It is taboo for outsiders to ride horses, drive cows, carry burdens and enter the village with disheveled hair; to enter the Dai family bamboo building, shoes should be taken off outside the door and walk lightly inside the house; not to sit above or across the fire, not to enter the master's inner room, not to sit on the threshold; not to move the tripod on the fire, and not to tread on the fire with their feet; it is taboo to whistle and cut nails in the house; and it is not permitted to use the clothes as a pillow or to sit on the pillows; When sunbathing clothes, tops should be sunbathed in a high place and pants and skirts in a low place; shoes should be taken off when entering a Buddhist temple, and it is taboo to touch the head of a young monk, a statue of the Buddha, a goshawk, a flag and a series of other holy objects of the Buddhist family. You can't just make loud noises.
"Close the door festival" Dai language called "into the puddle", meaning that the Buddha into the temple. It is a traditional religious festival of the Dai people in Yunnan, which is held on September 15 of the Dai calendar (mid-July of the lunar calendar) every year and lasts for three months.
Legend has it that every year in September of the Dai calendar, the Buddha goes to the Western Heaven to preach with his mother, and returns to the earth only in 3 months. Once, just as the Buddha went to the West during the period of preaching, thousands of Buddhists went to the countryside to preach, stepping on the people's crops, delaying their production, the people complained a lot, very dissatisfied with the Buddhists. When the Buddha learned of this, he felt uneasy in his heart. Since then, every time the Buddha to the West when the Sutra, they will be the Buddhists are gathered together, the provisions of the three months are not allowed to go anywhere, but only repentance, in order to atone for the sins of the past. Therefore, it is called the "Festival of the Closed Door".
The "Open Door Festival", also known as "out of the puddle", the Dai language for the "Hauwasa", China's adherence to the Hinayana Buddhism of the Dai, Brown, De'ang and part of the Wa traditional festival. It is a traditional festival of the Dai, Brown, De'ang and some Wa ethnic groups in China. It is popular in Yunnan, originating from the ancient Buddhist custom of settling down during the rainy season, and is similar to the Buddhist festival of the Central Plains. It takes place on the 15th day of the 12th month of the Dai calendar (around the middle of the 9th month of the lunar calendar).
Open Door Festival, symbolizing the end of the rainy season for three months, said to lift the taboo on marriage between men and women since the "Closed Door Festival", that is, from now on, young men and women can begin to fall in love freely or hold weddings. On the day of the festival, young men and women go to a Buddhist temple in full costume to worship the Buddha, and offer food, flowers, sticks of wax, and coins. After the festival is over, a grand cultural gathering is held to celebrate the end of the Anju fasting period since the Kannon Festival. The main events include the lighting of sparks and gaoseng, the lighting of lanterns, and singing and dancing. Young people also dance around the village with lanterns in the shape of birds, animals, fish and insects. At this time, the rice harvest is completed, so it is also a festival to celebrate the harvest.
The Dai have their own script, which is divided into four forms: the one that passes in Xishuangbanna and other places is called Dai titi, also known as Xishuangbanna Dai; the one that passes in Dehong and other places is called Dai which is also known as Dehong Dai; the one that passes in Ruili, Lancang, and Gengma and other counties and cities is called Dai liangwen; and the one that is used in Jinping is called Dai duanduanwen, also known as Jinping Daiwen. These four kinds of Dai scripts are evolved from the Brahmi alphabet of India and belong to the same system with Lao, Thai, Burmese and Khmer scripts. All of them are written from left to right, and the lines are changed from top to bottom, but there is a difference in the structure of their forms.
The Dai almost all believe in the Southern Theravada Buddhism, especially those over 40 years old almost all have to go to the Zang room to receive precepts and practice, to participate in the three months of the year into the summer of Anju, chanting fine Buddha. The Dai language calls Buddhism "Shasana" and Siddhartha Gautama Siddhartha "Gundama".
In Xishuangbanna, Jinggu and other places, the Dai men have to be a monk for a period of time, in the Buddhist temple to learn the Dai language, Buddhism, astronomy and geography and other knowledge. It is believed that only those who have been monks in the temple are considered to be educated. Therefore, only men who have been monks can be favored by girls. Young boys from good families enter Buddhist temples at the age of seven or eight and return to secularism after three or five years. When they enter the Buddhist temple dressed up and escorted by their relatives, blowing and beating their heads, amidst the laughter of the crowd, they proudly believe that they have begun to receive the protection of the Buddha and are able to grow up to be a man of honor. Then they shave off their hair, put on their robes, and begin to calmly recite sutras, learn culture, and earn their own living. Nowadays, because of the 9-year compulsory education, young boys then go to school during the day to learn Chinese and other sciences, and at night they study Dai culture at the Buddhist temple, which is very hard. Some of them finish high school, graduate from college, join the workforce, and then take a week or a month's vacation to study in the temple. When they return home, they are still considered "khamlang," or lay monks.
