Dai people have their own language. Language belongs to Zhuang and Dai branch of Sino-Tibetan language family. Xishuangbanna and Dehong, two popular Dai languages, are pinyin characters, which evolved from Pali in southern India. Dai people can not only sing and dance well, but also create splendid culture, among which Dai calendar, Dai medicine and narrative poems are the most famous. Dai calendar year is solar calendar year, and month is lunar calendar month. A year is divided into three seasons: cold, hot and rainy, and September every three years is a leap month. This calendar is still widely used in Thailand, Myanmar and other places. Dai medicine, together with Mongolian, Tibetan and Uygur medicine, has become the four most famous ethnic medicine systems in China. There are many long narrative poems circulating in Dai areas, such as Zhao Shutun and Nanmu Nannuo, Lanjiaxi River and Ayi's Story. Dai opera has a history of 100 years. Most Dai people believe in Buddhism, which spreads from south to north.
The output of Dai rubber in Xishuangbanna has increased significantly. Pu 'er tea is well-known at home and abroad, and local and township enterprises have developed rapidly, including mining, machinery, electric power, chemistry, ceramics, leather, paper making and other factories and mines.
Detailed national festivals
The main festivals of the Dai people are the Dai calendar New Year-Water-splashing Festival, Closing Festival and Opening Festival. The "Water-splashing Festival" is a traditional festival for the Dai people to bid farewell to the old year and welcome the new year. The time is in the middle of April in the Gregorian calendar. The main activities during the festival are ancestor worship, sand piling, water splashing, packet loss, dragon boat race, lighting fire and singing and dancing carnival.
National taboo
Taboo: it is forbidden for outsiders to ride horses, drive cattle, carry loads and enter the stockade unkempt; When entering the Dai bamboo house, you should take off your shoes outside the door and walk gently inside. You can't sit above or across the fireplace, enter the owner's inner room, or sit on the threshold; The tripod on the fireplace can't move, and the fire can't be pushed; Don't whistle and cut your nails at home; Don't use clothes as pillows, and don't sit on pillows; When hanging clothes, the coat should be hung at a high place, and the pants and skirts should be hung at a low place; Take off your shoes when entering the Buddhist temple, and avoid touching the head, Buddha statue, spear, banner and other Buddhist sacred objects of the young monk. Don't talk loudly at will.
Ethnic diet
Daily diet custom: Most Dai people have the habit of having two meals in the solar eclipse, with rice and glutinous rice as the staple food. Dehong Dai's staple food is japonica rice, and Xishuangbanna Dai's staple food is glutinous rice. Usually eaten immediately. People think that japonica rice and rice need to be eaten immediately without losing their original color and fragrance, so they don't eat overnight meals or rarely eat them, and they are used to pinching rice with their hands. Migrant workers often eat fish meals in the wild. They make glutinous rice balls out of banana leaves or rice, which can be eaten with salt, pepper, sour meat, roast chicken, Mi Nan (which means sauce in Dai) and moss pine. 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 pickled cabbage. It is made by drying vegetables, then boiling them in water, adding papaya to make the taste sour, and then drying them and storing them. Put a little stir-fry or put it in soup when eating. This kind of sauerkraut is eaten almost every day by Dai people in some places. It is said that Dai people often eat sauerkraut 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 don't eat or eat less mutton. Dai people who live in the mainland like to eat 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. Eating with moss is a unique flavor dish of Dai people. The moss eaten by the Dai people is the moss on the rocks in the river in spring, preferably dark green. After fishing, tear it into thin slices, dry it, and put it on with a bamboo stick for later use. When cooking, the thick ones are fried and the thin ones are roasted with fire. Crushed into a bowl after crispy, then poured in boiling oil, then stirred with salt, and dipped in glutinous rice balls or bacon, which was extremely delicious. Cooking fish, mostly sour fish or roasted citronella fish, in addition to making fish chops (that is, grilled fish mashed with coriander and other spices), fish jelly, grilled fish, white sauce eel and so on. When eating crabs, they are usually chopped into crab paste with shell and meat for cooking. Dai people call this crab sauce "crab rice cloth". Bitter gourd is a daily vegetable with the highest yield and consumption. In addition to bitter gourd, Xishuangbanna also has a kind of bitter bamboo shoots, so there is also a bitter taste in Dai flavor. The representative bitter vegetable is a mixture of cowhide and cold dishes cooked with ingredients such as ox gall.
There are many kinds of insects in the hot and humid areas of Dai nationality. It is an important part of Dai food to make various flavor dishes and snacks with insects as raw materials. Insects that are often eaten are cicadas, bamboo worms, Okubo, soft-shelled turtles and ant eggs. Catching cicadas is 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 picked the cicada into a bamboo raft and baked it in a pot to make a sauce. Cicada sauce has the medicinal functions of clearing away heat and toxic materials, relieving pain and swelling. Dai people generally like to eat ant eggs. They often eat a yellow ant that nests in trees. When taking ant eggs, drive the ants away first, and then take eggs. Ant eggs vary in size, some are as big as mung beans and some are as small as rice grains. They are white and bright, washed and dried, and fried with eggs. They are delicious. They can be eaten raw or cooked. Make a sauce when you eat it raw, and fry it with eggs when it is cooked. Commonly used sour fruit and bitter gourd.
Dai people are addicted to alcohol, but their alcohol content is not high. They brewed it themselves, and it tastes very sweet. Tea is a local specialty, but Dai people only drink big leaf tea without spices. When drinking, only stir-fry on the fire until it is burnt, and drink it slightly after brewing. Chewing betel nut, mixed with tobacco and lime, all day long. Because of long-term chewing, the lips and teeth are black and the mouth fluid is like blood, which makes people feel beautiful. Pottery-burning industry is relatively developed, and tableware is mostly fired by women.
Dai water-splashing festival
The Dai nationality in China is a minority with a long cultural tradition and a population of nearly one million. They mainly live in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in southern Yunnan, Dehong Autonomous Prefecture in western Yunnan, Gengma, Menglian and other autonomous counties, and others are scattered all over Yunnan.
Dai nationality has a long history, and Dai language belongs to Zhuang and Dai language branch of Sino-Tibetan language family. The whole people believe in Buddhism, but primitive religious activities are also very common, such as worship of gods, ghosts, agriculture, hunting, spiritual objects and so on.
The origin of Songkran Festival
Songkran Festival is the New Year's Festival of the Dai people, and it is also the most important festival of the Dai people. It is held in April of the lunar calendar (equivalent to May of the Dai calendar) every year and usually lasts for three to four days. The first day is "Mairi", which is similar to Chinese New Year's Eve. Dai language calls it "ten thousand business letters", which means to send the old. At this time, people have to tidy up their houses, clean up, and prepare for the New Year's Eve dinner and various activities during the festival. The next day is called "Angry Day", which means "Empty Day". According to custom, this day is neither the year before nor the year after, so it is an "empty day"; The third day is called "Maipaya Wanma". It is said that this is the day when the soul of the late Maipaya returned to Earth with a new calendar. People used to regard this day as the arrival of the King of Heaven, that is, New Year's Day in the Dai calendar.
The Songkran Festival originated in India and was a ceremony of ancient Brahmanism, which was later absorbed by Buddhism. 12 century to 13 century, it was introduced into the Dai area of China with Buddhism. With the deepening influence of Buddhism in Dai areas, the Water-splashing Festival has been circulated as a national custom for hundreds of years. During the spread of the Water-splashing Festival, the Dai people gradually combined it with their own myths and legends, giving the Water-splashing Festival more magical significance and national color.