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 Though
most Shui people use Chinese in daily life,
the Shui have an ancient writing system called
Shuishu. This system is not limited to human
communications. Shui sorcerers have used it
to select opportune dates and call up gods.
The "Masters of Shuishu" (Shuishu
hsien sheng) keep the books in the Shuishu script.
According to a preliminary analysis, there are
about four hundred Shui vocabularies; the meanings
of most of these relate to divination, geomancy
and cosmology.
Giant stones, old trees, ancient wells and
ponds are all objects of worship. The Shui especially
revere the stone god and the god of ponds. Ancestral
worship is also practiced. The Shui funeral
ceremony reflects several aspects of their religious
belief. A funeral includes six steps: announcing
the death, putting the corpse into the coffin,
selecting an appropriate date for burial, burial,
erecting a tablet and taking off the cloth.
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