The Dai in Dehong and neighboring areas do not have a common practice of becoming monks in temples and then returning to lay life.
The Dai have more than a thousand years of old Dai literature, and there are ancient Bayeux scriptures. The Dai 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 year of the Dai calendar is a solar year, but the month is a lunar month. 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. September is a leap month every three years, and this calendar is still commonly used in Thailand and Burma.
The Dai Opera is one of the unique ethnic minority operas in Yunnan Province, circulating in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Dehong Dai Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture counties and cities in Yunnan Province, and in some Dai ethnic minority areas in Baoshan.
The Dai opera originated from the Dai song and dance performances with certain characters and Buddhist scriptures, and then absorbed the artistic nutrients of Yunnan opera and shadow play, while at the same time, the Dai opera spread to the folk from the government offices of the Tusi government, and a large number of folk Dai opera performing organizations emerged. After the establishment of New China, Dai Opera had a new development. 1960 the first professional performance group Lucy County Dai Opera Troupe was established, and in 1962, it was expanded into Dehong State Dai Opera Troupe.
In 1962, "E and Sang Luo" caused a sensation when it participated in the Southwest Region Minority Drama Observation and Performance, and was known as the "Pearl of Southeast Asia". In addition to professional groups like the Dai Theater Troupe of Dehong Prefecture, almost all of the larger Dai villages have amateur performance teams. At present, Dai Opera is basically loved by the elderly only, and young people have little interest in it because they don't understand it. The difficulties in passing on Dai opera are becoming more and more obvious.
The rhythm of Dai folk songs is flexible and beautiful. Dehong folk songs have distinctive tunes with prominent accents, Xishuangbanna folk songs have more gliding and decorative sounds, and Ruili mountain songs are lively and bright with their own characteristics. There are many kinds of dances, and the movements and contents mainly simulate the activities of local common animals, on the basis of which they are personified. The Peacock Dance comes from the imitation of peacock's beautiful movements and the beautiful and touching legends of the Dai people. The famous dancer Knife Meilan is famous for performing the Peacock Dance.
The Water Splashing Festival (Dai New Year) is the most characteristic festival of the Dai people. It is celebrated in the sixth month of the Dai calendar, which is equivalent to the fourth month of the Gregorian calendar. On the day of the festival, people will worship Buddha, and the girls will wash the dust of Buddha with fresh water with flowers floating in it, and then splash each other with water to play and wish each other good luck. At first with hands and bowls of water, and later with pots and buckets, while splashing and singing, the more intense the splash, drums, gongs, splashing, cheering into one. During the Water Splashing Festival, traditional entertainment activities such as dragon boat races, putting on high, flying lanterns and various songs and dances are also held. Most of them are related to Buddhism.
In the waterfront and living in the river valley dam area, due to the heat, humidity, rain, bamboo and wood and other ecological environment, the Dai people's residential buildings to "dry bar" (commonly known as bamboo buildings) is the main. Upper and lower two floors, wood, bamboo piles, floor, walls, roof covered with thatch, tiles, the upper perched people, raising livestock, stacking farm equipment. The whole building space between the frame is high, and bamboo or wood as walls and floor, conducive to keep the room dry and cool. In the climate change is large, flat dam less mountainous area, according to the foothills and live in the Dai area, instead of the thick, sturdy flat-topped earth palm house. The earth palm house is an earth and wood structure, generally two floors, the first floor to live, the second floor of the pile of food and sundries, livestock separate pens. Earthen walls have two layers, up to three feet thick, to prevent heat and cold play a unique effect. The earth and wood rammed flat roof is five to ten inches thick, summer nights can be cooled on the flat roof, and in the fall harvest can be on the top of the turning sun grain, effective use of space.
The Dai men generally wear collarless shirts with lapel sleeves and long pants, and wrap their heads in white or blue cloth. Dai women's clothing varies greatly from place to place, but basically they all wear hair bundles, tube skirts and short shirts as **** the same features. The skirt is as long as the top of the foot, and the shirt is tight and short, with the hemline only reaching the waist, while the sleeves are long and narrow.
