July 2009. He was 85 and she was 74.


text: Theorist and translator Michele Causse chose to die on her birthday, 29 July 2010, in association with Dignitas.


text: On 13 June 2011, BBC Two aired a documentary titled "", featuring author and Alzheimer's disease sufferer Sir Terry Pratchett guiding viewers through an assisted suicide which took place at Dignitas facilities in Switzerland. Peter Smedley, a British hotelier and millionaire, and his wife Christine allowed for Pratchett to film Smedley's deliberate consumption of prepared barbiturate in a glass in order to kill himself as Christine comforted Smedley in his demise. The documentary received a highly polarized reaction in the United Kingdom, with much praise for the programme as "brave", "sensitive" and "important" whilst it also gathered accusations of "pro-death" bias from anti-euthanasia pressure groups and of encouraging the view that disability was a good reason for killing from disability groups.


text: Dignitas continued to be presented in the media as a political stance on the right to die. BBC featured an article regarding the death of UK citizen Jeffrey Spector, a businessman who decided to travel to Switzerland to undergo assisted suicide through Dignitas for an inoperable tumour which most likely would have caused paralysis later on in its development. This situation reignited the debate around the morality of assisted suicides in certain dilemmas, and incited current stances concerning euthanasia. Former Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer said he would "attempt to reintroduce a bill that would allow assisted dying in the UK".


text: The book "Me Before You" and the film adaptation of the same name discuss the organization as it serves a vital function in both the main plot and the characters' lives.


title: Curare

text: Curare ( or ; or ) is a common name for various alkaloid arrow poisons originating from plant extracts. Used as a paralyzing agent by indigenous peoples in Central and South America for hunting and for therapeutic purposes, curare only becomes active when it contaminates a wound. These poisons cause weakness of the skeletal muscles and, when administered in a sufficient dose, eventual death by asphyxiation due to paralysis of the diaphragm. Curare is prepared by boiling the bark of one of the dozens of plant sources, leaving a dark, heavy paste that can be applied to arrow or dart heads. In medicine, curare has been used as a treatment for tetanus or strychnine poisoning and as a paralyzing agent for surgical procedures.


title: Curare

text: The word 'curare' is derived from "wurari", from the Carib language of the Macusi of Guyana. It has its origins in the Carib phrase "mawa cure" meaning of the Mawa vine, scientifically known as "Strychnos toxifera". Curare is also known among indigenous peoples as Ampi, Woorari, Woorara, Woorali, Wourali, Wouralia, Ourare, Ourari, Urare, Urari, and Uirary. The noun 'curare' is not to be confused with the Latin verb 'curare' ('to heal, cure, take care of').


title: Curare

text: In 1895 pharmacologist Rudolf Boehm sought to classify the various alkaloid poisons based on the containers used for their preparation. He believed curare could be categorized into three main types as seen below. However useful it appeared, it became rapidly outmoded. Richard Gill, a plant collector, found that the indigenous peoples began to use a variety of containers for their curare preparations, henceforth invalidating Boehm's basis of classification.


title: Curare

text: Manske also observed in his 1955 "The Alkaloids":The results of the early [pre-1900] work were very inaccurate because of the complexity and variation of the composition of the mixtures of alkaloids involved ... these were impure, non-crystalline alkaloids ... Almost all curare preparations were and are complex mixtures, and many of the physiological actions attributed to the early curarizing preparations were undoubtedly due to impurities, particularly to other alkaloids present. The curare preparations are now considered to be of two main types, those from Chondrodendron or other members of the Menispermaceae family and those from Strychnos, a genus of the Loganiaceae [ now Strychnaceae ] family. Some preparations may contain alkaloids from both ... and the majority have other secondary ingredients.


title: Curare

text: Curare was used as a paralyzing poison by many South American indigenous people. Since it was too expensive to be used in warfare, curare was mainly used for hunting. The prey was shot by arrows or blowgun darts dipped in curare, leading to asphyxiation owing to the inability of the victim's respiratory muscles to contract. In particular, the poison was used by the Island Caribs, indigenous people of the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean, on the tips of their arrows. In addition, the Yagua people, indigenous to Colombia and northeastern Peru, commonly used these toxins via blowpipes to target prey 30 to 40 paces distant.


