First, Dai costumes:

1, women's clothing: Dai women wear all kinds of tight underwear, light-colored large-breasted or narrow-sleeved shirts, and colorful skirts with various patterns. Dai women like to tie their long hair into a bun and insert combs obliquely on the bun for decoration. Dai women like to wear jewelry, generally made of gold and silver, mostly hollowed out, engraved with exquisite patterns and patterns.

Tie a delicate silver belt around your waist. It is said that this silver belt is very precious and has been handed down from generation to generation by my mother. In fact, this is a token. If a girl gives a young man a silver belt, it means that she has fallen in love with him. Such clothes dress them up beautifully and elegantly.

2. Men's wear: There is little difference in the clothing of Dai men in different places, and they are generally simple and generous. The top is a collarless double-breasted or large-breasted small sleeve coat, and the bottom is wide waist trousers and plain trousers without pockets. Most of them wear white and blue clothes, and some people wear wool hats. They like to wear blankets in cold weather and often go barefoot all year round. This kind of clothing is light and comfortable in farming and makes the wearer look handsome in dancing. It retains the ancient characteristics, such as "clothes facing forward", "wearing a cloth towel on the head, like to hang a backpack with a short knife", but the self-woven "homespun" is rarely used in clothing. Chinese tunic suit and suit have become the fashion of Dai youth.

In recent years, small sleeve shirts with lapels and cardigans have appeared, the headscarf has been replaced by pink and green fans, and the pants are still the same. Dai men generally don't wear ornaments, and occasionally find a shiny silver bracelet on their wrists. Gold teeth and silver teeth are their hobbies. They usually pull out their front teeth and replace them with gold or silver dentures. In the past, there was a custom of tattooing, in which liger, Kirin, peacock and other figures or patterns were written on the chest, back, abdomen and limbs to show courage or pray for good luck.

3. Special accessories: Because the villages where Dai people live are rich in bamboo, they not only use bamboo to build quiet and elegant dry fence houses and make various household appliances, but also use thin bamboo strips to weave colorful bamboo hats and waist reeds as accessories. Dai people, both men and women, always like to carry a shoulder bag (handkerchief) made of cotton thread on their shoulders when they go out.

The satchel is brightly colored, simple in style, and has strong life color and national characteristics. They often weave peacock and elephant patterns on skirts, bags, quilts, cushions, curtains, towels and other daily necessities, and each pattern color is given a specific content. For example, red and green are to commemorate ancestors; Peacock pattern indicates good luck; Elephant patterns symbolize harvest and a better life; It fully shows the Dai people's yearning and pursuit of a better life.

Second, the food culture:

1. The diet of the Dai people is not only rich in material level, but also rich in connotation, fully integrated with other cultural phenomena, with multi-level and multi-characteristics. As an important way for the Dai people to participate in social communication, the significance of dietary activities has gone beyond the scope of meeting physiological needs, fully embodies the feelings and interpersonal concepts of the Dai people, and has become an indispensable cultural cohesion for maintaining social harmony and stability.

2. The dietary activities of Dai people are deeply influenced by religious ideas. Numerous religious activities not only objectively promoted the development of Dai food culture, but also formed a large-scale tradition of catering to each other in the process of the integration of religious culture and Dai food culture. Being charitable and helping others has become the "highest character" of the Dai diet. Therefore, Dai people often say that no one will starve to death in Dai township. Beggars can generously sit on the dining table of the Dai family and eat with their masters.

Third, the architectural culture:

Dai architecture is influenced by natural environment such as climate, altitude, topography and building materials, and social environment such as population, economy, religion, politics, science and technology and ideology. There are two main types, one is dry-column architecture, mainly represented by Dai architecture in Xishuangbanna and Dehong Ruili; The other is a thick and sturdy flat-topped earth palm house represented by Dai folk houses in Yuanjiang and Honghe. In addition, mangshi, Yingjiang and Lianghe in Dehong are bungalows similar to Han architecture.

Fourth, Dai festivals:

Dai people have many festivals, the most representative of which is the Dai water splashing festival. The Dai Water-splashing Festival is also called "Bathing Buddha Festival", and the Dai language is called "Sambimai" (meaning New Year). Dai people in Dehong area of Xishuangbanna also call this festival "Shang Han" and "Shang Jian". Both names are derived from Sanskrit, meaning turnover, change and transfer, which means that the sun runs around the zodiac and begins to transition to the New Year. Achang, De 'ang, Bulang, Wa and other ethnic groups celebrate this festival.

Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and other countries also celebrated the Songkran Festival. The Songkran Festival is usually held in the middle of June in the Dai calendar (about ten days before and after the Tomb-Sweeping Day in the lunar calendar), and it is one of the most solemn traditional festivals in Xishuangbanna. Its contents include folk activities, art performances, economic and trade exchanges and so on. Specific festival activities include splashing water, throwing pendulum, dragon boat race, bathing Buddha, chanting, singing Zhang Ha, peacock dance, white elephant dance performance and so on.

Extended data:

Dai is one of the ethnic minorities in China and one of the most populous ethnic groups in the world. It originated from Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau in China, and gradually migrated to Indochina Peninsula and South Asian subcontinent after thousands of years of changes. Dai people have their own language and writing, have similar grammatical structures in various dialects, have distinctive national characteristics, and their daily customs are also unique.

References:

Baidu encyclopedia-Dai people