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Duona Village’s Stone Slab Houses
Duona Village’s Development
Duona was previously known as Tunzi, a name derived from its Japanese name. It is said that two hunters and their dog passed by Duona village while they were hunting. In earlier times, there was a swamp near the village, and every time the dog passed the swamp, it was unwilling to leave. The hunters returned to their hometown and when they came back to the village with the chief, they found that the area near the swamp, with its ample water supply and protection provided by the mountains, was a good place to live. After a series of discussion, the villagers decided to move to the site that is today’s village. They spread and expanded a second village, then a third, eventually forming the large village that is today’s Duona Village.
Slate slab houses
The early residents of Duona extracted a particular type of building material, black gray slate, from the Wenquan Stream. There are two types of slate, a mother and a father slate. Mother slate will wear down due to weather after a long period of time, while the father slate is darker, more solid, and heavier, allowing it to be used as the roof of a slate slab house or a bed.
The people of Duona work together to build the houses. Today, when a third generation slate slab house is built, the stone is first shaped using a stone-cutting machine and roof beams are raised to give them a modern impression. In some stone slab houses there are 100-step viper totems carved above the door or on the door posts, showing that it is the house of a chief or person of status.
The slate slab houses provide warm temperature in the winter and cool temperature in the summer. Until today, there are no reports of collapsing slate slab houses due to an earthquake or typhoon.