Major Distribution
The Dai, one of the lesser ethnic groups in China. The Dai people mainly live in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Dehong Dai Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, Gengma Dai Wa Autonomous Prefecture, Menglian Dai Lahu (hù) Wa Autonomous Prefecture, Jinggu Dai Wa Autonomous Prefecture, and Xinping Yi Dai Autonomous Prefecture of Yunnan Province, in addition to small pockets of the Dai living or in scattered divisions in the territories of more than 30 counties and cities, such as Jindong, Pu'er, Simao, Tengchong, Longling, Shuangjiang, Ximeng, Yuanyang and Hekou. There are also small clusters or scattered divisions of the Dai. The Dai are scattered in most parts of Yunnan. The Dai usually like to live in large river basins, dams and tropical areas. Most of them live by the water in the river valleys and dam areas of the Nu, Lancang, Jinsha and Red River basins. In Xishuangbanna, there are Jinghong Dam, Menghai Dam, Mengjia Dam, Mengcang Dam, Menghang Dam, etc. In Dehong, there are Menghuan Dam (Mangshi), Menna Dam (Yingjiang), Mengmou Dam (Ruili), and Menghi Dam (Lianghe) Ethnic Festivals
The major festivals of Dai are the New Year of Dai Calendar - Water Festival, the Festival of Entering the Summer of Settling in (Shutting the Door Festival), the Festival of Exiting the Summer of Settling in (Opening the Door Festival), and the Festival of Entering the Summer of Settling in (Opening the Door Festival). Anju Festival (Open Door Festival).
The Water Splashing Festival
The Water Splashing Festival is a traditional festival of the Dai people, which is held in the middle of April in the Gregorian calendar. The main activities during the festival are worshiping ancestors, piling up sand, splashing water, throwing sandbags, racing dragon boats, setting off fireworks and singing, dancing and revelry. The Water Splashing Festival held in the sixth month of the Dai calendar every year is the grandest festival, which is called "Sangkan Bimai" in Dai language. The festival is called "Sangkan Bimai" in Dai language. At that time, the Buddha should be fine, and a feast is held to invite monks and friends and relatives to congratulate each other by splashing water. Now, because the water splashing activity is the main content of the Dai New Year festivities, this activity is loved by the people of all ethnic groups.
Gate Festival
"Gate Festival" in Dai language is called "Into the Pits", which means that Buddha enters 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. According to legend, every year in September of the Dai calendar, Buddha went to the Western Heaven to preach with his mother, and it took three months to return to the earth. Once, just as the Buddha went to the West to preach during the period, thousands of Buddhists went to the countryside to preach, trampled 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. From then on, every time the Buddha to the West when preaching, will be the Buddhists are gathered together, the provisions of the three months are not allowed to go anywhere, only repentance, in order to redeem the previous sins. Therefore, it is called the "Shut the Door Festival".
Open Door Festival
"Open Door Festival", also known as "out of the puddle", the Dai language for the "Hauwasa", China's belief in Hinayana Buddhism 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 the Yunnan region, originating from the ancient Buddhist custom of settling down during the rainy season, and is similar to the Buddhist festival of Xiefu in the Central Plains. It falls 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 three months since the rainy season has ended, said the lifting of the "closed door festival" since the wedding taboo between men and women, that is, from now on, young men and women can begin to fall in love freely or hold a wedding. 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 and entertainment 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 shapes of birds, animals, fish and insects. This is also a festival to celebrate the harvest as it coincides with the completion of the rice harvest.
Edit this section of the national taboos
Taboo outsiders riding horses, driving cattle, picking burdens and disheveled hair into the cottage; into the Dai family bamboo building, shoes should be taken off outside the door, and in the house to walk softly; can not sit on top of the fire or across the fire, can not enter the owner's inner room, can not sit on the threshold of the door; can not move the tripod on the fire, and can not be stamped on the fire; taboos in the home whistles, nail clipping; not allowed to use clothes as a pillow or a pillow; not allowed to use clothes as a pillow or as a pillow; not allowed to use clothes as a pillow, or as a pillow or as a pillow. ; not allowed to use clothes as pillows or sit on pillows; when sunbathing clothes, tops should be sunbathed on a high place, pants and skirts should be sunbathed on 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.
