Dai nationality-introduction
Dai is a unique ethnic group in Yunnan, mainly living in Xishuangbanna, Dehong, Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, Gengma and Menglian, which are fertile and fertile in tropical and subtropical climate.
Dai ancestors were one of the ancient Baiyue, and "Dai" means people who love freedom and peace. The national characteristics of the Dai nationality are distinct and prominent, and people generally like singing and dancing. The dance images are vivid and delicate, and the movements are mostly simulation and beautification of animal forms. The most popular ones are "peacock dance" and "Elephant Foot Drum Dance", especially "peacock dance", whose graceful dancing and delicate emotions make the peacock, a beautiful animal, vividly simulated, personified and beautified, bringing people into a poetic realm, and making the audience in metropolis fall for it.
Dai language belongs to Sino-Tibetan language family, which belongs to Dai language branch of Zhuang-Dong language family. Dai people have their own writing, which is used by Dai people to record rich historical legends, religious classics and literary poems. Dai people can not only sing and dance well, but also create splendid culture, especially Dai calendar, Dai medicine and narrative poems.
Dai nationality-history
Since ancient times, the ancestors of the Dai people have lived in Yunnan, Guangxi and Guizhou, and have close relations with the Zhuang, Shui, Buyi and Li nationalities, all of which originated from the ancient "Baiyue". They take "tattooing hair" as the same custom, but they are mixed with each other. Their footprints are still in Laos, northern Thailand, Myanmar and India. They are the earliest people who cultivated rice and used plowing. In BC 1 century, there were records about Dai ancestors in Chinese historical books.
Dai people-etiquette
Since ancient times, the Dai people have been a people who pay attention to etiquette. When foreigners arrive at the Dai family, the host will take the initiative to say hello, serve tea and water, and entertain meals. No matter men, women and children, they always smile at their guests, speak softly, never shout, swear or swear. When women walk in front of guests, they should gather their skirts and bow their waists. The guest is downstairs, not from the upstairs where the guest is located. Every family has several sets of clean bedding for hospitality. In some Dai villages, there is also a "Sarah room" dedicated to receiving guests along the road.
When you visit the Dai family, you will also be treated with "splashing water" and "tying the thread" by your host. When the guests arrived, there was a small booth of Dai nationality at the door, holding water soaked with petals in a silver bowl and splashing it gently on the guests with branches and leaves. After taking a seat on the bamboo building, old Mi Tao will tie a thread to the guest's wrist to wish him luck, peace and happiness. The distant guests who have been to the Dai village are moved by the warm and friendly reception of the Dai people, leaving an unforgettable impression.
Dai people-festivals
The major festivals of the Dai people include "Closing Festival", "Opening Festival" and Water-splashing Festival. The "Closing Festival" is in the middle of July, which is the busy farming season, and most Buddhist festivals are concentrated in this period, so as to concentrate on production, and at the same time, a grand "Buddha-worship" activity will be held to offer Buddha with food, flowers, silver coins and paper money. The "Closing Day" will last for about three months until the "Opening Day" in mid-October.
The biggest festival of the Dai people is the Water-splashing Festival. The time is in April every year. According to the time series, April of the solar calendar is equivalent to the first month of the Dai calendar. The Water-splashing Festival is also the Dai New Year Festival. According to the traditional custom, early in the morning, people will bring flowers and green leaves to the Buddhist temple to offer sacrifices, and take the clear water to welcome the Buddha. After all this, the mass splashing water on each other began. I saw groups of young men and women, using copper bowls and washbasins to hold water, pouring out of the streets, playing and chasing, splashing on everyone, soaking wet from head to toe. This is auspicious water, blessed water. People splash and pour it heartily. No matter who splashes or is splashed, they are extremely happy and laugh loudly ...
During the Songkran Festival, a dragon boat race will be held on the vast Lancang River. The water boat will be decorated with colorful flowers, dressed as Jackie Chan, peacock and big fish, and dozens of young men and women will paddle hard. The audience on both sides of the strait will be like clouds, and the sound of gongs and drums and cheers will resound through the sky.
At night, the villages set off fireworks, which were made by the Dai people themselves. Use a bamboo with a length of tens of feet, fill the root with gunpowder and other ingredients, and put it on the elevated bamboo. When the fuse is lit and the gunpowder burns, bamboo flies into the sky like a rocket, and emits gorgeous fireworks in the air, just like flowers, stars shining and dazzling, which makes the festival night sky particularly beautiful.
