A nation's characteristic style composition is 30 words.

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. The completion of the new house is to congratulate 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.