Edit Ethnic Diet
Daily Food Customs
Most of the Dai have the habit of eating two meals a day, with rice and glutinous rice as the main food. The Dai in Dehong eat mainly round-grained rice, while the Dai in Xishuangbanna eat mainly 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 Dai eat pork, cow, chicken and duck, not eat or eat less mutton, live in the interior of the Dai people like to eat dog meat, good roast chicken, roast chicken, fish, shrimp, crab, snail, moss and other aquatic products. 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, and the dark green color is preferred, which is torn into thin slices and dried in the sun, and then worn with bamboo gimlets for use. 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 into lemongrass fish, but also into fish chopped grits (i.e., with fish roasted and whacked into the mud, and large coriander and other seasonings centralized), fish jelly, fire fish, eel in white sauce. Eat crabs, generally will be the crab shell with meat chopped into crab sauce with rice to eat, the Dai people call this crab sauce for "crab Mangmibu". Bitter melon is the most abundant and most consumed daily vegetable. In addition to bitter melon, Xishuangbanna also has a kind of bitter bamboo shoots, so the Dai flavor there is a bitter flavor, more representative of the bitter dishes are cooked with cow bile juice and other ingredients of the cow skin gazpacho platter.
Insect specialties
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 Dai food. Frequently eaten insects are cicadas, bamboo worms, big spiders, field turtles, ant eggs and so on. Cicadas are caught in summer, every evening, when the cicadas fall in the bushes, the wings of the cicadas are wet with dew, and they cannot fly up, so the women quickly pick the cicadas into the bamboo baskets, and bake them into the pot to dry them to make sauce. Cicada sauce has the medical effect of clearing heat and removing toxins, removing pain and swelling. Dai people generally like to eat ants eggs, often eat a nest in the tree of the yellow ants, take ants eggs, the first ants away, and then take the eggs, ants eggs of different sizes, some as large as mung beans, some as small as a grain of rice, white crystal bright, washed and dried, and eggs together with the frying of food, its taste can be raw food can be cooked food, raw food when the system of soy sauce, cooked food when the eggs are dressed with sets of deep-fried, commonly used in the pickled fruits, bitter gourd, bitter bamboo shoots, punch sky pepper, supplemented with wild peppercorns and other ingredients. pepper, supplemented by wild peppercorns, coriander, garlic, lemongrass, pure flavor, clean and sanitary.
Specialty drinks
The Dai people are addicted to wine, but the degree of wine is not high, it 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 is slightly mushy when 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, and most of the drinking and eating utensils are made by women.
Ritual Food Customs
Religious Food Customs 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, there are many snacks of various Dai ethnic flavors. For example, there is a kind of patty cake which 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 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 paste deep-fried and made into hemp crisps. The more important festivals include the Door Closing Festival (July 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 with the local Han Chinese, the more typical foods are dog meat soup pots, pork jerky, pickled eggs, dried eels and so on. Festivals and Food Customs In Xishuangbanna Dai, a house, the whole village to help, the new house is completed to congratulate the new house, the first upstairs is a young man, carrying a bull's head, singing the blessing song, the strong men to carry the box, the married women hold bedding, the girls with the meal in turn, and then in the fire on the support of tripod, set up a crowd of tables, set the wine and food, singing congratulations on the new house song, the townspeople also want to give the host some of the symbols of good luck 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 both sides of the love of the heart, two people on the end of the chicken, carrying a stool to the woods to mutual spit! 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 the female side of the house to invite guests, when the guests dispersed, the male side of the three male companions accompanied by the female side of the female side of 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. This indicates heat, depth and sweetness. On the wedding day, both sides of the family will be held in the wedding, mostly in the woman's home first. At the wedding banquet, the table is covered with green banana leaves, and the dishes include blood wang (white wang), which symbolizes good luck, rice cakes and various other 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. After the bride passes through the door in Daping Township of Yuanjiang, she has to sit on the bench with the groom, eat glutinous rice mixed with four eggs, and drink two glasses of wine; the Dai brides passing through the door on the Yuanjiang River are given four slices of meat, four ribs, four meatballs, and four pieces of crispy meat by the male party to each bridegroom, and then they are allowed to eat the main meal. Rituals and food customs The Dai people also worship their own village community god, the Dai people called "to go to Raman", also known as "Phi Man", is the protection of the God, to be sacrificed twice a year, before planting rice seedlings in order to pray for a good harvest, after the fall harvest for the Thanksgiving grace, to collectively kill a cow or a pig, the family prepared tributes to be sent into the room of the community god, and wait until the Niancai to be able to eat. 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 society should use chicken, wine and strips of bacon to worship the god of the society. In Menghai and other places to slaughter sacrificial animals still retained plagiarized cattle and fish eating cowhide custom. 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, the village also kills a pig and sacrifices to the "God of Heaven and Earth" in order to bless the safety of livestock. In the Dai folk, especially in some remote areas, there are still some taboos in cooking, such as: burning firewood from the root first; not to cross from the fire; not to move the tripod on the fire and so on. Typical Food The Dai flavor cold and hot pickles have typical dishes and snacks. For example, coconut casserole chicken, deep-fried sesame crisps, cow's skin, sour meat, fire-roasted fish, pickled cow's head and so on. Mengwanba (Longchuan) and so on. The Dai people all believe in Buddhism, but primitive religious activities are also more common, such as sacrifices to the Zhai God, Zhai ghosts, agricultural sacrifices, hunting sacrifices, spirit worship and so on.
