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The Dai Name: Dai, Tai, Shan Population: 1,150,000 Localization: Yunnan Province, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefectures, and several discrits between them. |
The official category "Dai" includes several Tai-speaking groups linguistically related to other peoples belonging to the Tai-Kadai (Dong-Tai in Chinese) linguistic family and classified under the categories Zhuang, Li, or Shui. Those groups currently categorized as "Dai" were traditionally designated by the Han Chinese as "Pai-yi" -a name whose origin remains obscure. Han Chinese, following also traditional categories, still divide these peoples according to arbitrary, non-emic denominations, such as Han Dai (Dry-land Tai) and Shui Dai (Water Tai), Huayao Dai (Flowered-belt Tai), etc.
The two most important Tai groups included in the "Dai" category are the Tai Neua, who inhabited mainly the Tai Khong area (Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture), as well as other regions along the Burmese border, and the Tai Lue, who live mostly in the Sipsong Panna (Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture), bordering Myanmar and Laos. There are also smaller populations of these groups in neighbouring Myanmar, Thailand and Laos. While the culture of these main groups, as well as that of the Tai Mao, also concentrated in the Tai Khong area and along the Burmese border, is determined by the Theravada Buddhist tradition, other groups have maintained Tai cults previous to the arrival of Buddhism in these regions. This is also the case for a small number of Tai groups living along the Vietnamese border, such as the Tai Dam, Tai Khao or the Tai Leang (Black, White and Red Tai, respectively).
In
spite of a supposed common origin and common cultural traits, historically
most of the groups categorized as "Dai" had hardly any contact
among them, and developed diverse economic and cultural systems: the Tai
Neua or the Tai Lue, for instance, were culturally closer to other Tai
groups inhabiting areas being part of present-day Myanmar (the so-called
"Shan") or Thailand. As it is true for these areas, Tai groups
living in present-day P. R. China lived in interaction with other, mainly
Mon-Khmer or Tibeto-Burman-speaking ethnic groups such as Bulang, Akha/
Hani or Lahu.
Introductory
Articles in Ethnic China
The
Dai peoples: The official category "Dai"
includes several Tai-speaking groups linguistically related to other peoples
belonging to the Tai-Kadai
The sacred forests
of the Dai: Protecting the ancestors - protecting nature.
The
Dai of Dehong: In Yunnan province there are at least
two major centres of the Tai civilization. One is Sipsongpanna, home of
the Tai Lue in southern Yunnan, and another is Daikong, home of the Tai
Yai in western Yunnan.
Scholars Researches available in the Web
Cai Kui, Du Juan, Dai Cong and Hu Huabin.- Cultural Relevance for Rural Community Development in China: A Case Study in Bai, Jingpo and Huayaodai Communities of Yunnan Province.
A three-year study over the Bai, Jingpo and Huayaodai communities in Yunnan Province reveals that the community development is significantly influenced in various ways by such cultural factors as the concepts of development; concepts and traditions of inter-community relationships, consumption, marriage and gender; patterns of decision-making and production, resource and income allocation; as well as the role of information dissemination systems, religion and ritual.
Roger Casas.- RECUPERACIoN DE ARTES TRADICIONALES BUDISTAS ENTRE LOS TAI LUE DE SIPSONG PANNA
La cultura de los Tai Lue de Sipsong Panna ha pasado de ser considerada in toto como un obstaculo para el progreso socioeconnmico exigido por las autoridades centrales, a convertirse en uno de los motores principales de la industria turisica en la zona.
James r. Chamberlain.- The Black Tai Chronicle of Muang Mouay
Is
a genre of text which contains the history of the Tai people of a particular
Muang... These local administrative unirts were originally considered
to be twelve in number.
