Proper name: Kim Mien, Kim Mun (jungle people)
Other names: Man
Population: 473,945 people
Local groups: Dao Do or Red Dao (Dao Coc ngang, Dao sung, Dao Du lay, Dao Dai Ban), Dao Quan Chet or Dao with tied or belted trousers. (Dao Son Dau, Dao Tam Dao, Dao Nga Hoang, Du Cun), Dao Lo gang (Dao Thanh phan, Dao Coc Mun), Dao Tien or Dao with silver coins or money (Dao Deo tien, Dao Tieu ban), Dao Quant rang or Dao with white trousers (Dao House), Dao Thanh Y or Dao with blue vest, Dao Lan Ten (Dao Tuyen, Dao Ao dai or Dao with long tunics).
Language: The Dao language belongs to the language family of Hmong-Dao.

History: Dao individuals originally came from China, immigrating between the twelfth or thirteenth century and also the early twentieth century. They claim themselves descendants of Ban House (Ban vuong), a famous and holy legendary temperament.

Production activities:  Dao communities cultivate swidden fields, rocky hollows, and wet -rice paddies. These cultivation activities play a main role among completely different groups and sectors. Dao Quan Trang (white trousers) individuals, Dao Ao Dai (long tunic) and Dao Thanh Y (blue clothes) focus on wet-rice cultivation. Dao Do (Red Dao) individuals largely cultivate in rocky hollows. Different Dao groups are nomadic, others are settled agriculturists. Standard crops are rice, corn and vegetables, like gourds, pumpkins, and sweet potatoes. They raise buffaloes, cows, pigs, chickens, horses, goats in the central regions of mountains and highland sectors.

Cotton farming and weaving are standard among the Dao groups. They like clothes dyed indigo. Most village wards have forge kilns serving for farming tools repairing. In some places, individuals build matchlock and flint-lock rifles and cast-iron bullets. The silversmith trade, handed down through generations, largely produces necklaces, earrings, rings, silvers chains, and betel nut boxes.

Dao Do (Red Dao) and Dao Tien (Coin or Money) groups are well-known manufacturers of ancient paper. The paper is utilized when writing history, story and song books, when creating petitions, sending cash for funeral services, and on different occasions. Different Dao groups are noted for pressing sure fruits to extract oils that they use to illuminate their lamps. Sugarcane is additionally refined.

Diet: Dao individuals have 2 key meals a day-lunch and dinner. Breakfast is eaten solely throughout the busy harvesting season. The Dao eat largely rice. Although, in some places, individuals eat corn or soup rather than rice. standard rice meal is formed of wood and bamboo. Mortars are divided into many varieties, like pillar-shaped mortars or water sprout mortars, with rice-pounding pestles controlled by hands or feet or by water power. The Dao like boiled meat, dried or bitter mixed meat and bitter bamboo shoot soup. When eating is completed, the Dao have a convention that they never place down the chopsticks on the bowl as a result of it signifies that there's a death in the family. Dao individuals typically drink distilled alcohol. In some places, they drink a sort of native wine, having a rather bitter and hot style. Dao individuals smoke cigarettes or domestically grown tobacco with pipes.
Clothing: In the past, men had long hair with chignon or top tuft, with the rest shaved smoothly. Different groups have different types of head-scarves and ways of wearing them. They wear short or long shirts.

Clothing:   In the past, men had long hair with chignon or prime tuft, with the remainder shaved smoothly. Different groups have differing kinds of head-scarves and ways in which of carrying them. They wear short or long shirts.

Dao women’s garments are various. They regularly put on a protracted shirt with a dress or trousers. Their garments are colorfully embroidered. When embroidering, they produce styles based mostly on their recollections. They embroider on one facet of the fabric in order that the look is seen on the opposite facet. They need many styles like the letter “van”, the pine tree, animals, birds, humans, and leaves. Their technique of making batik garment is exclusive. They place the batik stylus or pen into hot bee’s wax and then draw the look onto the fabric. The portion of the fabric receiving the waxed patterns resists the indigo blue dyeing a cloth of gorgeous blue and white patterns.

