Dai is one of the ethnic minorities in China. Mainly living in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Dehong Autonomous Prefecture and Gengma, Menglian, Jinggu, Xinping, Jinping, Yuanjiang and Shuangjiang, population 1075 128. Mainly engaged in agriculture. Temple towers, bamboo buildings and bamboo bridges show unique architectural art. Dai is a nation with a long history. Its ancestors were called "Yunnan and Vietnam", "Shaanxi", "Good at", "Liao" and "Kuliao" in the Han and Jin Dynasties, and its distribution area was also called "elephant riding country". During the Tang and Song Dynasties, they were called "the headstrong man", "golden teeth", "silver teeth" and "white clothes". Yuan and Ming dynasties were called "white clothes" and "hundred oceans". After the Qing Dynasty, it was called "throwing clothes" or "throwing clothes". Dai calls himself a nation. According to the distribution area, there are also self-styled Dai Li, Daizhan and Daiduan, which were called Dai according to the national wishes after the founding of New China. In addition, Dai people in different regions are called "Han Dai", "Shui Dai" and "Huayao Dai" because of their different customs and costumes.
Dai people have their own language and writing. Dai language belongs to Zhuang-Dai language branch of Zhuang-Dong language family of Sino-Tibetan language family. Dai language comes from the phonetic symbols of Sanskrit letters. Dai Li, Dai Na, Dai Zhan and Jinping were originally four kinds, and now they are popular in Xishuangbanna and Dehong.
Beautiful Xishuangbanna
Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture is located in the southwest border of China, where there are more than a dozen ethnic minorities such as Dai, Hani, Bulang, Jino, Lahu and Yao. Tang and Song Dynasties were under the jurisdiction of Nanzhao and Dali local governments; During the Song Dynasty (A.D. 1 180), Bazhen, the leader of the Dai nationality, established the local government of Menglong with Jinghong as the center. The yuan dynasty set up a military and civilian general office in the car; In the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was changed to Xuanwei Division in the car; During the Republic of China, Sipu Frontier Defense Bureau was established and later changed to Sipu Frontier Defense Bureau; 1953,65438+123 was established as an autonomous region, 1955 was changed into an autonomous prefecture in June, covering Jinghong, Menghai and Mengla counties, with a total area of 19220 square kilometers.
According to legend, a A Dai leader named Paajala Wu climbed 9999 mountains and crossed 9999 rivers in order to catch a Jin Lu. In front of him, a beautiful golden lake appeared and Jin Lu jumped into it. At that time, the lotus flowers were in full bloom on the lake, the trees were lush and the birds were singing. Paajala Wu deeply fell in love with this "beautiful and magical paradise"-Mount Paranasi, which is today's Xishuangbanna. Xishuangbanna, Dai language means "twelve thousand fields". "Xishuang" is twelve, and "Banna" is Chida. In A.D. 1570, the missionary knife on the bus divided the jurisdiction into twelve land tax units, each with a land tax amount. Later, he established twelve administrative regions on this basis.
Xishuangbanna has beautiful scenery and rich products, with more than 20,000 species of plants, including about 5,000 tropical higher plants, accounting for one-sixth of the country. It is not only a plant kingdom, but also a natural zoo with more than 200 kinds of rare birds and animals. At the same time, it is also the origin of "the hometown of southern medicine" and "Pu 'er tea".
Interesting Dai place names
In Dai areas, there are countless Dai place names like Xishuangbanna, but their Chinese literal meaning is far from the actual meaning. Therefore, these place names must not be understood literally. The doggerel "There is no dragon in Menglong Dragonfly, there is no island in Iceland, my sister is not my sister, and Nanjing is not a stone city" just illustrates this situation. The Dai language "dragon" is big, while Menglong and Longfei are "dam" and "shade"; "Island" is moss, Lane Island and Iceland are "pools with moss" and "corners with moss". "Sister" is the city, and Sister Gao and Sister Xiang are the "Old City" and "Gem City". There are Nanjing Township and Nanjing Street in zhenyuan county, and Nanjing Lane in Ruili County. In fact, in Dai language, "south" means rivers and water sources, "Beijing" means eating, and "Li" means good. "Nanjing" is a place with water to eat, and "Nanjing Li" is a place with good water to eat.
Jinghong, the seat of the state capital of Xishuangbanna, means the city of dawn, with "scenery" as the town and "red" as the dawn. Legend has it that Buddha Sakyamuni traveled and preached everywhere. When he got there, it was just the time when the night broke and the rooster crowed, so the Buddha named this place "City of Dawn". The Buddha moved on. When he came to Luhong Village in Jinghong, it was just breakfast time, so it was called "Zhuanghong Road". "Zhuanghong Road" is a mixed place name of Dai language and Chinese. "Zhuanghong" is English, which means breakfast is the first meal, and "Road" is Chinese. When the Buddha bypassed Mengyang and climbed the manpo of Jinuo Mountain, he turned around and found that there was still a small place that had not arrived, so he exclaimed: "Mengyang Cave!" -there is still a small piece of place left! This place is called or Yang. "Meng" is the place, "nurturing" is the profit, and "Dong" is the small one. The above place names come from Buddhism, and it is not difficult to see the Dai people's admiration and worship for Buddhism.
