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Bai Minority
- Updated:
- Sep 11, 2009;
- by:
- China Highlights;
- Clicks:
- 198;
People of the Bai Ethnic Minority mainly live in Dali, Lijiang, Bijiang, Baoshan, Nanhua, Yuanjiang, Kunming, and Anning of Yunnan Province, Bijie of Guizhou Province, Liangshan of Sichuan Province, and Sanzhi of Hunan Province. The population of the Bai nationality is 185,800.
Today's Bai are descendants of the ancient Ji. During the pre-Qin period (about 2,200 years ago), the Ji inhabited the drainage area of the Huangshui River. However, during the Han and Jin Dynasties, they scattered along the eastern side of the Lanchangjiang River in Yunnan Province and the northern Honghe River area. During this time, they lived with the Qiang people (another nationality in China). Gradually, the Ji concentrated in fewer areas. Since the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Ji have been known as the Bai.
Costume
The Bai costume has a long history. As long as 1,800 years ago, the Bai wove a kind of cloth known as "Tonghua.” During the Nanzhao Regime and the Dali Kingdom, the Bai created their own styles of clothing. Now, the clothes of the Bai people are bright and well-matching in colors, delicate and fine in embroideries, and plain and simple in style.
Bai clothing is usually adorned with camellia flowers because they view these flowers as a symbol of beauty. The Bai enjoy their lives and love flowers. They like to wear a red scarf on their shoulders and a white outer upper garment, a combination that resembles blooming camellias.
White is the favorite color of the Bai. They believe that white represents dignity and high social status, and this can be seen in their clothes. It is typical for men to wear white outer upper garments and white trousers. Girls and women have more choices of colors. They like to wear white, light blue or pink outer upper garments and rosy, purple or black waistcoats. An unmarried girl always combs her hair into one pigtail, tied with a red string at its end, and then coils it over her head. She also likes to wear an apron with embroideries. In general, girls enjoy dressing up like beautiful camellia flowers.
The scarf on a girl's head is special and has a special name, "the flower in the wind and the moon on a snowy night." The overall shape of the scarf on a girl's head is that of a crescent. The upper part of the scarf is as white as snow. The embroideries on the lower part are of flowers. The tail of the scarf falls down naturally on one shoulder, waving to and fro in the wind.
Food and Drink
Pickles: The Bai enjoy fresh vegetables and pickles. Women are good at making a variety of pickles. They are also experts at making sauces, such as broad bean sauce, lobster sauce, and flour sauce. The people in Jiangchuan and Heqing cook different dishes with edible seaweed picked from Erhai Lake.
Meat: Pork is the main meat of the Bai diet. The Bai prepare different dishes with it and enjoy ham, sausage, banger, smoked pig liver, and smoked pig intestines. During winter, people enjoy beef soup with radishes, turnips, and shallots. People living near a river or a lake are good at cooking fish.
Tea: For the Bai, tea is a popular drink. They normally drink tea twice a day, in the early morning and at noon. The tea drunk in the early morning is called "morning tea" or "wakening tea," and is consumed immediately after getting up. The tea drunk at noon is called "relaxing tea" or "thirst-satisfying tea.” People often add some popcorn and milk to their tea.
Sandao Tea Ceremony
The Sandao tea ceremony is well-known at home and abroad. There are two types of tea ceremonies.
The first serves baked tea. People put tea with large leaves or tea from a place called Xiaguan into a very small pot and bake it over a charcoal fire. They shake the pot at all times to avoid the leaves from burning. When they can smell the fragrance of the tea, they pour a little boiled water into the pot and immediately sense the aroma. After a while, they add more boiled water into the pot and then the tea is ready. Normally, the hosts pour the tea into guests' cups three times. The first time lets the guests smell the aroma, the second time lets them taste the tea, and the third time lets them satisfy their thirst. In China, the tea ceremony is called Sandao tea, meaning “tea services of three times.” It is also called "thunderous tea" because it makes a loud sound when people add water to the baked tea in the pot for the first time.
