Dai customs
The Dai people mainly live in Xishuangna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Dehong Dai, Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, Geng Ma, Menglian and other places in Yunnan Province, and the rest are scattered in more than 30 counties such as Xinping and Yuanjiang. Population 102. More than 50,000 people (the fourth census in 1990).
Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture was established on January 24, 1953. Later, Yunnan Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture was established one after another (July 24, 1953), Menglian Dai, Lahu and Wa Autonomous County, Yunnan (June 16, 1954), Gengma Dai and Wa Autonomous County, Yunnan (October 16, 1955), Yuanjiang Hani, Yi and Dai Autonomous County, Yunnan (November 22, 1980), Xinping Yi and Dai Autonomous County, Yunnan (November 25, 1980).
The Dai people are a nation with a long history. As far back as the first century AD, there are records of the Dai people in Chinese historical books. In the Han Dynasty, they were called "Dianyue" and "Shan"; in the Tang and Song Dynasties, they were called "Golden Teeth","Black Teeth" and "Baiyi"; in the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, they were called "Baiyi","Baiyi" and "Baiyi". After 1949, it was named "Dai" in accordance with the wishes of the Dai people. People usually refer to the Dai people in the inland and border areas as "Han Dai" and "Shui Dai" respectively. Because the former is close to the Han nationality and absorbs a lot of Han culture, it is called Han Dai, which is wrongly rumored to be "Han Dai". The Dai people in Xishuangbanna, Menglian, Ruili and other places, which maintain more ethnic characteristics, are called "Shui Dai". The Dai people call themselves "Dai Le","Dai Ya","Dai Na","Dai Ban", etc.
Dai Dragon Boat Race
The Dai people have their own spoken and written language. The language belongs to the Zhuang and Dai branch of the Sino-Tibetan family. The two currently popular Dai scripts, Xishuangbanna and Dehong, are pinyin scripts that evolved from Pali in southern India. The Dai people are not only good at singing and dancing, but also create a splendid culture, among which Dai calendar, Dai medicine and long narrative poems are the most famous. Dai calendar years are Gregorian calendar years, while the moon is lunar month. A year is divided into three seasons: cold, hot and rainy. September every three years is a leap month. This calendar is still commonly used in Thailand, Myanmar and other places. Dai medicine, together with Mongolia, Tibet and Uyghur, has become the four most famous ethnic medicine systems in China. There are many long narrative poems circulating in Dai areas, such as "Zhaoshutun and Nanmunona","Lanjia Xihe","The Story of A Luan", etc. Dai opera has a history of more than 100 years. Most Dai people believe in Theravana Buddhism.
Xishuangbanna's rubber production has increased significantly in the Dai area."Pu 'er tea" is famous at home and abroad. Local and township enterprises have developed rapidly, including mining, machinery, power, chemistry, ceramics, leather, papermaking and other factories and mines.
The major festivals of the Dai people are the Dai New Year-Water-Splashing Festival, Closing Festival and Opening Festival. The "Water-Splashing Festival" is a traditional festival for the Dai people to send off the old and welcome the new. It takes place in mid-April of the Gregorian calendar. The main activities during the festival are ancestral sacrifices, sand building, water splashing, packet loss, dragon boat racing, sparks, and singing and dancing carnival.
Taboo: It is forbidden for outsiders to ride horses, drive cattle, carry poles and enter the stockade with disheveled hair; when entering the Dai family's bamboo building, you must take off your shoes outside the door and walk lightly in the house; you cannot sit above or cross the fire pond, you cannot enter the owner's inner room, you cannot sit on the threshold; you cannot move the tripod on the fire pond, and you cannot use your feet on the fire; you cannot whistle or cut your nails at home; you are not allowed to use clothes as pillows or sit on pillows; when drying clothes, your coat should be exposed high, and your pants and skirts should be exposed low; You must take off your shoes when entering the Buddhist temple. You must avoid touching the head of the young monk, Buddha statues, spears, flags and other Buddhist relics.
