Some 4,690 books written in "Shuishu", the peculiar pictographic characters of the Shui ethnic group of China, have been retrieved by the Bouyei-Miao Ethnic Autonomous Prefecture of Qiannan in southwestern Guizhou Province as a great move to save the endangered ancient characters.

As the peculiar characters used by the ancient Shui ethnic group, Shuishu is in danger of being lost as most of the Shui people do not know how to read the characters any longer.

People who still know how to read Shuishu are usually wizards of the Shui ethnic group. They preserved most existing books written in Shuishu which have been passed down only to a single descendant within families.

In this sense, Shuishu is regarded as a "living fossil" of the Shui ethnic group as books written in Shuishu had recorded encyclopedic contents about the ancient Shui ethnic group, including on astronomy, geography, religion, folk-custom, ethics, philosophy, aesthetics and law.

"The study of Shuishu is of great significance for the study of anthropology, linguistics and history," said Sang Rui, a doctor of the France social sciences linguistic research center and the center for eastern Asia linguistics.

In March 2002, Shuishu was listed in the China Archive Heritage chosen by the State Archive Administration of China. Since then, great efforts have been made by the central and local cultural protection departments to protect the endangered characters.
 
(Xinhua News Agency April 2, 2004)