Procession and water splashing: Expressions of locality and nationality during Dai New Year in Xishuangbanna

Abstract

The focus of this article is the celebration of the Dai New Year in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, an area of great diversity in Yunnan Province, China. The Dai are a people of southwest China and Southeast Asia and are classified by the Chinese state as one of the country's fifty-five 'minority nationalities' or 'ethnic groups'. Through an exploration of the spectacular processions and boisterous practices of water splashing which are important features of Dai New Year, complex power plays among the diverse peoples of Xishuangbanna are illuminated. These festivities reveal the intricate processes by which aspects of Dai experience (including Theravada Buddhism, increasing 'ethnic tourism', and interaction with the state) interplay in such a way as to contribute to the changing and multiple images of what it is to be Dai. Attention is also given to the carnivalesque cacophony of the water splashing engaged in by celebrants, which subtly signals the possibility of other ways of being whilst also generating a sense of solidarity amongst the peoples of Banna as distinguished from outsiders. © Royal Anthropological Institute 2004.