1, the cultural customs of the Wa people
New Fire Festival: The Wa people's New Year Festival is full of the color of "saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new". Every December of the lunar calendar or January of the following year, every household in the village should put out the fire in the fire pit under the command of the elders and hold a ceremony of "sending the old fire". Then they went to the sacred mountain to get new kindling by "drilling wood for fire", and took it to their elders' homes to burn it, and then each household took it back for use. For Wa people, the new fire sacrifice is the end of disaster, hunger and disease, and the beginning of good luck, adequate food and health.
Sowing Festival: It is held every year around March 15th of the lunar calendar. Before sowing, the chieftain should first summon the elders in the village to kill chickens and watch divination, choose an auspicious day to worship the soul of the valley, and then each household will start sowing in the fields. In the evening, everyone eats and drinks around the fireplace, and then sings in the square, praying for good weather and good harvests.
2. The characteristics of Wa nationality
Language and culture: Wa people have their own unique Wa language, which belongs to Burmese branch of Sino-Tibetan language family, which is quite different from other Sino-Tibetan language families. Wa people have their own writing system, but Chinese characters are mainly used in modern daily life. Wa culture has strong national characteristics, including music, dance, costumes and religious customs.
Living area: Wa people are mainly distributed in Nujiang, Dehong, Lincang and other places in the southwest of Yunnan Province, especially in the mountainous areas of Nujiang Prefecture and Fugong County. Due to the limitation of geographical environment, Wa people live in mountainous areas or remote areas.
Wa nationality clothing
Wa costumes vary from place to place. The traditional men's wear of the Wa nationality in Ximeng is collarless coat, short and fat trousers, with black or red cloth wrapped around their heads, and the necks of young men are decorated with bamboo rings or rattan rings. Women wear black collarless tops, straight skirts, silver hoops or bamboo hoops on their heads, silver collars and several strings of beads as badges, and several rattan rings around their waists and necks. They also like to wear many silver bracelets and big earrings.
The men's wear of the Wa nationality in Cangyuan is a round neck double-breasted coat, short and fat trousers, and a piece of black or red cloth wrapped around their heads. Women are beautiful with long hair, wearing silver or aluminum earrings and collars, short skirts with round neck, narrow sleeves and right slits, rows of silver bubbles on their chests, and long straight skirts with various patterns. The Wa costumes in Yongde and Zhenkang are basically the same as the local Han costumes.
Reference to the above content: Baidu Encyclopedia-Wa Nationality