Wood containers with tight-fitting lids are turned in the valley and painted beautifully. In them is stored the staple food, the roasted barley flour, tsampa. Tea is drunk at any time of the day mixed with butter and tsampa. The teacup of wood and silver, or of porcelain, is stored carefully.
The Tebbu Tibetans live in the long valleys north and south of the Yangtze River's northernmost tributary, Bailong Jiang. In the north, the over 5,000 meter-high peaks of the Min Shan Mountains separate their wooded valleys from the almost treeless landscape of the Yellow River.
At the top of the Bailong Jiang valley, you are close to the Tibetan highlands, and Tebbu Tibetans live mainly from livestock – yaks, horses, sheep and goats. Further down, you find a Chinese population and Tebbu Tibetans that are farmers.
The Drakana valley's population live in a transitional zone and combine agriculture down in the valley with animal husbandry up in the mountains. Culturally, they exist in the borderlands between Chinese and Tibetan culture, and this is observable in the artefacts from David Hummel's collection.