There are also some Dai place names related to the natural environment and natural resources. Mannan Han in East Gansu means "Jinhuzhai". "Full" is a village, "thick" is a lake, and "thin" is gold. It is said that there used to be a lake here, and the golden deer often came to drink water, hence the name. This reminds people of the legend that Paajala chased Jin Lu to the magical Xishuangbanna. Maybe this is the golden lake where Jin Lu jumped. Menghun in Menghai County is the place where the river flows backwards, "Meng" is the place, and "muddy" is the retrogression. There is a river in Menghun County called Nanhun River, which means a river that turns around and flows. Legend has it that the Nanhun River was originally from the Grand River to the southeast. The Buddha swam here and pointed his wand at the west, and the river turned around and flowed back to the west. So there is the name of "South Mixed" and "Meng Mixed". There is also Mengla, which means the land of tea production; Menglun, meaning the land of soft stones; Black, meaning "salt well"; Grinding means "good leadership" and so on.
Custom/etiquette
Dai people taboo outsiders to ride horses, drive cattle, carry loads, and send hair into the village indiscriminately; 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 a Buddhist temple, and avoid touching the head of the young monk, the Buddha statue and other Buddhist sacred objects.
The Dai people generally believe in Hinayana Buddhism and many festivals are related to Buddhist activities. Songkran Festival is the biggest festival held by Dai people every June. At that time, monks, relatives and friends will hold a big banquet to splash water on each other. During the Songkran Festival, besides wine and vegetables, there are many Dai snacks. The more important festivals of the Dai people are the closing festival and the opening festival, both of which are Hinayana Buddhist festivals. Dai people in Xinping, Yuanjiang, Jinggu and Jinping celebrate the Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival with the same content and activities as the local Han people.
Every Dai family in Xishuangbanna should help build a house. Congratulations on the completion of the new house. First of all, the young man went upstairs, carrying a cow's head and singing a song of blessing. Mature men carry boxes, and married women carry bedding. The girls take turns carrying food. Then they set up a tripod on the fireplace, set the table, bought wine and prepared dishes, and sang songs to congratulate the new house. The villagers also send some auspicious gifts to their owners.
Dai people also worship the village gods. Dai people call it "going to Raman", which means protecting the gods. They worship twice a year. Worship the harvest before planting seedlings and give thanks after the autumn harvest. The tributes prepared by each family are sent to the special room of the social god, and after reading the sacrificial words, everyone eats. New members of the club should provide chicken, wine and bacon strips to the god of society. In Yuanjiang and Xinping, the Dai people generally worship dragon trees and dragons. When the Dai people in Yuanjiang sacrifice the dragon tree in the third month of the lunar calendar every year, the whole village will kill the red bull. Before slaughter, they will paint the red bull with white ash and spread red and green cloth on it. In the same month, in order to protect the safety of livestock, pigs will be sacrificed to Heaven and Earth.
marriage customs
Chasing yellow chickens is a way for young men and women in Xishuangbanna to seek love by eating rumors, that is, girls take yellow chickens to the market to sell. If the buyer is a girl's lover, the girl will take the initiative to take out the stool and let him sit next to it. Through conversation, if the two sides love each other, they will carry chickens and stools to pour out their feelings in the Woods; If the buyer is not the girl's lover, the girl will double the asking price.
"Eat a little wine", men and women are engaged, the man cleans up the dining tables and goes to the woman's house to treat them. When the guests dispersed, the man was accompanied by three men, and the woman and her three women set a table. "Eat some wine" means eating three dishes: the first one is spicy; The second way is to put more salt; The third course should have sweets. It means passion, depth and sweetness. Congratulations on the completion of the new house. The young man went upstairs first, carrying a bull's head and singing blessing song. Mature men carry boxes, married women carry bedding, and girls carry food in turn. Then they set up a tripod on the fireplace, set the wine table, prepared dishes and sang songs to congratulate the completion of the new house. The villagers also send some auspicious gifts to their owners.
On the wedding day, the wedding will be held in both parties' homes, mostly in the woman's home first. At the wedding reception, the table should be covered with green banana leaves, and the dishes include blood flourishing (white flourishing) symbolizing good luck, rice cakes and various dishes. Before the banquet, the bride and groom should make a tie ceremony, that is, the wedding uses a white line to bypass the shoulders of both sides, and two white lines are tied to the wrists of the bride and groom respectively, symbolizing purity. Then, the old man kneaded the glutinous rice into a triangle, dipped it in salt, and put it on the top of a tripod on the fireplace to let it fall off naturally after burning, symbolizing that love is as strong as iron.
Dress
Dai people are divided into "Han Dai", "Shui Dai" and "Huayao Dai", and their different decorations represent their branch clothing culture. In particular, Xinping's "Huayao Dai" clothing and Jinping's Qingdai clothing are of great cultural value.