Taboos
The fireplace in a home is sacred and people are not allowed to spit at it or walk over it. It is also taboo to sit on the threshold of a house. Women should avoid walking over the tools that men use. And people in mourning are not allowed to enter other people's houses. On New Year's Day on the Chinese lunar calendar, using a knife, carrying water home, and sweeping the floor are taboo. On New Year's eve, people should return borrowed items and retrieve items they lent to others; otherwise, they will have bad luck and a poor harvest in the coming year. The seventh day of the New Year is women's day and on that day, women do not cook, carry water, or do other housework. Instead, they relax, play, and enjoy themselves. The ninth day of the New Year is men's day and on this day, men relax and rest. In Yuanlong County, on the 15th of the seventh month of the lunar calendar, people are not allowed to visit others' homes.
Houses
There are two main Bai building styles for private dwellings: Sanfang Yizhaobi, which consists of a center courtyard with rooms on three sides and a light-reflecting "shining" wall on the fourth side, the side opposite the main room (corresponding to the living room/ parlor in an Anglo-Saxon dwelling); and Sihe Wutianjing, or a set of four houses, one in each corner of a large center courtyard, and with four additional small courtyards, one adjacent to each of the corner houses. Sanfang Yizhaobi is the most common Bai house style.
The purpose of the light-reflecting wall is as follows: Since the worst gale winds generally come from the west in this part of Yunnan Province, it is advantageous to position the house such that its back faces west, leaving the entrance facing east, where there is little wind. This is especially critical in the new city of Dali (Xiaguan), which is more exposed than usual (it is aptly called the City of Wind). However, since the sun sets in the west, then with no "shining" wall to reflect light back towards the front of the house, where the main room ("living room", or parlor) is situated, the house's occupants would be consigned to sit in the dark for much of the afternoon, or use artificial lighting. The "shining" wall thus neatly resolves this potential problem in an unintentional but environmentally-correct fashion. The "shining" wall really shines, as it were (one is tempted to think of this as an inherent daylight-saving time measure), towards the close of the day, when the sun's rays are low and can hit the wall with full force, reflecting bright sunlight back into the courtyard and through the windows of the living room especially.
The Sihe Wutianjing building style is more exclusive, being reserved for the more well-to-do members of society. Much care is taken in designing the entrance gate to the Sihe Wutianjing compound, as its design and adornment is an occasion to flaunt one's social and economic status. The elaborate ornamentation of the main gate also pays homage to one's ancestors.
Both as regards Sihe Wutianjing as well as Sanfang Yizhaobi architecture, the woodwork of doors and windows are engraved with the figures of various birds and flowers (these special woodcarvings are made in the neighboring city of Jianchuan), the walls of the rooms are decorated with so-called wash paintings (wash painting, sometimes referred to as ink-and-wash painting, is more commonly associated with Japanese art, but it is in fact a Chinese technique that was developed during the Tang (CE 618-907) Dynasty and involves a small amount of pigment/ ink and a large amount of solvent to prepare the canvas/ surface prior to the drawing/ calligraphy/ etc.), and the house's painted roof and pillars, its upturned eaves and the special "dougong" system, or system of double brackets that support the roof atop the pillars, are all unique Bai national architectural characteristics.
Traditional Bai houses are well preserved in the Bai villages around Dali, with the two most famous ones being Zhoucheng Village and Xizhou Village.
Festivals
March Fair
Date:the tenth day of the third month to the twentieth-first day of the third month
Place: Dali Ancient Town
Also known as the Kwan-yin Fair, is one of the most important festivals. It is held annually at the foot of the Diancang Mountain in the west of Dali city. The fair lasts from the 15th to 20th in the third month of the Chinese lunar calendar. Of religious origin, it has become a commercial fair. During the March Fair, the streets at Dali town is compete with temporally stalls selling a mind-boggling variety of items，ethnic minority souvenirs.
