Wooden drum dance, hair swing dance, bamboo pole dance

According to the fourth census in 1990, the Wa ethnic group in Yunnan had 347,738 people. They mainly live in Cangyuan, Ximeng, Lancang, Menglian, Gengma, Shuangjiang, Zhenkang, Yongde, Jingdong, Pu'er, Changning, Tengchong and other counties as well as parts of Xishuangbanna. The Wa population in Cangyuan and Ximeng Wa Autonomous Counties accounts for 51% of the total Wa population in my country, and approximately 80% of the total population in these two counties. Menglian, Gengma, Lancang, Shuangjiang, Yongde, Zhenkang and other counties are the marginal areas where Dong people are distributed. The Wa people live side by side with the Han, Dai, Lahu, Yi, Lisu, Bulang, Hani, Deang, Jingpo and other ethnic groups.

According to various documents, the ancestors of the Dong people were a branch of the "Baipu" ethnic group as early as the Zhou and Qin Dynasties. , "Wangman", "Guci", "Haci", "Hawa", etc. all refer to the ancestors of the Wa people.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the Wa society has transitioned from hunting and gathering to a development stage dominated by an unstable agricultural economy, that is, the clan-based commune form has transitioned to the geographically-based primitive rural commune form. . In the past hundred years, the Wa society has undergone great changes. Before 1949, the social and economic development of the Wa people fell into the following three types: First, mainly Ximeng, including some Wa people in Cangyuan, Lancang, who were in the transition stage from primitive society to class society. The central area of ??the Awa Mountains; the second is the Baishan marginal area with the economic characteristics of feudal lords, composed of most of the Wa people in Cangyuan, part of Gengma, Shuangjiang, Lancang, and the Wa people in Menglian, Xishuangbanna and other places; the third is the Baishan marginal area that has entered The Zhenkang and Fengqing Wa areas have a landlord economy.

The Wa language belongs to the Wa Beng branch of the Mon-Khmer language family of the Austro-Asiatic language family, and has four dialects. The Wa people call themselves different people in different places. Menglian and Ximeng areas call themselves "Awa" (Awo, Awaer), "Lewawo", "Lewa" and "Lafu"; Zhenkang area calls itself "Wa"; Cangyuan, Gengma, The Shuangjiang area calls itself "Buraoke", "Baraoke", "Ba'aoke" and "Balaoke". Bullock means people who live in the mountains, and Wa and Awa also have this meaning, which shows that the Wa people have been a mountainous people for a long time and got their name because they lived in the mountains. Other ethnic groups also have different names for the Wa people. The Dai, Han, Lahu and other ethnic groups who live among them call them "A Wa" or "Wa Wa". "Wa" is the Dai language and means slaves. The name has a derogatory connotation. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, according to the wishes of the people of this ethnic group, they were renamed Wa.

The Wa people’s residential area has overlapping mountains and very few flat dams, so it is called the Wa mountainous area. There are many kinds of house buildings of the Wa people: one is a "ganlan" style building, and the other is a floor-to-ceiling house with four walls made of bamboo and wood. The fire pits in Dong houses are divided into main fire pits and guest fire pits according to different directions. In some places, there are three fire pits in the house, called the main fire pit, the guest fire pit and the ghost fire pit; the house also has three doors, called the guest door, the fire door and the ghost door.

Wa marriages are generally monogamous, and intermarriage with the same surname is strictly prohibited. Before marriage, men and women can socialize freely, and the main way of love is "chasing with girls." If the two parties are in love, the man will propose to the woman's parents. After the engagement, the man often works at the woman's house. The man also has to pay a certain amount of betrothal gift to the woman. In the past, there were two kinds of betrothal gifts: one was called "nanny's money"; the other was called "girl's money". The wedding ceremony is relatively simple: the groom brings the bride back, invites the village leader and relatives and friends to have a meal and wine, and then the men, women and children hold hands and dance in a circle to celebrate all night long, which is when the wedding is completed. After marriage, a wife must be absolutely faithful to her husband. In the past, the house transfer system was still popular, that is, after the husband died, his wife would pass on her husband's brother or younger brother, but both parties needed to agree.

The Wa people practice burial in the ground. The coffin is made of hollowed-out thick logs. The objects buried with the deceased are generally just the general living and production utensils used by the deceased during his lifetime. Generally, graves are not built, and couples are not buried together.

The traditional festivals of the Wa people include the Spring Festival, the Lamu Drum Festival, the New Water Festival, the New Fire Festival, the Grain Scattering Festival, the New Rice Festival, etc. The three major Buddhist festivals, namely the Sand-Building Festival, the Close-Door Festival and the Open-Door Festival, are also major festivals in the Wa area who believe in Theravada Buddhism, falling respectively in June, September and December of the Wa calendar. Every festival is a good time for the Wa people to dress up and sing and dance, often dancing day and night for several days.

The Wa people have created rich and colorful literature and art based on their own social practice. The more influential oral literature is the creation myth "Sigangli" and the creation epic "The Legend of Gourd". "Sigangli" vividly describes the origin of mankind and the ancient life of the Dong people.

"Sigang" is interpreted by some as a stone cave and by others as a gourd. "Li" means coming out. Sigangli means people coming out of a stone cave or gourd. The Wa people in the Ximeng area believe that this "surpassing cave" is on a mountain ridge in Bagdai; the Wa people in the Cangyuan area believe that this "extraordinating gourd" grows in the Laim Mountain area. Some Wa people also say that people are carried out of caves by old bears. Wa people from all over the world regard Awa Mountain as the birthplace of mankind. The Cangyuan Cliff Painting is the oldest preserved painting in Yunnan. There are more than 10 cliff paintings discovered so far, with more than 1,100 identifiable figures. The themes of cliff paintings mainly reflect the living conditions of humans in the Neolithic Age. In addition to scenes of gathering, hunting, and domesticating livestock, there are also more virtual reproductions of games, dances, and rituals.

The Wa folk music is also very rich. It can be roughly divided into folk songs, folk instrumental music, folk dance music, etc. Among the folk songs of the Wa people, the most common are narrative songs that sing about history, love songs that express love life, labor songs sung during labor production, children's songs sung during children's games, custom songs sung in weddings and funerals, and sacrificial activities. sacrificial songs, etc. Every traditional festival is a grand gathering of singing and dancing. Many folk dances are danced to the unified beat of folk songs without musical accompaniment. Wa folk dance and singing are inseparable. Every time you sing, you must dance, and every time you dance, you must sing.

The most prominent feature of the Wa religion is the belief that "all things have animism". They believe that the ghosts and gods among all things are Muyiji (also known as "Longmeiji") and "Ayio". Muyiji is the great god who created all things. His five sons are in charge of earthquakes, thunder, opening the sky, splitting the earth and other things. People play wooden drums, make water ghosts, offer heads, steal cattle and other activities to worship him, and play songs to entertain him. If Mu Yiji is displeased, he will cause a crop failure and flood the village with water. Ayi'o is the ancestor of the men of the Wa ethnic group. Every family with a male must worship him. He must be sacrificed during marriage, childbirth, building a house, and adopting a child. The Wa people believe that ghosts and gods are also divided into big and small, with big ghosts taking care of big things and little ghosts taking care of small things. But there is no subordinate relationship between them, so whatever happens, the ghost must be sacrificed, otherwise it will be difficult to eliminate disasters and obtain blessings. No matter how big or small, use the chicken divination to predict bad luck and pray for the blessings of ghosts and gods