Water-Splashing Festival

Name : Water-Splashing Festival for the Dai people
Date : between the sixth day of the sixth Dai month and the seventh day of the seventh Dai month (around mid April in Gregorian calendar
The majority of the Dai people live in the Xishuangbanna (Sipsongpanna) Dai Autonomous Prefecture in southernmost Yunnan Province. According to the fifth national census in 2000, the Dai population totaled 1. 16 million. The religion of the Dai is Hinayana (Theravada) Buddhism. The Dai also take part in animistic worship by offering sacrifices to spirits and ancestors.
At age seven or eight, many Dai boys become a "keyong"(a novice and are sent to the village monastery to learn the Buddhist doctrines before they join the community as a "panan"(child monk). Most Dai return to secular life around the age of 17 or 18 and then get married.
There are at least five dialects of Dai in Yunnan. The more popular scripts later formed the basis of the current Xishuangbanna and Dehong Dai writing. After 1949 the Chinese developed a new simplified Dai script for use among the Dais.
The Water-splashing Festival, the New Year by the Dai calendar, held in the last ten days of the sixth month or early in the seventh month of the Dai calendar (April), usually lasts three to five days.
About the origin of the festival, legend has it that once upon a time, there was a "demon of fire "who brought all the pains and sufferings to the local people. He even forced seven women, one after another, to marry him. However, the seven women he married turned out to have the guts to kill him. One day, the most daring and the youngest woman of the seven strapped the devil's neck with his own long hair. The head of the devil fell to the ground and started rolling around.
And whatever the burning head rolled over were set ablaze. In order to put down the fire, the seven women held the devil's blazing head in their arms, and they decided to hold the post in turn, each for one year. At the time of the New Year when they switch shifts, local people would gather to splash water on the exhausted woman in hope to wash the blood and dirt off her and refresh her. Today, the Dai people splash water at each other to commemorate the courageous act of these women who brought peace and happiness to them.