title: Curare

text: Due to its popularity among the indigenous people as means of paralyzing prey, certain tribes would create monopolies from curare production. Thus, curare became a symbol of wealth among the indigenous populations.


title: Curare

text: In 1596, Sir Walter Raleigh mentioned the arrow poison in his book "Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana" (which relates to his travels in Trinidad and Guayana), though the poison he described was possibly not curare. In 1780, Abbe Felix Fontana discovered that it acted on the voluntary muscles rather than the nerves and the heart. In 1832, Alexander von Humboldt gave the first western account of how the toxin was prepared from plants by Orinoco River natives.During 1811–1812, Sir Benjamin Collins Brody experimented with curare ("woorara"). He was the first to show that curare does not kill the animal and the recovery is complete if the animal's respiration is maintained artificially. In 1825, Charles Waterton described a classical experiment in which he kept a curarized female donkey alive by artificial respiration with a bellows through a tracheostomy. Waterton is also credited with bringing curare to Europe. Robert Hermann Schomburgk, who was a trained botanist, identified the vine as one of the genus "Strychnos" and gave it the now accepted name "Strychnos toxifera".


title: Curare

text: George Harley (1829–1896) showed in 1850 that curare ("wourali") was effective for the treatment of tetanus and strychnine poisoning. In 1857, Claude Bernard (1813–1878) published the results of his experiments in which he demonstrated that the mechanism of action of curare was a result of interference in the conduction of nerve impulses from the motor nerve to the skeletal muscle, and that this interference occurred at the neuromuscular junction. From 1887, the Burroughs Wellcome catalogue listed under its 'Tabloids' brand name, grain (5.4mg) tablets of curare (price: 8shillings) for use in preparing a solution for hypodermic injection. In 1914, Henry Hallett Dale (1875–1968) described the physiological actions of acetylcholine. After 25 years, he showed that acetylcholine is responsible for neuromuscular transmission, which can be blocked by curare.The best known and historically most important toxin (because of its medical applications) is d-tubocurarine. It was isolated from the crude drug – from a museum sample of curare – in 1935 by Harold King of London, working in Sir Henry Dale's laboratory. King also established its chemical structure. Pascual Scannone, a Venezuelan anesthesiologist who trained and specialized in New York City, did extensive research on curare as a possible paralyzing agent for patients during surgical procedures. In 1942, he became the first person in Latin America to use curare during a medical procedure when he successfully performed a tracheal intubation in a patient to whom he administered curare for muscle paralysis at the El Algodonal Hospital in Caracas, Venezuela.


title: Curare

text: After its introduction in 1942, curare/curare-derivatives became a widely used paralyzing agent during medical and surgical procedures. In medicine, curare has been superseded by a number of curare-like agents, such as pancuronium, which have a similar pharmacodynamic profile, but fewer side effects.


title: Curare

text: The various components of curare are organic compounds classified as either isoquinoline or indole alkaloids. Tubocurarine is one of the major active components in the South American dart poison. As an alkaloid, tubocurarine is a naturally occurring compound that consists of nitrogenous bases, although the chemical structure of alkaloids is highly variable.


title: Curare

text: Like most alkaloids, tubocurarine and C toxiferine consist of a cyclic system with a nitrogen atom in an amine group. On the other hand, while acetylcholine does not contain a cyclic system, it does contain an amine group. Because of this amine group, curare alkaloids can bind readily to the active site of receptors for acetylcholine (ACh) at the neuromuscular junction, blocking nerve impulses from being sent to the skeletal muscles, effectively paralyzing the muscles of the body.


title: Curare

text: Curare is an example of a non-depolarizing muscle relaxant that blocks the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR), one of the two types of acetylcholine (ACh) receptors, at the neuromuscular junction. The main toxin of curare, d-tubocurarine, occupies the same position on the receptor as ACh with an equal or greater affinity, and elicits no response, making it a competitive antagonist. The antidote for curare poisoning is an acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitor (anti-cholinesterase), such as physostigmine or neostigmine. By blocking ACh degradation, AChE inhibitors raise the amount of ACh in the neuromuscular junction; the accumulated ACh will then correct for the effect of the curare by activating the receptors not blocked by toxin at a higher rate.