The origin of the Songkran Festival
The Songkran Festival is the New Year's festival of the Dai people and the most important festival of the Dai people, which is held in the fourth month of the lunar calendar (equivalent to the fifth month of the Dai calendar) every year and usually lasts three to four days. The first day is "Mai Day", which is similar to the New Year's Eve of the lunar calendar, and is called "Wan Duoshanghan" in Dai language, meaning sending the old. At this time, people want to tidy up the house, clean up, prepare the annual meal and various activities during the festival. The next day is called "annoyed day", "annoyed" means "empty", according to the custom of this day is neither the previous year, also does not belong to the year after the year, so it is "empty day "; the third day called" MaiPaYa late Ma ", it is said that this is the Paya late spirit with the new calendar back to earth day, people used to regard this day as the day of the king comes, is the new year's day of the Dai calendar. Water Splashing Festival
The Water Splashing Festival originated in India, is an ancient Brahmanism ceremony, later absorbed by Buddhism, about the end of the twelfth century to the beginning of the thirteenth century in the twelfth century A.D. through the Burmese with the Buddhism into the Dai area of Yunnan Province, China. With the deepening influence of Buddhism in the Dai area, the Water Splashing Festival has become a national custom that has been passed down for hundreds of years. In the process of passing down the Water Splashing Festival, the Dai people gradually combined it with their own national myths and legends, which gave the Water Splashing Festival more magical meanings and national colors. Up to now, there is a very interesting myth circulating among the Dai people: in ancient times, there was a devil in the Dai area, who did a lot of evils and gave out lewdness indiscriminately, which made the crops not harvested, the people's hearts not peaceful, and the people had no chance to live. People hated him, but they tried many ways to deal with him. Later, the devil took seven women as his wives. Seeing the miserable lives of their fellow countrymen, the girls were determined to find a way to destroy the demon. The seven clever girls discovered the devil's Achilles' heel in his words, that is, only the devil's own hair can kill him. One night, when the demon was drunk and fell into a deep sleep, the girls bravely pulled a hair from his head and tied it tightly around his neck. Sure enough, the demon's head immediately fell off. But as soon as the head hit the ground, the ground burst into flames. Seeing that it would become a disaster, the girls immediately picked up the head, and the fire was extinguished, and the demon disappeared with it. In order to prevent the fire from rekindling and plaguing the people, the sisters decided to take turns holding the demon's head, changing it every year. At the time of the annual change, people gave the girl who held the head a rinse in order to wash away the blood stains and the exhaustion of adulthood. Later, the Dai people to commemorate the seven resourceful and brave women, on this day every year to splash water on each other, since the formation of the Dai people's grand festival of the old and welcome the new - Water Festival. People who have been to Yunnan know the famous Dai Water Splashing Festival, but the legend of the origin of the Water Splashing Festival has two kinds. The legend of Xishuangbanna and Dehong is derived from the story of "Seven Princesses Killing the Fire Devil", while the story of the Dai Water Splashing Festival located in the Huaping area of Lijiang is unique. The Dai people here are the northernmost Dai tribe in China and even in Asia. Their story is like this: Legend has it that a long time ago, the Jinsha River, a gathering in the deep forest of the Dai village, because of the forest fire, the villagers are in danger of being engulfed in flames, a Dai man named Li Liang, in order to protect the village, undaunted by the dangers of rushing out of the fire net, picking from the Jinsha River buckets of water, splashing the fire, after a day and a night of exertion, the fire was finally splashed out, the villagers were saved, Li Liang! Because of the exhaustion of sweat flow dry, thirst on the hill. The villagers called fresh water to Li Liang to quench their thirst, but after drinking ninety-nine picks of water could not quench their thirst, and then Li Liang jumped headlong into the river, turned into a giant dragon, and went down the river. Some people said that he turned into a big tree. Dai people in order to commemorate Li Liang, every year on the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar, each house cleaned up, sprinkled with pine leaves, and in the selected riverside or wells, with the green tree set up a half-mile-long green shed, under the shed sprinkled with thick pine needles, both sides of the water tank full of water, the sun when the top of the midday sun, the crowd walked under the shed with each other with a pine branch dipped in the water sprinkled body, expressed the nostalgia and the blessing of the New Year to Li Liang. This activity continues to this day, become the Dai people resigned to welcome the new year, blessing auspicious festival - Water Festival. Also, legend has it that Zhu Geliang once came here and taught the Dai people to bathe, build high houses, planting, etc., so on the day of the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar every year, people will pounce on each other to express their blessings.