The Dai people eat rice as their staple food, and they love glutinous rice, the most characteristic of which is bamboo tube rice. The production method is the fresh glutinous rice into the bamboo tube after adding water, with a corn hu stuffed, placed on the fire barbecue, eat up fragrant and delicious. The Dai people also have a lot of special barbecue. The Dai people's cold is also very delicious, such as dry bar silk, packet of roasted fish and so on, that is very delicious ah.
Pu'er tea is a specialty of Yunnan Pu'er, the Tang Dynasty, exported to all parts of China, the Qing Dynasty, exported to Southeast Asia and South Asia, and now into Japan and Western Europe and other countries and regions of the market, becoming a famous tea.
Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture is very rich in specialties, only fruit has more than 110 kinds of, there are many varieties of plants and animals here, is the famous "plant kingdom" and "animal kingdom". 1991, Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve officially opened to the outside world, people can visit the national nature reserve. In 1991, Xishuangbanna National Nature Reserve was officially opened to the outside world, so that people can personally travel to the treasure house of nature and experience the rich subtropical flavor.
There are many Dai snacks. For example, there is a kind of patty cake which is made of glutinous rice pounded into a ball and wrapped with suzuki sugar filling, wrapped with a banana leaf smeared with wax oil, and can be eaten with fire baked and softened or dipped in honey after deep-frying. Bashi is made by stirring rice flour into granules with water, pounding it into balls after steaming, rolling it into thin and big round cakes, folding them into stacks when they are cold, and putting them into bowls when they are hot and soft, and sprinkling them with various kinds of seasonings. Splash mochi is made of glutinous rice flour and dough, wrapped in brown sugar and steamed, then wrapped in a layer of fried soybean noodles, wrapped in banana leaves can be used as a snack for guests. There is also the sticky rice mud fried into hemp crispy, and so on.
Baked fish with lemongrass is a Dai ethnic flavor dish. Generally the first clean fish wrapped in flavorful lemongrass, and then placed on the fire barbecue, and smeared with the right amount of lard, grilled aroma, so that the baked fish aroma, fish meat crispy, delicious and unique flavor.
Most Dai people have the habit of eating two meals a day, with rice and glutinous rice as the main food. The Dai in Dehong mainly eat round-grained rice, while the Dai in Xishuangbanna mainly eat glutinous rice. Usually is now pounded [chōng] now eat, folk believe that: japonica rice and glutinous rice only now eat now pounded, not to lose its original color and flavor, and therefore do not eat or rarely eat overnight rice, used to eat by hand pinch rice. Outdoor laborers often eat in the field, with banana leaves or a mass of rice together with a ball of glutinous rice, with salt, chili, sour pork, roast chicken, mumble (Dai, meaning sauce), moss pine can be eaten. All the accompanying dishes and snacks are mainly sour, such as sour bamboo shoots, sour pea flour, sour meat and wild sour fruit; like to eat dry sauerkraut, the method is to dry the green vegetables, and then boiled in water, adding papaya juice, so that the flavor becomes sour, and then dried and stored. When eating, put a little boiled vegetables or put in the soup. This kind of sauerkraut has a place in the Dai people eat almost every day. It is said that the reason why the Dai people often eat sour dishes, is because often eat indigestible glutinous rice food, and sour food helps digestion.
The moss is a unique flavor of the Dai people. The moss consumed by the Dai people is selected from the moss on the rocks in the river water in the spring, with dark green color as the best, and then torn into thin slices after fishing, dried in the sun, and worn with bamboo gimlets to be used. Cooking, thick fried in oil, thin roasted with fire, crispy rubbed into the bowl, and then pour boiling oil, then add salt and stir, with glutinous rice balls or bacon for dipping, the flavor is incomparable.
Cooking fish, more into sour fish or roasted lemongrass fish, but also made into fish chopped grits (i.e., fish roasted and whacked into a mud, and large coriander and other seasonings centralized), fish jelly, fire-roasted fish, eel in white sauce, and so on.
When eating crab, generally will be crab even shell with meat chopped into crab sauce with rice to eat, the Dai people call this crab sauce for "crab mumble".
Bitter gourd is the most abundant and most consumed daily vegetable. In addition to bitter melon, Xishuangbanna also has a kind of bitter bamboo shoots, so there is a bitter flavor in the Dai flavor, more representative of the bitter dishes are cooked with cow bile juice and other ingredients of the cow skin gazpacho platter.
