What is the traditional culture of the Dai people

Traditional Culture of the Dai People:

1. Language and Culture

The Dai people have their own language and writing, and their language belongs to the Zhuang-Dai branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The two kinds of Dai scripts in Xishuangbanna and Dehong, which are now in use, are pinyin scripts evolved from Pali script in southern India. The Dai people are not only good at singing and dancing, but also have created a splendid culture, which is especially famous for the Dai calendar, Dai medicine and narrative poems.

2. Festivals and Culture

The major festivals of the Dai people are the Water Splashing Festival, the Door Closing Festival and the Door Opening Festival of the Dai New Year. "The Water Splashing Festival is a traditional festival for the Dai people to welcome the new year, which takes place in the middle of April in the Gregorian calendar. The main activities during the festival are worshiping ancestors, piling up sand, splashing water, throwing bags, racing dragon boats, setting off fireworks and singing and dancing.

3, food culture

The Dai mostly 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 now eat, folk think: round-grained rice and rice need to 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 with a hand pinch rice.

Expanded information:

Dai taboos:

1. Taboo of outsiders riding horses, Driving cattle, picking up burdens and disheveled hair into the village; into the Dai family bamboo building, to take off their shoes outside the door, and in the house to walk lightly; can not sit on top of the fire or across the fire, can not enter the master's inner room, can not sit on the threshold; can not move the tripod on the fire, and can not use their feet to step on the fire.

2, it is taboo to whistle and cut nails in the house; not allowed to use clothes as pillows or sit on pillows; when sunbathing clothes, tops should be sunbathing in the high place, pants and skirts should be sunbathing in the low place; to enter the Buddhist temple to take off their shoes, it is forbidden to touch a series of Buddhist holy objects such as the head of the young monk, Buddha statues, goshawks and flags and streamers.

3, the bedroom is not allowed outsiders to peep, the past custom stipulates that if the host found outsiders peeping into the master's bedroom, the man will have to be the host's son-in-law, or to the host's home to do three years of hard labor, even if it is a female guest will have to serve three years in the host's home.

Reference:

People's Daily Online - Dai