The Songkran Festival is a welcoming festival, and a joyful festival usually takes three to five days.
Dai nationality-marriage custom
"Catch up with the yellow chicken" is a way for young men and women in Xishuangbanna to seek love by eating rumors, that is, the girl takes the yellow chicken to the market for sale. If the buyer is the girl's lover, the girl will take the initiative to take out the stool and let him sit next to him. Through conversation, if the two sides are in love, the two will carry the chicken and carry the stool to the Woods to pour out their feelings; If the buyer is not the girl's lover, the girl will double the asking price.
"Eat a little wine", when men and women are engaged, the man picks up the dining tables and goes to the woman's house to treat them. When the guests disperse, the man is accompanied by three male companions and three female companions, and a table is set. "Eating a little wine" means eating three dishes: the first one is hot; The second way is more salt; The third course should have sweets. It means hot, deep and sweet. When the new house is completed, it is necessary to congratulate the new house. The young man goes upstairs first, carrying the bull's head and singing blessing song. The mature man carries the box, the married woman carries the bedding, and the girls carry the food in turn. Then they set up a tripod on the fireplace, set the table for wine and prepare dishes, and sing songs to congratulate the new house. The villagers also send some auspicious gifts to their owners.
On the wedding day, weddings will be held at both parties' homes, mostly at the women's home first. At the wedding reception, the table should be covered with green banana leaves, and the dishes include blood flourishing, white flourishing, rice cakes and various dishes symbolizing good luck. Before the banquet, the bride and groom should do a tying ceremony, that is, the wedding ceremony uses a white thread to bypass the shoulders of both sides, and two white threads are tied to the wrists of the bride and groom respectively, symbolizing purity. Then, the elderly people knead the glutinous rice into a triangle and dip it in salt, and put it on the vertex of a tripod on a fireplace, letting it fall off naturally after burning, symbolizing that love is as solid as iron.
Dai people-clothing
In the traditional costumes of the Dai people, men mostly wear double-breasted or big-breasted collarless blouses and fat trousers, and a few people wear dark tubular skirts with white, blue, light blue and light yellow cloth heads; There are obvious differences in women's clothing due to different regions. Women in Xishuangbanna wear white, crimson or light green tight-fitting narrow-sleeved blouses, all kinds of skirts with feet-length, silver belts, and women's hair accessories are very particular, with high hair bun and flowers inserted in the bun; There are also large cloth towels wrapped around the head. Dehong and Gengma's women wore waist-length jackets and colorful skirts, with the bun at the back of their heads and the rest of them dragging behind their backs. Clothing materials used to be homespun, but now they are mostly silk and muslin, which shows the graceful and graceful figure of Dai women.
Dai people-diet
Rice and glutinous rice are the staple foods. Dehong Dai's staple food is japonica rice, while Xishuangbanna Dai's staple food is glutinous rice. Usually, it is eaten immediately. People believe that japonica rice and rice need to be eaten immediately without losing their original color and fragrance, so they don't eat overnight rice or rarely eat it, and they are used to pinching rice with their hands. All dishes and snacks are mainly sour, such as sour bamboo shoots, sour pea powder, sour meat and wild sour fruit; I like to eat dried sauerkraut. It is said that the reason why Dai people often eat sour dishes is because they often eat sticky rice food that is not easy to digest, and sour food helps digestion.
The daily meat is pigs, cows, chickens and ducks, and they don't eat or eat less mutton. The Dai people living in the mainland like dog meat, are good at roast chicken and roast chicken, and are very fond of aquatic products such as fish, shrimp, crab, snails and moss. It is a unique flavor dish of Dai people to eat with moss. Cooking fish, mostly made of sour fish or roasted citronella fish, in addition to making fish chop naan, that is, the fish is roasted and pounded into mud, mixed with coriander, fish jelly, roasted fish, white sauce eel and so on. When eating crabs, they are usually chopped into crab sauce with shell and meat for rice. The Dai people call this crab sauce "Crab Nanmibu".
Bitter gourd is a daily vegetable with the highest yield and the most consumption. In addition to bitter gourd, there is also a kind of bitter bamboo shoots in Xishuangbanna, so there is also a bitter flavor in the Dai flavor. A representative bitter dish is a mixed dish of beef skin and cold dishes cooked with ingredients such as beef bile.