Water Festival blessings
In the "Mai Day", early in the morning people will pick flowers and leaves to the Buddhist temple offerings, and bring water to "bath Buddha" - for the Buddha statue The Buddha's image is washed with fresh water. After the "bathing of Buddha", the collective splashing of water on each other begins. A group of young men and women with a variety of containers of water, out of the streets and alleys, chasing and playing, everyone will splash. "Water flower release, Daijia crazy", "splash wet all over, happiness for life"! Symbol of good luck, happiness, health, a flower in the air bloom, people splash as much as they can sprinkle, laughter, happy exception, wet all over the body, the excitement is very high.
The Water Festival love
The Water Festival is also a wonderful time for unmarried young men and women to seek love and cultivate happiness. During the festival, the Dai unmarried young men and women like to do "throwing bags" game. The flower bag crafted with flower cloth in the girl's hand is a token of love. Throw package day, the girls dress up to the best of things, and then hit the flower umbrella, carrying a small flower package to the "package field", and the young men on both sides of the separation, thirty to forty paces apart, began to each other to throw the flower package. If the young man can not catch the girl threw the flower bag, you have to prepare the flowers in the girl's hair on the fly, the girl if you can not catch the young man threw the bag, you have to put the flowers into the young man's chest so that gradually selected each other, a romantic love story began.......
Splash Water Festival activities
Splash Water Festival activities
Splash Water Festival activities
Splash Water Festival activities
Splash Water Festival activities
Splash Water Festival activities
Dragon Boat Rowing Dragon Boat Rowing is one of the most exciting events of the Water Festival, and is often held on the third day of the festival, Mai Paya Evening Ma. On that day, people dressed in festive costumes gather on the banks of the Lancang River and the Ruili River to watch the dragon boat race. River moored in green colorful dragon boat, the boat sits dozens of sturdy sailors, the signal sounded, ready to start the dragon boat like an arrow flying forward, suddenly the whole river, drums, gongs, trumpets, cheers, one after another, sound corresponding to the atmosphere of the festival reached a climax here. "Putting Gao Sheng" is another reserved program of the Water Festival. Gao Sheng is a kind of fireworks made by Dai people, filling the bottom of bamboo poles with gunpowder and other ingredients, placing them on the bamboo frame and connecting the fuse, often burning at night. Release high rise, ignite the fuse so that the gunpowder combustion will produce a strong thrust, will be pushed into the sky like a rocket bamboo. Bamboo spit with white smoke, emitting whooshing whistling sound, while in the air released brilliant pyrotechnics, as if the flowers, colorful, very wonderful. The ground is cheering, applauding one after another, talking, praising the sound of endless, very lively.
The Water Festival Dance
The Dai people can sing and dance well, and the Water Festival is naturally filled with dance. Large-scale dances are mainly arranged on the third day of the festival, such as the Elephant Foot Dance and Peacock Dance. From seven or eight year old dolls to seventy or eighty year olds, they all put on their festive costumes and gather in the village square to participate in the collective dance. The Elephant's Foot Dance is enthusiastic, steady and elegant. The dancers form a circle and dance with manganese gongs and elephant foot drums, cheering "my, my" or "water, water" while dancing! Peacock dance is beautiful, elegant, lyrical, is the soul of the Dai dance, dance to the peacock's various postures as the basis for the recreation of the interest and beauty, focusing on the cohesion of the Dai sons and daughters of the aesthetic purpose. There are also many dancers to show off their own improvisation, some sing while dancing, some even dance while drinking, such as intoxicated, wild and unrestrained, jumping for days and nights without knowing fatigue.