title: Curare

text: The time of onset varies from within one minute (for tubocurarine in intravenous administration, penetrating a larger vein), to between 15 and 25 minutes (for intramuscular administration, where the substance is applied in muscle tissue).


title: Curare

text: It is harmless if taken orally because curare compounds are too large and highly charged to pass through the lining of the digestive tract to be absorbed into the blood. For this reason, people can safely eat curare-poisoned prey, and it has no effect on its flavor.


title: Curare

text: Isolated attempts to use curare during anesthesia date back to 1912 by Arthur Lawen of Leipzig, but curare came to anesthesia via psychiatry (electroplexy). In 1939 Abram Elting Bennett used it to modify metrazol induced convulsive therapy. Muscle relaxants are used in modern anesthesia for many reasons, such as providing optimal operating conditions and facilitating intubation of the trachea. Before muscle relaxants, anesthesiologists needed to use larger doses of the anesthetic agent, such as ether, chloroform or cyclopropane to achieve these aims. Such deep anesthesia risked killing patients who were elderly or had heart conditions.


title: Curare

text: The source of curare in the Amazon was first researched by Richard Evans Schultes in 1941. Since the 1930s, it was being used in hospitals as a muscle relaxant. He discovered that different types of curare called for as many as 15 ingredients, and in time helped to identify more than 70 species that produced the drug.


title: Curare

text: In the 1940s, it was used on a few occasions during surgery as it was mistakenly thought to be an analgesic or anesthetic. The patients reported feeling the full intensity of the pain though they were not able to do anything about it since they were essentially paralyzed.


title: Curare

text: On January 23, 1942, Harold Griffith and Enid Johnson gave a synthetic preparation of curare (Intercostrin/Intocostrin) to a patient undergoing an appendectomy (to supplement conventional anesthesia). Safer curare derivatives, such as rocuronium and pancuronium, have superseded d-tubocurarine for anesthesia during surgery. When used with halothane d-tubocurarine can cause a profound fall in blood pressure in some patients as both the drugs are ganglion blockers. However, it is safer to use d-tubocurarine with ether.


title: Curare

text: In 1954, an article was published by Beecher and Todd suggesting that the use of muscle relaxants (drugs similar to curare) increased death due to anesthesia nearly sixfold. This was refuted in 1956.


title: Curare

text: Modern anesthetists have at their disposal a variety of muscle relaxants for use in anesthesia. The ability to produce muscle relaxation irrespective of sedation has permitted anesthetists to adjust the two effects independently and on the fly to ensure that their patients are safely unconscious and sufficiently relaxed to permit surgery. The use of neuromuscular blocking drugs carries with it the risk of anesthesia awareness.


title: Curare

text: There are dozens of plants from which isoquinoline and indole alkaloids with curarizing effects can be isolated, and which were utilized by indigenous tribes of Central and South America for the production of arrow poisons. Among them are:


title: Curare

text: The toxicity of curare alkaloids in humans has not been established. Administration must be parenterally, as gastro-intestinal absorption is ineffective.


title: Curare

text: In 1807, Alexander von Humboldt provided the first eye-witness account of curare preparation. A mixture of young bark scrapings of the Strychnos plant, other cleaned plant parts, and occasionally snake venom is boiled in water for two days. This liquid is then strained and evaporated to create a dark, heavy, viscid paste that would be tested for its potency later. This curare paste was described to be very bitter in taste.


title: Curare

text: In 1938, Richard Gill and his expedition collected samples of processed curare and described its method of traditional preparation; one of the plant species used at that time was Chondrodendron tomentosum.


title: Curare

text: Various irritating herbs, stinging insects, poisonous worms, and various parts of amphibians and reptiles are added to the preparation. Some of these accelerate the onset of action or increase the toxicity; others prevent the wound from healing or blood from coagulating.


title: Curare

text: Curare poisoning can be indicated by typical signs of neuromuscular-blocking drugs such as paralysis including respiration but not directly affecting the heart.