The Dai area is humid and hot, and there are many kinds of insects. Flavor dishes and snacks made from insects are an important part of Dai food. Insects commonly eaten are cicadas, bamboo worms, Okumo, terrapin, ant eggs and so on. Dai people are addicted to alcohol, but the degree of alcohol is not high. It is brewed by themselves and tastes sweet. Tea is a local specialty, but Dai people only drink big leaf tea without spices. When drinking, only stir-fry it on the fire until it is burnt, and drink it slightly after brewing. Chewing betel nut, mixing with tobacco and lime, all day long. Typical foods include dog meat soup pot, dried pork, salted eggs, dried eel and so on.
Dai nationality-architecture
Dai people have lived in bamboo houses for more than 1000 years. This kind of building is very suitable for the climate of tropical rain forest in South Asia. The bamboo building is divided into two floors. There is a fence on the ground floor, which is a place to store sundries and raise livestock. Upstairs is the place where family members live and live. Each bamboo building has a balcony where families can enjoy the cool breeze and dry their clothes. Inside the room is a large living room with bamboo mats, where family members sit for dinner, rest and reception. There is a fire pit in the center of the house, which can cook food and keep warm. The living room is connected to the bedroom, usually three to five, depending on the number of family members. Visitors are usually not allowed to spend the night in the bedroom.
The furniture in the house is very simple, and most of them are made of bamboo. All tables, chairs, beds, boxes, cages and baskets are made of bamboo. Every family has a simple quilt and a tent. Occasionally, some felt, lead iron and other utensils, farm tools and pot knives are only used, but few are redundant. Pottery utensils are also very common, and the patterns of water tanks are all local.
Building a new house is an important event in the life of Dai people. Before building a house, we must first choose a good address and lay the foundation stone. Next, eight main columns should be prepared. Because the whole bamboo building is built on these eight main pillars, it is very important to choose the material of the pillars. When the selected timber is carried from the Woods into the village, the villagers will blow trumpets to welcome it and splash water to bless it. Four "male pillars" and four "female pillars" should be separated from the eight pillars, and men's clothes and women's clothes should be covered on the pillars to show the difference. When building a house, the whole village will come to help, which is the tradition of the Dai family. At that time, the host should prepare rich food and wine to entertain the villagers who come to help and the relatives and friends who come to congratulate. The whole atmosphere is like a holiday.
Dai nationality-taboo
Taboo outsiders riding horses, driving cattle, carrying loads and unkempt hair into the stockade; When entering the Dai bamboo house, you should take off your shoes outside the door and walk lightly inside. You can't sit above or cross the fireplace, enter the owner's inner room, or sit on the threshold; You can't move the tripod on the fireplace, and you can't pedal the fire; Don't whistle and cut your nails at home; Do not use clothes as pillows or sit on pillows; When drying clothes, the coat should be dried at a high place, and the pants and skirts should be dried at a low place; When entering a Buddhist temple, you should take off your shoes and avoid touching the young monk's head, Buddha statues, spears, banners and other Buddhist sacred objects.
The bedroom is not allowed to be peeped by outsiders. In the past, the custom stipulated that if the host found an outsider peeking at the host's bedroom, the man would be the host's door-to-door son-in-law, or work hard in the host's house for three years, and even the female guest would have to serve in the host's house for three years. Therefore, tourists should never peek at the master's bedroom because of mystery, no matter whether they visit or be guests. Although the past customs have been broken, it is always unpopular to peek at the Dai bedroom.
Dai nationality-religion
Dai people believe in Buddhism. In the Dai area, exquisite buildings and unique shapes can be seen everywhere. According to the Dai custom, boys and boys are sent to Buddhist temples to live a monk's life when they are seven or eight years old. After entering the temple, the Buddha holds a ceremony to enter the temple, shaves off their hair, wears yellow robes and lives in the temple for three to five years. During this period, they can't go home, and everything must be self-reliant. After secularization, you can marry and have children, join the army, go to school, etc. When sending children to the temple, children usually ride on their brothers' shoulders, and relatives at home bring their daily necessities and bedding to send them. After entering the temple, the Buddha held a ceremony to enter the temple, shaved his hair, wore a yellow cassock, and lived in the temple for three to five years. During this period, he could not go home, and everything had to be self-reliant. After secularization, you can marry and have children, join the army, go to school, etc.