The Dongbe culture denotes the old traditional cultures of the Naxi Nationality.Dongba in the Naxi dialect is "wise men". These "wise men" have a wide knowledge, and are very good at singing and dancing, and know very well astrono my, geography, agriculture and animal husbandry, medicine
and etiquette.

The Dongba characters are some primitive pictographic characters. are altogether 1300 words The Dongba charaeters are also called the Naxi Pictographic characters Each line, each symbol and each drying has a special
meaning. Now it is "the only living pictographc characters in the world".

"The Dongba Scripture" is a sciripture written in the Dongba characters, and consists of 20 000 volumes. The contents involves religion, philosophy, history, folk costumes,literature, art, astronomy, geography, medical science, animals, plants, birth, music, dance, painting, etc. So it is an encyclopedia of the ancient Nard culture and society.

Since the beginning nf the 19th century, the Dongba culture has drawn much attention of the scholars. There are collections of."the Dongba Scripture" both at home and. abroad.At home Lijiang Library and Beijing Library have the richest collection. Abroad the American Library of Congress has the richest colleetion in the world now are only 20 000 odd copies of the "Dongba sciripturee".