Dong girls with umbrella.
Young male and female Dong tribes are permitted to enjoy a "golden period of life" in which premarital sex is allowed and even encouraged. After a woman gets married she continues to live with her parents and only visits her husband on special occasions. She doesn’t live with her husband full time until their first child is born. Each birth is celebrated with the planting of an “18-year tree,” with the idea that tree will be ready to harvest for timber to build a house when the child reaches marriageable age.
© Kieron Nelson 2008 "Vanishing Cultures Photography" All rights reserved