Housing: Several Dao communities are found concerning half-way up most of the northern mountainous regions. However, there are many Dao teams that live in valleys, like the Dao Quan Trang (white trousers), additionally as high-mountain dwellers just like the Dao Do (Red Dao). Wards and homes are scattered around. There are a spread of architectural designs, as some Dao build their homes directly on the bottom whereas others build them on stilts. Some Dao homes mix each these components.

Transportation: Dao individuals in highland areas use black baskets with 2 straps to move product and turn out. Those living within the lower elevantor carry product with a combine of containers suspended on every finish of a carrying pole that rests on the shoulders. Cotton baggage or internet baggage or internet back-packs are most popular here.

Social organization: Village relationships are primarily regulated by parentage or by being neighbors. The Dao individuals have several family surnames, the foremost standard being Ban, Trieu. Every lineage or every branch possesses its own genealogical register and a system of various middle names to differentiate individuals of various generations.

Birth: Dao girls offer birth to their kids within the seated position, and frequently within the bedroom. The newborn is given a shower with hot water. The family of the expectant mother typically hangs green tree branches or banana flowers in front of their door to stop evil spirit from doing damage to the baby. When the baby is 3 days recent, they celebrate a ritual in honor of the mother.

Marriage: Boy and girl who need to get married should have their dates of birth compared and see a diviner who interprets their future during a ritual using chicken legs to examine if they're a compatible match. Throughout the course of the wedding ceremony, the Dao have the custom of stretching a chunk of string in front of the procession, or exchanging songs between the couple’s families before coming into the house. When the bride involves the groom’s house, she is carried on his back, and she or he should step over a combine of blessed scissors when crossing the brink into the husband’s home.

Funerals: A man referred to as thay tao plays a very important role within the funeral. When there's a death within the family, the deceased’s kids can have to be compelled to invite him to supervise the rituals and fine a chunk of land for the grave. Care is taken in order that the corpse won't be laid out at an equivalent time somebody within the family has been born. The deceased, who is also wrapped during a mat, is placed within the coffin within the house. Then it's carried to the grave. The grave is made of earth and lined with stones. In some Dao areas, the body is cremated if the deceased is recenter than twelve years old . Funeral rituals celebrated to make sure that the deceased rests in peace could occur many years when the burial. The ceremony typically coincides with initiation rites (cap sac) for a Dao man of the family. The celebration takes place over the course of 3 days. the primary day liberates the spirit of the deceased, and is likened to an occasion from jail. On the second day, the deceased is worshiped in the house. Then, on the last day, the man’s initiation ceremony takes. At present, a selected ceremony returns the deceased’s spirit to its homeland, Duong Chau.

Building a new House: The age of various members of the family should be thought of before a brand new home is designed. This is often very true in the case of the age of the pinnacle of the household. The Dao ritual for choosing the land for a brand new house is thought of vital. It takes place in the dark and involves digging a hole as massive as a bowl, arranging grains of rice to represent individuals, cows, buffaloes, money, rice, and property. And this is often placed into the bowl. Based mostly on the dreams that follow at night, the family can grasp whether or not it's sensible to make the house. future morning, the family inspects the opening to examine if the rice remains and if it's attainable to make the house.

Beliefs: Dao spiritual beliefs embrace ancient practices and agricultural rituals mixed with components of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Ban vuong is taken into account the earliest ancestor of the Dao individuals, therefore he's worshiped beside the ancestors of the family. In Dao tradition, all grown-up men should pass an initiation ceremony, cap sac, that expresses the traits of Taoism and also the ancient rituals.

Calendar: Dao individuals use the lunar calendar for all of their activities.

Education: In most wards, individuals grasp Han nom (Chinese) characters and also the Dao language. Instruction is important for reading the ritual texts, folktales and poems.

Artistic activities: The Dao have a fashionable people literature and humanities with recent stories, songs and verse. The Gourd and also the Flood Disaster and also the Legend of Ban vuong are notably standard Dao stories. Dancing and music are performed largely in spiritual rituals.

Games: Dao individuals like enjoying swings, spinning prime, and walking on stilts.

Source: wil-travel

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