Torch Festival
Date： On the 25th of the sixth lunar month
Place： Bai villages in Dali, such as Zhoucheng Bai village
On the 25th of the sixth month of the Chinese lunar calendar, the Bai celebrate the annual Torch Festival in a special way. They wear costumes and butcher pigs and sheep for a feast. Children dye their fingernails red with a kind of flower root. On the eve of the festival, people get everything ready for the big celebration. They set up a large torch about 20 meters high made of stalks and pine branches. On the top of the torch sits a large flag. Several small flags are fixed around the torch, printed with auspicious Chinese characters meaning peaceful land, favorable weather, bumper harvest, and abundant farm animals. Fruits, fireworks, and lanterns are hung around the torch.
Worship Gathering in the three temples
Time: 23rd to 25th of the fourth lunar month
Place: in Chongsheng Temple, the Shengyuan Temple, and the Jinkui Temple.
This activity is called Guanshanglan in the Bai language. It is a carnival for the Bai people to entertain themselves during the slack season for farming. It is also an occasion to welcome the coming of immortals from heaven, and occurs from the 23rd to the 25th of the fourth month, according to the Chinese lunar calendar. This event dates back to ancient times and was originally a religious ceremony. The three temples involved are the Chongsheng Temple, the Shengyuan Temple, and the Jinkui Temple.
On the first day, people from the villages gather at Dali City and march off to Shengyuan Temple to pray for favorable weather and a bumper harvest. On the second day, they walk together to Jinkui Temple to offer sacrifices to a famous historic king, Duan Zongpang. On the last day, they go to Chongsheng Temple to pray for happiness and peace. The procession disassembles at a village named Mayi.
Folk Song Singing Festival at Shibaoshan Mountain
This annual festival lasts a week, from the 27th of the seventh month to the third of the eighth month in the Chinese traditional calendar. During this period, thousands of young people assemble at the four temples in Shibaoshan Mountain to sing folk songs. The four temples are Shizhong Temple, Baoxiang Temple, Haiyun Temple, and Jinding Temple. People play musical instruments and sing love songs, even in front of the solemn statues of Buddha. This festival is to commemorate a legendary pretty girl who lived 2,000 years ago who sung very well. Today, young people use the festival as an occasion to make friends or to find lovers.
Batik
Batik is a ancient art of the Bai. The pattern of the cloth is simple and natural, looks graceful, and yet is not extravagant. People make different garments with the tie-dye cloth.
In the past, people used hand-loomed cloth as the basic material. Now they use cloth produced by machines in modern factories.
The batik goes through three steps: making knots, dipping and dyeing, and drying in the sun.
The first step is to make some knots in a piece of white cloth by sewing and tying according to the requirements of the designed pattern. It is important to tie these knots tightly. Then, dip the cloth into the die vat and leave it there for a certain amount of time. Fish out the cloth and let it dry in the sun. The dyeing and drying process is repeated several times. The next thing people do is put the cloth in clean water to clear off the redundant dye from the cloth. They then take out the stitches and a miracle appears: the tied parts of the cloth that were not affected by the dye form a pattern. The untied part of the cloth turns deep blue and the tied part remains white, creating a piece of beautiful tie-dye cloth.
With this method of dyeing, people don't know exactly what the cloth will look like. Surprising and unexpected patterns on the cloth usually appear.
The main ingredients of the dye are banlangen (a kind of herb) and indigo. Compared with chemical dye, these natural dyes are better at creating natural colors and do not fade easily.
The garments made of tie-dye cloth wear more comfortably and don't negatively affect one's skin. The most well-known production centers for tie-dye cloth are Zhoucheng Township and Xizhou Township in Dali City.
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See Also
- Naxi Minority
- Dai Minority
- Miao Minority
- Dong Minority
- Zhuang Minority
- Yao Minority
- Uygur Minority
- Tibetan Minority
- Hui Minority
- Tujia Minority
- Kazak Minority
- Hani Minority
- Manchu Minority
- Mongolian Minority
- Qiang Minority
- Shui Minority
- Yi Minority