The Dai region is humid and hot, and there are many kinds of insects, which are used as raw materials to make various kinds of flavorful dishes and snacks, which is an important part of the food composition of the Dai people. Frequently eaten insects include cicadas, bamboo worms, big spiders, field turtles, ants' eggs and so on.
Cicadas are caught in the summer, every evening, the cicadas fall in the bushes, the cicada wings are wet with dew, can not fly, the women will quickly pick the cicadas into the bamboo basket, back into the pot after the drying sauce. Cicada sauce has the medical effect of clearing heat and removing toxins, removing pain and swelling.
The Dai people generally like to eat ants eggs, often eat a kind of yellow ants nesting in the tree, take ants eggs, the first ants away, and then take the eggs, ants eggs of different sizes, some as big as mung beans, some as small as a grain of rice, white crystal bright, cleaned and dried, fried with eggs, the taste of fresh food can be raw food can be cooked food, raw food, when the system of sauce, cooked food, fried with eggs dressed set, the commonly used sour fruit, Bitter melon, bitter bamboo shoots, punchy pepper, supplemented by wild peppercorns, coriander, garlic, lemongrass, full of flavor.
The Dai people are addicted to wine, but the degree of wine is not high, is home brewed, sweet flavor. Tea is a local specialty, but the Dai only drink large-leaf tea without spices. When drinking it, it is only slightly fried on the fire until it is burnt, and it has a slightly mushy flavor when it is brewed and drunk. Chewing betel nut, mixed with tobacco, lime, day after day. Because of the long-term chewing lips and teeth are black, oral fluid such as blood, people think it is beautiful. The pottery industry is more developed, most of the drinking utensils are mostly burned by women.
The Dai people generally believe in Theravada Buddhism, and many festivals are related to Buddhist activities. The Water Splashing Festival held in the sixth month of the Dai calendar every year is the grandest festival, when the Buddha is to be fine, and feasts are held to invite monks and friends and relatives to congratulate each other by splashing water. During the Water Splashing Festival, in addition to wine and dishes to be sumptuous, a variety of Dai flavor snacks are also many.
If there is a kind of patty cake, it is made of glutinous rice pounded into a ball, wrapped with suzuki sugar filling, wrapped with banana leaf smeared with wax oil, and can be eaten softly by fire or dipped in honey after deep-frying. Bashi is made by stirring rice flour into granules with water, pounding it into a ball after steaming, rolling it into a thin and big round cake, folding it into a stack after it gets cold and putting it into a bowl when it is hot and softened, sprinkling it with all kinds of seasonings. Splash mochi is made of glutinous rice flour and into a ball, wrapped in brown sugar steamed, then wrapped in a layer of fried bowl of soybean noodles, wrapped in banana leaves can be used as a snack for guests.
There is also the sticky rice mud deep-fried into hemp crispy, and so on. The more important festivals are the Door Closing Festival (September 15 on the Dai calendar) and the Door Opening Festival (December 15 on the Dai calendar), both of which are festivals of the Southern Theravada Buddhism. Xinping, Yuanjiang, Jinggu, Jinping and other places in the Dai Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, etc., the content and activities are largely the same as the local Han Chinese, the more typical foods are dog meat soup pots, pork jerky, pickled eggs, dried eels and so on.
In Xishuangbanna Dai, a house, the whole village to help, the completion of the new house to congratulate the new house, the first upstairs is a young man, carrying a bull's head, singing blessing song, the strong men to carry the box, married women to hold the bedding, the girls with the meal in turn, and then in the fire on the support of the tripod, set up the table, set the wine and food, singing congratulations on the new house song, the townspeople also want to give the hosts to send a number of symbols of good luck, and so on. Gifts. "Catch pendulum cassoulet" is a young men and women in Xishuangbanna to food rumors of love way, that is, the girl will be cassoulet chicken to the market to sell, if the buyer is precisely the girl's man of interest, the girl will take the initiative to come up with a stool, so that it sits beside them, through conversation, such as the two sides of the love of the heart, the two end of the chicken, carrying a stool to the woods to spit out each other Love; such as the buyer is not the girl's intended, the girl will double the price; and then "eat small wine", in the men and women engaged, the male side picking food and wine to go to the woman's home to invite guests, when the guests dispersed, the male side accompanied by three male companions and the female side and the female side of the three female companions, * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * table. "Eat small wine" is said to eat three dishes: the first is hot; the second should be more salt; the third should have sweets. It means hot, deep and sweet.