Daily food customs
Most Dai people have the habit of eating two meals during the solar eclipse, and eat rice and glutinous rice as their staple foods. The Dai people in Dehong staple rice, while the Dai people in Xishuangbanna staple rice. It is usually eaten right now. People believe that japonica rice and rice need rice only when eaten right now, so as to lose their original color and aroma. Therefore, they do not eat or rarely eat rice overnight, and they are accustomed to pinching rice with their hands. Migrant workers often eat fish in the wild, using banana leaves or rice to serve a ball of glutinous rice, accompanied by salt, chili, sour pork, roasted chicken, minan (Dai language, meaning sauce), and moss pine. Eat it. All accompanying dishes and snacks are mainly sour, such as sour bamboo shoots, sour pea powder, sour meat and wild sour fruits. If you like to eat dried pickled cabbage, the method is to dry the green vegetables in the sun, then boil them in water, and add papaya to turbid to make the taste sour. Then dry and store them. Put a little boiled vegetables or put them in soup when eating. This kind of pickled cabbage is eaten almost every day by the Dai people who have a place. It is said that the reason why Dai people often eat sour dishes is because they often eat glutinous rice food that is not easy to digest, and sour food helps digestion. Daily meat includes pigs, cattle, chickens and ducks, but does not eat or eat less mutton. Dai people living in the mainland like to eat dog meat and are good at making roast chicken and roast chicken. They like fish, shrimp, crabs, snails, moss and other aquatic products. Using moss as a dish is a unique dish for the Dai people.
The moss eaten by the Dai people is the moss on the rocks in the river water in spring. The dark green color is preferred. After fishing, tear it into thin slices, dry it in the sun, and wear it with bamboo strips for later use. When cooking, fry the thick ones with oil, roast the thin ones with fire, crispy and crumble into a bowl, then pour the boiling oil on, then add salt and stir, and dip them in glutinous rice balls or bacon. The taste is extremely delicious. When cooking fish, most of them are made into sour fish or roasted into fragrant thatch fish. In addition, they are also made into chopped fish grits (that is, grilled fish, beaten into mud, mixed with coriander and other seasonings), fish jelly, roasted fish, white sauce rice eel, etc. When eating crabs, crabs are generally chopped into crab paste with their shells and meat and dipped in rice. The Dai people call this crab paste "crab namibu". Balsam pear is the most productive and most eaten daily vegetable. In addition to bitter gourd, Xishuangbanna also has a bitter bamboo shoot, so there is also a bitter flavor in the Dai flavor. The more representative bitter dish is a cold dish plate with beef skin cooked with beef bile and other ingredients.
Dai areas are humid and hot, and there are many species of insects. Using insects as raw materials to make various flavors of dishes and snacks is an important part of Dai food. Insects that are often eaten include cicadas, bamboo insects, large spiders, field turtles, ant eggs, etc. Cicadas are caught every evening in summer. When the cicada community is in the grass, the cicada wings are soaked by dew and cannot fly. The women quickly pick the cicadas into bamboo baskets, and then put them into a pot to bake and make sauce. Cicada sauce has the medical effect of clearing heat and detoxifying, removing pain and swelling. Dai people generally like to eat ant eggs. They often eat yellow ants that nest on trees. When taking the ant eggs, the ants are driven away first, and then the eggs are taken. Ant eggs vary in size, some are as big as green beans, some are as small as rice grains, white and bright. They are washed and dried, and fried with eggs. The taste is delicious and can be eaten raw or cooked. Sauce is made when eaten raw. When cooked, eggs are dressed and fried. Commonly commonly used sour fruits, bitter pear, bitter bamboo shoots, and Chongtian peppers are supplemented by wild pepper, coriander, garlic, and citronella. Pure flavor, clean and sanitary.
Dai people are fond of alcohol, but the alcohol content is not high. It is brewed at home and tastes sweet. Tea is a local specialty, but the Dai people only drink big leaf tea without spices. When drinking, only stir-fry it slightly over the heat until burnt, brew it and drink it with a slight paste taste. Chew betel nut, mix it with tobacco and lime, and keep it all day long. Because the lips and teeth are black when chewing for a long time, and the liquid in the mouth is like blood, people think it is beautiful. The pottery burning industry is relatively developed, and most dining utensils are mostly fired by women.