title: Curare

text: Curare poisoning can be managed by artificial respiration such as mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. In a study of 29 army volunteers that were paralyzed with curare, artificial respiration managed to keep an oxygen saturation of always above 85%, a level at which there is no evidence of altered state of consciousness. Yet, curare poisoning mimics the total locked-in syndrome in that there is paralysis of every voluntarily controlled muscle in the body (including the eyes), making it practically impossible for the victim to confirm consciousness while paralyzed.


title: Curare

text: Spontaneous breathing is resumed after the end of the duration of action of curare, which is generally between 30 minutes and 8 hours, depending on the variant of the toxin and dosage. Cardiac muscle is not directly affected by curare, but if more than four to six minutes has passed since respiratory cessation the cardiac muscle may stop functioning by oxygen-deprivation, making cardiopulmonary resuscitation including chest compressions necessary.


title: Curare

text: Since tubocurarine and the other components of curare bind reversibly to the ACh receptors, treatment for curare poisoning involves adding an acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitor, which will stop the destruction of acetylcholine so that it can compete with curare. This can be done by administration of acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibitors such as pyridostigmine, neostigmine, physostigmine, and edrophonium. Acetylcholinesterase is an enzyme used to break down the acetylcholine (ACh) neurotransmitter left over in motor neuron synapses. The aforementioned inhibitors, termed "anticurare" drugs, reversibly bind to the enzyme's active site, prohibiting its ability to bind to its original target, ACh. By blocking ACh degradation, AChE inhibitors can effectively raise the amount of ACh present in the neuromuscular junction. The accumulated ACh will then correct for the effect of the curare by activating the receptors not blocked by toxin at a higher rate, restoring activity to the motor neurons and bodily movement.


title: Cuz I Love You

text: Cuz I Love You is the third studio album and major label debut studio album by American singer and rapper Lizzo. It was released through Nice Life and Atlantic Records on April 19, 2019. The album features guest appearances from American rappers Missy Elliott and Gucci Mane. It spawned the singles "Juice" and "Tempo", the latter of which is a collaboration with Missy Elliott. The deluxe edition of the album was released on May 3 and includes the "Billboard" Hot 100 number one single "Truth Hurts". The deluxe edition was nominated for Album of the Year at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards, and won Best Urban Contemporary Album.


title: Cuz I Love You

text: The album is Lizzo's first release since her 2016 "Coconut Oil" EP. Lizzo stated at the album preview party at the Crazy Girls strip club in Hollywood on January 30 that she had been working on the album for three years. She also previewed a collaboration with Missy Elliott titled "Tempo" that appeared on the album. Along with the lead single "Juice", the album includes the "empowering dance track" "Like a Girl" and a song dedicated to an ex titled "Jerome".


title: Cuz I Love You

text: Lizzo announced the album in January 2019, and on February 13, shared the album's cover art, on which she appears nude. "Paper" called the cover a "stunning glow-up, and a transformation for Lizzo", going on to say that "Fat, and especially fat and Black bodies are rarely treated with such care by photographers, let alone on album covers that will sit on Target and Walmart shelves."


title: Cuz I Love You

text: The album was supported by two concert tours: Cuz I Love You Tour (2019) and Cuz I Love You Too Tour (2019-2020).


title: Cuz I Love You

text: "Juice" was released as the lead single from the record on January 4, 2019. The single became Lizzo's first commercial hit, entering component R&B charts in the United States, while also reaching the top twenty in Scotland. The single was promoted with Lizzo's debut television performance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show", and a later performance on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon".


title: Cuz I Love You

text: "Tempo", featuring American rap artist Missy Elliott was released as a single on July 26, 2019. The song also was given a music video that premiered on YouTube the same date.


title: Cuz I Love You

text: "Cuz I Love You", originally released as a promotional single on February 14, 2019, the song also was given a music video that premiered on YouTube the same date. Later the song as released as a single to Top 40 radio on January 28, 2020.<ref name="Top 40/M Future Releases"></ref>


title: Cuz I Love You

text: The album's title track was released as the first promotional single on February 14, 2019, alongside the song's music video. "Tempo" featuring Missy Elliott was released as the album's second promotional single on March 20, 2019. "Tempo" went on to chart at number 21 on the US Digital Song Sales chart, Lizzo's first entry on a "Billboard" Hot 100 component chart.