The wedding day is held in both homes, mostly in the woman's home first. At the wedding banquet, the table should be covered with green banana leaves, and the dishes include Blood Want (White Want), which symbolizes good luck, rice cake and various dishes. Banquet before the bride and groom to do the tethering ceremony, that is, by the bridegroom with a white line around the shoulders of the two sides, and with two white lines were tethered to the bride and groom's wrists, symbolizing purity, and then by the elderly will be pinched into triangles of glutinous rice dipped in salt, placed on the fire on the tripod on the apex of the fire, let the fire naturally come off, to symbolize the love of the iron as solid. Yuanjiang Daping Township bride after the door to sit on the bench with the groom, eat four eggs mixed with glutinous rice, and drink two cups of wine; Yuanjiang river Dai brides pass the door, by the male party to each bridegroom 4 slices of meat, 4 ribs, 4 meatballs, 4 crispy meat 4 pieces, and then you can eat the main meal.
The Dai also enshrined their own village community God, the Dai said "to go to Raman", also known as "Phi Man", is the God of protection, to be sacrificed twice a year, planting rice seedlings before praying for a bumper harvest, after the fall harvest for the thank you, to collectively kill a cow or a pig, the family prepared tributes to send into the room dedicated to the community God. Each family prepares tributes and sends them to the room where the god of the society is enshrined, and after reciting the words of sacrifice, everyone **** eats. New members of the community are required to make offerings of chickens, wine and strips of bacon to the God of the community.
In Menghai and other places slaughter sacrifice still retains the custom of plagiarizing cattle and fish eating cowhide. Xishuangbanna once tribal gods, some offerings must be black cattle, white pigs. Yuanjiang, Xinping and other places of the Dai, generally worship the Dragon Tree, the Dragon God, Yuanjiang riverside Dai every year in March of the lunar calendar sacrifice of the Dragon Tree, the village to kill the red bull, before killing the red bull with white ash on the body of the pattern, but also in the cattle on the body of the red and green cloth. In the same month, but also to kill the pig sacrifice "heaven and earth mother" in order to bless the livestock peace.
In the Dai folk, especially in some remote areas, there are still some taboos in cooking, such as: burning wood to burn from the root first; shall not be crossed from the fire; can not casually move the tripod on the fire and so on.
The dress of Dai women is colorful and beautiful. Dai women generally grow up with a slim figure, face pure and delicate, look tingting jade, elegant, so there is a "golden peacock" of the name. They not only look beautiful, but also good at dressing up, one by one with a unique dress to dress up like a flower like jade.
The Dai women generally like to wear narrow-sleeved short clothes and tube skirts, to fully display their slender figure. Above wearing a white or scarlet underwear, outside is a tight-fitting short blouse, round neck and narrow sleeves, with a large lapel, there is also a lapel, water red, tender pink, yellow, light green, snow white, sky blue and other colors. Nowadays, they are mostly sewn with georgette, silk, indeed and other materials. Narrow-sleeved short shirt tightly over the arm, almost no gap, there are many people also like to use flesh-colored clothing sewing, if not look carefully, but also do not see the sleeve, before and after the lapel just waist, tightly wrapped around the body, and then a silver belt tied with a short-sleeved shirt and the mouth of the unity skirt, under the long to the ankle of the unity skirt, the waist is slim and thin, the hemline is wide. Dai women's attire, fully demonstrated the female chest, waist, buttocks "three" beauty, plus the use of fabrics soft, bright and colorful, no matter walking or doing things, all give a person a kind of graceful, elegant and elegant feeling.
The Dai language is called "Jialuochong", "Boring Luochong" or "Jannanluo". This is the most popular dance of the Dai people, which is circulated in the Dehong Dai Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture and Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan. The rich and beautiful Dai Township, known as the "Peacock Township", used to be a place where peacocks danced with charming postures whenever the morning sun was shining or the setting sun was shining, so the peacock is a symbol of good fortune, happiness, beauty and kindness in the hearts of the Dai people. During festivals, the Dai people gather together to watch peacock dances and dances showing the peacock's habits performed by folk artists based on folk stories, myths and legends, and Buddhist scriptures. For example, the Peacock Dance based on the mythological story "The Devil and the Peacock" is still popular among the people. The dance shows that the devil wants to take over the peacock as his wife, the peacock with a human face and a bird's body, struggling to shake their beautiful feathers, that gorgeous, brilliant light to make the devil's brother blinded, the peacock won the victory.