People celebrate the Water Splashing Festival in the 1367 Dai Calendar
Festivals, etiquette, and sacrificial food customs are generally believed in Hinayana Buddhism, and many festivals are related to Buddhist activities. The Water-Splashing Festival, held in June of the Dai calendar every year, is the most grand festival. At that time, Buddha is worshipped and a banquet is held to entertain monks, relatives and friends, and congratulate each other by splashing water. During the Water-Splashing Festival, in addition to rich wine and vegetables, there are also many Dai snacks. For example, one kind of glutinous rice cake is a round cake made of glutinous rice pestled into balls and wrapped in perilla sugar filling. It is wrapped in banana leaves smeared with wax oil. When eating, it can be baked with fire to soften or fried and dipped in honey. The shredded cake is made by stirring the rice noodles with water into grains, steaming them and crushing them into balls, rolling them into thin and large round cakes. After cooling, they are stacked into stacks. When eating, they are scalded and soft and put into a bowl, and sprinkled with various seasonings.
Water-splashed glutinous rice cake is made of glutinous rice flour and dough, wrapped in brown sugar, steamed, wrapped in a stir-fried bowl of bean noodles, and wrapped in banana leaves to make a snack for guests. There are also crispy glutinous rice paste made by frying it. More important festivals include Closing Festival (July 15 of the Dai calendar) and Opening Festival (December 15 of the Dai calendar), both of which are Hinayana Buddhist festivals. The Dai people celebrate the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, etc. in Xinping, Yuanjiang, Jinggu, and Jinping. The content and activities are generally the same as those of the local Han people. Typical foods include dog meat soup pot, dried pork, pickled eggs, dried rice eel, etc.
Dai festivals
In Xishuangbanna Dai people, the whole village has to come to help build a house. The completion of the new house requires congratulating the new house. The first one to go upstairs is the young man, carrying the cow's head and singing a blessing song. The young man in his prime carries the box, the married woman carries the quilt, and the girls carry the meals one by one. Then he sets up a tripod on the fire pond, sets up the tables, prepares wine and vegetables, and sings the song of congratulating the new house. The villagers also send some auspicious gifts to the owner.
"Chasing the braised chicken" is a way for young men and women in Xishuangbanna to seek love based on rumors. That is, the girl takes the braised chicken to the market and sells it. If the buyer is exactly the girl's favorite, the girl will take out a stool and let him sit next to her. Through conversation, if the two parties agree with each other, the two will hold the chicken and carry the stool to express their feelings to each other in the woods; if the buyer is not the girl's favorite, the girl will double the price; Another example is "eating wine". When a man and a woman are engaged, the man carries wine and vegetables to the woman's house to treat her. When the guests disperse, the man is accompanied by three male partners and sets a table with the woman and her three female partners to share meals. "Eating small wine" talks about eating three dishes: the first dish is hot; the second dish should be salty; and the third dish should have sweets. It expresses fiery, profound and sweet.
Weddings will be held at both parties 'homes on the wedding day, and most of them will be held at the woman's home first. At the wedding banquet, green banana leaves should be spread on the table, and the dishes include auspicious blood dumplings (white dumplings), rice cakes and various vegetables. Before the banquet, the bridegroom and bride perform a tying ceremony, that is, the wedding person uses a white line to wrap around the shoulders of both sides, and uses two white lines to tie them to the wrists of the groom and bride respectively, symbolizing purity. Then the elderly man will pinch the glutinous rice into a triangle, dip it in salt, and place it on the top of a tripod on the fire pond. It is allowed to fall off naturally after fire, symbolizing that love is as solid as iron. After passing through the door in Daping Township, Yuanjiang, the bride must sit on a bench with the groom, eat glutinous rice mixed with four eggs, and drink two glasses of wine; Dai brides by the Yuanjiang River pass through the door, and the man will distribute 4 slices of meat, 4 ribs, 4 meatballs, and 4 pieces of crispy meat to each person who sends them off before having the main meal.
Dai gourd silk
The Dai people also worship the community god of their village. The Dai people call it "Quoman", also known as "Piman", which is a protective god. They sacrifice twice a year. Before planting seedlings, in order to pray for a good harvest and after the autumn harvest, they must collectively kill cattle or pigs. Each family prepares tribute and sends it to the room dedicated to the community god. After reading the sacrificial words, everyone eats together. New members of the club must worship the club god with chicken, wine and bacon strips. In Menghai and other places, slaughtering and sacrificing animals still retains the custom of raping cattle and eating cowhide from fish. In the Xishuang version of the one-time tribal god, some of the sacrifices must be black oxen and white pigs. The Dai people in Yuanjiang and Xinping Land generally worship the dragon tree and the dragon god. When the Dai people along the Yuanjiang River sacrifice to the dragon tree in the third month of the lunar calendar every year, the whole village has to kill red bulls. Before killing, they paint patterns with white gray on the red bulls, and also wear them on the cattle. Wear red and green cloth. In the same month, pigs were also killed and sacrificed to "Heaven and Earth Mother" to protect the safety of livestock.