title: Cuz I Love You

text: "Cuz I Love You" received widespread acclaim from music critics upon its initial release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 84, based on 24 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".


title: Cuz I Love You

text: Reviewing the album for AllMusic, Heather Phares praised "Cuz I Love You" as "a triumphant showcase for every part of Lizzo's talent, physicality and sexuality." Jumi Akinfenwa of "Clash" stated that by "Offering up a mix of pop, hip-hop, R&B and a sprinkling of trap and neo soul for good measure, Lizzo covers all bases and serves the perfect introduction to her world for mainstream audiences." "DIY" magazine's Rachel Finn gave a positive evaluation of the album, writing that "Lizzo's vibrant personality and humour shining through a set of tracks that switches through elements of funk, pop and R&B with ease."


title: Cuz I Love You

text: In an article for "NME", reviewer Natty Kasambala described the album as being "as flawlessly genre-spanning as Lizzo herself: pop at its core, but with constant references to her jazz roots and historical love of twerking." Claire Biddles at "The Line of Best Fit" shared similar sentiments, calling the album "Charming, addictive and seemingly effortless, "Cuz I Love You" is Lizzo's declaration of superstardom." "Slant Magazine"s Zachary Hoskins concluded that "Lizzo's talent has always been evident, but this album's material, her strongest to date, allows her put it on full display. By the languorous, seductive neo-soul of closing track "Lingerie", her enthusiasm is as contagious as it is well-earned."


title: Cuz I Love You

text: Some reviewers were more reserved in their assessments of the album. In a review for "The Guardian", Alexis Petridis felt that "Lizzo has something to say, and a smart way of saying it ... but the potency of what's here would seem more potent still if it had been allowed a little room to breathe ... Instead, "Cuz I Love You" keeps its foot pressed down hard on the accelerator for half an hour in an attempt to ram-raid the charts." Rawiya Kameir was also critical in the review for "Pitchfork", claiming that "Despite her obvious skill and charisma, some of the album's 11 songs are burdened with overwrought production, awkward turns of phrase, and ham-handed rapping."


title: Cuz I Love You

text: "Cuz I Love You" debuted at number six on the "Billboard" 200 with 41,000 album-equivalent units, of which 24,000 were pure album sales. It was Lizzo's first album to chart on the "Billboard" 200. It then repeaked at number six on the charting week ending on June 27, 2019. It has stayed in the top 10 for 15 weeks after its release. The album peaked number 4 in its 19th week on the chart dated September 7, 2019.


title: Tree line

text: The tree line is the edge of the habitat at which trees are capable of growing. It is found at high elevations and high latitudes. Beyond the tree line, trees cannot tolerate the environmental conditions (usually cold temperatures, extreme snowpack, or associated lack of available moisture). The tree line is sometimes distinguished from a lower timberline, which is the line below which trees form a forest with a closed canopy.


title: Tree line

text: At the tree line, tree growth is often sparse, stunted, and deformed by wind and cold. This is sometimes known as "krummholz" (German for "crooked wood").


title: Tree line

text: The tree line often appears well-defined, but it can be a more gradual transition. Trees grow shorter and often at lower densities as they approach the tree line, above which they are unable to grow at all. Given a certain latitude, the tree line is approximately 300 to 1000 meters below the permanent snow line and roughly parallel to it.


title: Tree line

text: Due to their vertical structure, trees are more susceptible to cold than more ground-hugging forms of plants. Summer warmth generally sets the limit to which tree growth can occur, for while tree line conifers are very frost-hardy during most of the year, they become sensitive to just 1 or 2 degrees of frost in mid-summer. A series of warm summers in the 1940s seems to have permitted the establishment of "significant numbers" of spruce seedlings above the previous treeline in the hills near Fairbanks, Alaska. Survival depends on a sufficiency of new growth to support the tree. Wind can mechanically damage tree tissues directly, including blasting with windborne particles, and may also contribute to the desiccation of foliage, especially of shoots that project above snow cover.


title: Tree line

text: The actual tree line is set by the mean temperature, while the realized tree line may be affected by disturbances, such as logging. Most human activities cannot change the actual tree line, unless they affect the climate. The tree line follows the line where the seasonal mean temperature is approximately . The seasonal mean temperature is taken over all days whose mean temperature is above . A growing season of 94 days above that temperature is required for tree growth.