Dai costumes are elegant and beautiful, which not only pay attention to practicality, but also have strong decorative meaning, which can reflect the national personality of loving life and advocating the beauty of neutrality. There is little difference in men's wear across the country. Generally, you often wear a collarless double-breasted or large-breasted small sleeve coat, long-sleeved trousers and white cloth, pink cloth or blue cloth.
Dai women's clothing varies from region to region. Dai women in Xishuangbanna wear all kinds of tight underwear, tight collarless short sleeves, colorful skirts, feet long and delicate silver belts; Some Dai women in Dehong also wear colorful big skirts and tops, while others (such as Luxi and Yingjiang) wear white or other light-colored big-breasted tops, trousers and an embroidered waist, and then change to double-breasted tops and skirts after marriage; The "Huayao Dai" in Xinping and Yuanjiang areas wore cardigans and black skirts, which were decorated with colorful strips of cloth and silver bubbles to form various patterns, which were dazzling. All kinds of Dai women's dresses can show the graceful figure of women.
Dai women like to wear long hair and tie it on their heads. Some of them are decorated with combs or flowers, some are wearing headscarves, some are wearing tall cylindrical hats, and some are wearing top hats, each with its own beauty and characteristics.
Dietary customs
Rice and glutinous rice are staple foods. 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 glutinous rice will lose their original color and fragrance only if they are eaten immediately, so they don't eat overnight meals or seldom eat them, and they are used to kneading 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 pickled cabbage. 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. Cooking fish, mostly sour fish or roasted citronella fish, in addition to making fish chop naan (that is, mashing grilled fish into mud and mixing coriander, etc.). ), fish jelly, grilled fish, eel with white sauce, etc. 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. Flavor dishes and snacks made by insects are an important part of Dai food. Common insects that eat are cicadas, bamboo worms, Okumo, soft-shelled turtle, ant eggs and so on. 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. Typical foods include dog meat soup pot, dried meat, salted eggs, dried eel and so on.
Holidays and 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. The Dai people generally believe in Hinayana Buddhism and many festivals are related to Buddhist activities. Songkran Festival is the biggest festival held by Dai people every June. At that time, Buddhists will be worshipped, and monks, relatives and friends will be entertained to splash water on each other. During the Songkran Festival, besides wine and vegetables, there are many Dai snacks. The more important festivals are the closing festival and the opening festival, both of which are Hinayana Buddhist festivals.
Dai astronomical calendar
The arithmetic commonly used by Dai people in Xishuangbanna is called "visa calculation", which is influenced by Han nationality and other nationalities. The multiplication formula in Dai arithmetic books is translated from the formulas of Han nationality and other nationalities. Use it in your mother tongue. Dai arithmetic has no symbols of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division; The calculation method is from left to right, while calculating, erasing the calculated numbers, and finally getting the numbers on the left. People who are good at calculating and understand calendars can accurately calculate leap years, leap months and solar eclipses by this method. ?
Dai people call the calendar "Zulasaha" or "Sahaha", and there are many books that record and study calendars. There are two kinds of common almanac: one is to calculate the time of festivals, list many tables, and arrange the main contents of many almanac on them; The other is a calendar. The difference between Dai calendar and Gregorian calendar is 638 years, that is, Gregorian calendar is 639 years as the first year of Dai calendar. The Dai calendar begins in June and ends in June of the following year. Because of leap year and leap month, this festival is not fixed in June, and sometimes it may be extended to July. The Dai people's Lunar New Year will last for three or four days. The first day is New Year's Eve, the last day of the coming year. The third or fourth day is the first day of the new year, and the remaining one or two days are neither the old year nor the new year. There are leap years and leap months in Dai calendar. There are 12 months in a year on average, and odd months are big months, with 30 days per month. A few months is an abortion, 29 days a month and 354 days a year. Leap year every three to six years, fixed in August, this year is thirty days. A leap month is a leap every two or three years, a leap in nineteen years, a fixed leap in September, and thirty days. This year is also called double September. The Dai calendar is called Deng Jing in January and light poles in February. The Dai calendar calculates the months according to the period of the moon. Therefore, the daily order of each month is basically the same as that of the Han Chinese calendar. The Dai calendar also calls every day in the first half of each month the first day and the second day of each month. Call every day in the second half of the month, the next day, the second day of the next month. On the 15th, the moon is full, which is called Dengda, and on the first day of the first month, it is called Dengda. Dai people have four weeks in January and seven or eight days in a week. Like the lunar calendar, the Dai calendar marks the year, month and day with dry branches; However, the objects represented by the Twelve Branches of the Dai nationality are not exactly the same as those of the Han nationality. For example, "Zi" represents an elephant instead of a mouse, and "Chen" represents a jiaozi or a serpent instead of a dragon. ?
According to the local temperature characteristics, the Dai people divide the year into three seasons, with 1 April as the cold season, May to August as the hot season, and September to1February as the rainy season. In fact, a year is clearly divided into dry season and rainy season. Dehong, Gengma, Xinping, Yuanjiang and other places mainly use the lunar calendar of the Han nationality.