Among the Dai people, especially in some remote areas, there are still some taboos when cooking, such as: burning firewood must be started from the root; not crossing the fire pond; not moving the tripod on the fire pond casually, etc.
Typical foods Dai style cold and hot pickles have typical dishes and snacks. Such as: coconut casserole chicken, fried sesame crispy, beef skin, sour pork, burnt fish, pickled cow head, etc.
The Dai people believe in Hinayana Buddhism.
The Dai people have a long history, and records of their ancestors are recorded in Chinese historical books in the 1st century BC. In 109 BC, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty established Yizhou County, and the Dai area fell under the jurisdiction of Yizhou County. In 69 AD, the Dai area belonged to Yongchang County. In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, when the policy of "changing the land and returning to the flow" was implemented in ethnic minority areas, which abolished the hereditary Tusi and replaced the rule of temporary officials, i.e. officials, the Dai areas gradually came under the direct rule of the court. During the Republic of China, counties and bureaus were established in Dai areas.
The bamboo buildings where Dai people live are a kind of dry-railing building. The bamboo building is approximately square, supported by dozens of large bamboos, and the floor is suspended; the roof is covered with thatched rafts, and the bamboo walls have large gaps, which are both ventilated and transparent. The slopes on both sides of the roof are very large, forming an "A" shape. The bamboo building is divided into two floors. People live on the upper floor, and livestock are raised and sundries are piled downstairs. It is also a place for pounding rice and weaving.
Dai men generally wear collarless sleeves on the top and long tube trousers on the bottom, with white or blue cloth on the head. Dai women's costumes vary greatly from place to place, but basically all have the common characteristics of bundled hair, tube skirts and short shirts. The tube skirt is long to the feet, the clothes are tight and short, the hem only reaches the waist, but the sleeves are long and narrow.
The Dai people eat rice as their staple food, and the most characteristic is bamboo rice. The method of making it is to put rice into fresh bamboo tubes, add water, and roast it on the fire. It tastes fragrant and delicious. Pu 'er tea is a specialty of Xishuangbanna, Yunnan Province. It was exported to all parts of China during the Tang Dynasty and to Southeast Asia and South Asia during the Qing Dynasty. It has now entered the markets of Japan, Western Europe and other countries and regions, becoming a well-known tea at home and abroad.
The Dai people have their own unique calendar. The difference between the Dai calendar and the Gregorian calendar is 638 years, that is, 639 years of the Gregorian calendar is the first year of the Dai calendar. The years of the Dai calendar are Gregorian years, but the months are lunar months. The Dai calendar is divided into three seasons: January to April is the cold season, May to August is the hot season, and September to December is the rainy season.
The Dai people love poetry very much, especially long narrative poems. Narrative poems such as "Zhaoshutun and Nanmanona" and "Ebing and Sang Luo" are valuable cultural heritage of the Chinese nation.
There are many types of Dai dances, and the movements and contents mainly simulate the activities of common local animals, and are personified on this basis. The peacock dance comes not only from the imitation of the graceful movements of peacocks, but also from the beautiful and touching legends of the Dai people. Famous dancer Dao Meilan is famous at home and abroad for her performance of the peacock dance.
The Water-Splashing Festival is the most ethnic festival for the Dai people. The Water-Splashing Festival is the New Year in the Dai calendar. The festival lasts from June 6 to July 6, which is equivalent to April of the Gregorian calendar. On the Water Splashing Festival, people worship Buddha. The girls use clear water with floating flowers to wash the dust for Buddha, then splash water and play with each other and wish each other well. At first, he splashed water with his hands and bowls, but later he used basins and buckets to splash and sing. The more he poured, the more intense the sound of drums, gongs, water splashing, and cheers resounded. During the Water-Splashing Festival, traditional entertainment activities such as dragon boat racing, high lifting, and flying lights, as well as various song and dance evenings will be held.
Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture is very rich in specialties. There are more than 110 kinds of fruits alone. There are many species of animals and plants here, making it a famous "Plant Kingdom" and "Animal Kingdom." In 1991, the Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve was officially opened to the outside world. People can personally visit the treasure house of nature and experience the rich subtropical customs.