Sara L.M. Davis.- The
Writing on the Wall: Marking the Limits of Ethnicity on China’s Borders
But in Sipsongpanna, some elements of the unapproved, unofficial ethnic culture were also preserved underground. An ancient text, an old temple, an epic poem in praise of the dead prince: all were saved because someone took a risk
This paper will range over three historical aspects of The Power of Language topic and over a time frame on the order of forty thousand years. The first theme to be considered will concern the power of language (language in the genes) that can tell us the story of the very remote past of Tai migration and settlement from a place in India. From there the Tai precursors then moved into the border areas of SE Asia/Yunnan Province, China.
Chit Hlaing (F. K. Lehman).- The Central Position of the Shan/Tai as ¡®Knowledge Brokers¡¯ in the Inter-ethnic Network of the China-Burma (Myanmar) Borderlands.
On the one hand I have worked on the nature of Wa (Pirok) Theravada Buddhism and the history of the Wa Kingdom’ of Ban Hong, and the Shan have played a central role as source of knowledge about Buddhism and of kingship, providing models of both for these Wa.
Foon
Ming and Liew-Herres.- Intra-dynastic
and Inter-Tai Conflicts in the Old Kingdom of Moeng L¨¹ in Southern
Yunnan
Power struggles within ruling houses are a classic problem causing the weakening of dynasties and inviting foreign invasions. The Tai polities in pre-modern Asia were no exception. This recurrent problem is documented not only in contemporary Chinese sources, but also in the various versions of the Tai chronicles that the present writer has investigated.
Hasegawa
Kiyoshi.- Cultural
Revival and Ethnicity: The Case of the Tai Lue in the Sipsong Panna, Yunnan
Province.
The accelerated development of market economies and inter-regional exchange in the border areas of Yunnan and Mainland Southeast Asia since the 1980s has complicated the relationships among nation states and ethnic groups across national boundaries.
Hasegawa Kiyoshi.- Ethnic Tourism and Cultural Change in the Border Region of Yunnan Province: A Case Study on Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture
In this paper, I would like to examine the process of tourism development and its socio-cultural impact on the Dai people, by focusing on the inter-ethnic relations between the Han and ethnic minorities in Sipsong Panna since the 1980s.
He Shaoying.- An Exposition on the Funeral Rite and View of Soul of the Dai Nationality in Jinping
Extensively
influenced by the view of soul, the local Dai People never let down guard
towards the funeral rites. Usually, all the families in the whole village,
even the friends and relatives who live hundreds of li (2 li = l kilometer)
away, should come over to join in the funeral, making the occasions so
grand
Helen James.- Transition and Tradition in a White Tai Village in north Vietnam
Kang Nanshan.- THERAVADA BUDDHISM’S RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SIPSONG PANNA AND THAILAND
Pattiya Jimreivat.- Culture and Tradition of the Tai People in Sipsongchutai: Maintenance, Revitalization and Integration into the Present Vietnamese Society
This paper studies the Tai in Northwestern Vietnam or Sipsongchutai to find out how the Tai, an ethnic minority group in the area, manages to maintain their ethnic identity and the same time to be accepted by the Vietnamese.
Susan McCarthy.- Gods of Wealth, Temples of Prosperity: Party-State Participation in the Minority Cultural Revival
This article contrasts Chinese government support for the minority cultural revival among the Bai and Dai in Yunnan Province, with a crackdown on religious expression in Beijing. Inconsistencies in the state's behaviour in these cases might be attributed to arbitrary decision-making, or to "internal orientalism".
This paper aims to address the conditions of this persistence in the case of one of the two study groups, the Tai of the north-west. Numerous ethnographic studies on this group for the pre-collectivist period have shown this group to be specific in three ways: its political and social organization is highly hierarchical and complex.
Wasan Panyagaew.- Moving Dai: Stories from the field, part II
Uncle Le also told me how when he was about ten, led by his mother and his step-father, his family had left Sipsong Panna during the civil war in Keng Hung, and moved to Muang Singh, then a French colony. He grew up there, still in Lue country.
Heather
Peters.- Tattooed
Faces and Stilt Houses: Who Were the Ancient Yue? - Sino-Platonic
Papers
One favorite theory at the moment is that the Yue people
were ancestral to the various Tai speaking populations, i.e. the Tai Lue,
Tai Neu, Tong, Shui, Bu Yi and the Zhuang, living today primarily in southwestern
China.