Editing the Dai Family
Family Forms
The basic form of the Dai family is the monogamous matriarchal small family. As places differ in social development, there are thus differences in the form of family marriages. In Xishuangbanna, more remnants of dyadic marriages are still retained before liberation, which is manifested in the fact that family and marriage relations are not very stable, and marriage and divorce are relatively free. However, due to the existence of the family and village community form, the marriage of young people is directly related to the rights and obligations they should enjoy towards the family and village community, and therefore requires the consent of the family head and the head of the village community. When a man and a woman have matured in love, the man invites his uncle and aunt to go to the woman to propose marriage. At this time, the woman's parents generally do not speak, as a rule, by the head of the family and the head of the village community to answer, asking "door" years and how to feast friends and relatives, etc., by the head of the head of the family can be recognized to get married. After the marriage, the man must go to the woman's home to work for several years as promised before he can take his wife back. When a new family is established, the village community will distribute the "share of land". If the two sides do not agree, with the consent of the headman, hand each other a pair of wax strips even if the divorce formalities; if the male party left home for several months without news, the woman can find another spouse; one party died, no matter how old, but also to do the divorce formalities, that is, a pair of wax strips placed on the coffin of the deceased, will be sent to the museum material to the mouth of the building, that is, said and the deceased divorced. Gengma, Menglian Dai family marriage form and Xishuangbanna is much the same, but the remnants of the spouse marriage is more diluted, the main performance can not be easily divorced.
Family Marriage
Family marriage in the Dai areas of Dehong and the interior has a more distinctive feudal color, and the marriage is completely built on the basis of sale and arrangement. The general bride price is 300 yuan, and there are a variety of other expenses, such as the burden of "opening money", "closing money", "worship money", "the Buddha fees", "recognition fees", "matchmaking fees" and so on, amounting to more than a dozen kinds of fees. This has essentially become the price of women. Many young men from poor families, unable to afford this fee, have taken the form of stealing relatives and picking up marriages, i.e., men and women will set a date for a "wedding" after their feelings have matured. Young men times their partners, with a machete, copper, to the predetermined location of the ambush, to be the girl came, "grab" and run. The girl pretends to shout to inform her family, the male will withdraw the coins to escape. The fait accompli will be entrusted to the matchmaker to the woman's home to propose marriage, the two sides invited the head, friends and relatives will discuss the solution, the bride price is set, before the formal marriage. In addition, in these areas, the phenomenon of the family is also more common, but in nature and Xishuangbanna has been completely different, it is not a remnant of the original custom, but the product of feudal marriage. The social status of those who enter the family is extremely low, and their children have no right to inherit property. The Dai are men marrying women.
The Dai Wedding
The wedding of the Dai people is called the "Golden Yawn", which means a wedding banquet. The wedding date can only be set during the period from the "Open Door Festival" to the "Close Door Festival" (after December 15 of the Dai calendar and before September 15 of the following year), and the wedding ceremony will be held at the bride's home with the bridegroom blessing the bride and tying up the threads as the main content. The wedding ceremony is held at the bride's house, where pigs and chickens (some people also slaughter cows) are killed, and sumptuous banquets are prepared for friends and relatives and the townspeople of the village. On the day of the wedding, in the bride's house, set up "Mao Huan" (directly translated as soul table), set up one to three contempt table, with banana leaves on the surface, on top of a pair of boiled male and female chickens, and glutinous rice in banana leaves, as well as rice wine, pounded salt sticks, salt, bananas, red cloth, white cloth, white thread and other things. The male and female roosters are covered with caps made of banana leaves called "Soretong" in Dai language. After making preparations for the wedding, the bride's girlfriend accompanies the bride as she dresses up and waits for the groom to come to the door. The bridegroom also dresses up at home, and accompanied by friends and relatives, goes to the bride's bamboo house to perform the marriage ceremony. At the beginning of the ceremony, the bridegroom is seated in the center of the "Mauhuan", the elders sit around the table, a couple of men and women according to the position of the right and the left face the bridegroom and kneeling, surrounded by friends and relatives on both sides. Those sitting in front of the "Mawhun" extend their right hand on the table and listen quietly to the celebrant recite the toast. The bridegroom removed the cover on the food leaf cap, first for the bride and groom blessing: "Today is a good, auspicious day, now is the best hour of the day, you two love to be married, gold phoenix and copper phoenix into a pair, the day will be happy and beautiful, I wish to give birth to a son will get a son, looking forward to giving birth to a woman will get a woman, I wish you all happiness and prosperity, and will never part. " . After the bridegroom and bridegroom read the toast, each of them pulls down a ball of glutinous rice on the table, dips it in some rice wine, salt, pounds salt, and places it in front of the table. The bridegroom took a long white thread and wrapped it around the shoulders of the bride and groom from left to right, and put the ends of the thread on top of the "Mao Huan", indicating that the hearts of the couple are tied together. Then take two strands of white thread, respectively, wrapped around the wrists of the bride and groom, wishing the newlyweds a hundred years of good luck, no disasters. The elders present also each take two strands of white thread, respectively, tied to the groom, the bride's hands, while tied to the line, while reading some words of wishing. After chaining the line, the wedding ceremony is basically over, the wedding banquet began, the bride and groom to toast to the guests.