title: Tree line

text: An alpine tree line is the highest elevation that sustains trees; higher up it is too cold, or the snow cover lasts for too much of the year, to sustain trees. The climate above the tree line of mountains is called an alpine climate, and the habitat can be described as the alpine zone. Treelines on north-facing slopes in the northern hemisphere are lower than on south-facing slopes, because the increased shade on north-facing slopes means the snowpack takes longer to melt. This shortens the growing season for trees. In the southern hemisphere, the south-facing slopes have the shorter growing season.


title: Tree line

text: The alpine tree line boundary is seldom abrupt: it usually forms a transition zone between closed forest below and treeless alpine zone above. This zone of transition occurs "near the top of the tallest peaks in the northeastern United States, high up on the giant volcanoes in central Mexico, and on mountains in each of the 11 western states and throughout much of Canada and Alaska". Environmentally dwarfed shrubs ("krummholz") commonly form the upper limit.


title: Tree line

text: The decrease in air temperature with increasing elevation creates the alpine climate. The rate of decrease can vary in different mountain chains, from per of elevation gain in the dry mountains of the western United States, to per in the moister mountains of the eastern United States. Skin effects and topography can create microclimates that alter the general cooling trend.


title: Tree line

text: Compared with arctic tree lines, alpine tree lines may receive fewer than half of the number of degree days (above ) based on air temperature, but because solar radiation intensities are greater at alpine than at arctic tree lines the number of degree days calculated from leaf temperatures may be very similar.


title: Tree line

text: At the alpine tree line, tree growth is inhibited when excessive snow lingers and shortens the growing season to the point where new growth would not have time to harden before the onset of fall frost. Moderate snowpack, however, may promote tree growth by insulating the trees from extreme cold during the winter, curtailing water loss, and prolonging a supply of moisture through the early part of the growing season. However, snow accumulation in sheltered gullies in the Selkirk Mountains of southeastern British Columbia causes the tree line to be lower than on exposed intervening shoulders.


title: Tree line

text: In some mountainous areas, higher elevations above the condensation line, or on equator-facing and leeward slopes, can result in low rainfall and increased exposure to solar radiation. This dries out the soil, resulting in a localized arid environment unsuitable for trees. Many south-facing ridges of the mountains of the Western U.S. have a lower treeline than the northern faces because of increased sun exposure and aridity. Hawaii's treeline of about feet is also above the condensation zone and results due to a lack of moisture.


title: Tree line

text: On coasts and isolated mountains the tree line is often much lower than in corresponding altitudes inland and in larger, more complex mountain systems, because strong winds reduce tree growth. In addition the lack of suitable soil, such as along talus slopes or exposed rock formations, prevents trees from gaining an adequate foothold and exposes them to drought and sun.


title: Tree line

text: The arctic tree line is the northernmost latitude in the Northern Hemisphere where trees can grow; farther north, it is too cold all year round to sustain trees. Extremely cold temperatures, especially when prolonged, can freeze the internal sap of trees, killing them. In addition, permafrost in the soil can prevent trees from getting their roots deep enough for the necessary structural support.


title: Tree line

text: Unlike alpine tree lines, the northern tree line occurs at low elevations. The arctic forest–tundra transition zone in northwestern Canada varies in width, perhaps averaging and widening markedly from west to east, in contrast with the telescoped alpine timberlines. North of the arctic tree line lies the low-growing tundra, and southwards lies the boreal forest.


title: Tree line

text: Two zones can be distinguished in the arctic tree line: a forest–tundra zone of scattered patches of "krummholz" or stunted trees, with larger trees along rivers and on sheltered sites set in a matrix of tundra; and "open boreal forest" or "lichen woodland", consisting of open groves of erect trees underlain by a carpet of "Cladonia" spp. lichens. The proportion of trees to lichen mat increases southwards towards the "forest line", where trees cover 50 percent or more of the landscape.


title: Tree line

text: A southern treeline exists in the New Zealand Subantarctic Islands and the Australian Macquarie Island, with places where mean annual temperatures above support trees and woody plants, and those below do not.