Suriya
Ratanakul.- Tai
People and Their Languages: Theories Concerning the Origin of the Tai
Language and the Tai Homeland
How is it that locating the homeland of the Tai-speaking people at the foot of the Altai Mountains amounts to patriotism?
Ronald
D. Renard.- Creating
the Other Requires Defining Thainess against Which the Other Can Exist:
Early-Twentieth Century Definitions
This paper discusses “Thainess,” prior to the
1900's. Before then, people in what is now Thailand and also nearby, distinguished
socially between tai and kha. Whereas tai were literate members of lowland
kingdoms that had law codes, professed (local forms of) Buddhism, and
sometimes built large architectural structures.
Fahui Wang, John Hartmann, Wei Luo, Pingwen Huang.- GIS-Based Spatial Analysis of Tai Place Names in Southern China: An Exploratory Study of Methodology.
THis
research is an exploratory study demostrating how modern GIS and spatial
analysis techniques can benefit researchers in historical-linguistic-cultural
studies.
Yang
Guangyuan.- A
Cultural Interpretation of the Religious and Sacrificial Rites of the
Dai Nationality in Xinping, Yunnan Province
Primitive religion is usually the first popular religious belief of any ethnic group in its survival and development. In the early stage of Dai society, the Dais believed in the Family God (phi1 hcn2), the Village God (tsau3 man3) and the Meng God (sc3 mci2 or tsau3 mci2)
From
the Song dynasty, the two nationalities have been living on neighborly
terms with each other. This was briefly recorded in history. But in the
Qing dynasty the Atsang people were
recorded as “Atsang-yi”. They had been regarded as a part of
the Dai nationality.
Changes
in contemporary Huayao Dai culture are discussed in this paper. Although
traditional forms of dress and housing, tooth dying, tattooing, ethmic
language, festivals and traditional religion are preserved, there have
been changes since the 1950s, due to modern education and health care,
as well as greater contacts with other cultures
Books
and references
Free
books about the Dai Nationality
The Dai of Yunnan in 1917, as seen by Roy Chapman Andrews in Camps and Trails in China
Basic Bibliography of the Dai
A book about the Water Culture of the Dai: The writer introduces some flood-related myths of the ethnic groups of Yunnan, with their common characteristics and their main differences. He stresses the importance of the flood as a process of destruction of the old world, where out of any order, men and gods can communicate freely.
Ebing
and Sangluo - A Dai tragic love: Fringed in the Buddhist
belief of the retaliation for our acts, prior to and wrapping the love
story is the fight between a lady who possess magical powers and the religious
orthodoxy represented by the temple and its monks.
On the Dais Traditional Irrigation System and Environmental Protection in Xishuangbanna.- Gao Lishi: we are repeatedly informed of the benefits than had for the region ecosystem, not only the irrigation system of the Dai but also the slash and burn agriculture of the mountain people surrounding them
Chinese Bibliography of the Dai
Free Thesis and Dissertations
Comparatively
Dai people cultivate more intensive on paddy land than the other two ethnic
groups, Hani and Jinuo villagers produce more subsistence crops on upland
than Dai; and deforestation is most serious in the Hani village than in
those of Dai and Jinuo. The evidence shows that the great differences
in traditional land use among Dai, Jinuo and Hani have gradually disappeared.
Photo Exhibitions
Ethnic China photo exhibitions
-
Market Day at
Gasha Township: Every Sunday Dai women from the villages
around Gasha attend the weekly market...some
times attired with their best clothes, some times only with the conical
hat that protects them from the burning sun.
More
Photo exhibitions
Music
Dai
music
A guide to download their music
Films and Video
Documentary
Films about the Dai
Available dvds and vcds about the Dai
Image of the the Dai in the cinema
Art and Handicrafts
The
Dai in the art
Art Exhibitions
Travel
Travel to Dai lands
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