Overview
Chinese Name: 拉祜族
English Name: The Lahu people
Languages: Lahu language 拉祜语, Chinese 汉语
Total population: 4.86*105 (China mainland 2022)
Distribution: Mainly distributed on the west bank of the Lancang River(upper half of Mekong River)
Brief introduction
The Lahu people 拉祜族 is one of the oldest ethnic groups in China. The national language is the Lahu language, which belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family 汉藏语系. They worship many gods. The Lahu people are distributed in China, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and other countries. Most of the Lahu people in China are mainly distributed on the west bank of the Lancang River(upper half of Mekong River 湄公河).
The history of the Lahu people
The Lahu people have a long history and rich historical legends. Legend has it that the ancestors of the Lahu people used to live a hunting life. In order to chase a red deer that had entered the dense forest in the south, they discovered a grassland with lush water and grass and began to migrate from north to south. They have formed a single ethnic group since at least the 13th century.
The religion of the Lahu people
Before the founding of New China, the Lahu people worshipped many gods. In the late Ming 明朝 and early Qing 清朝, Buddhism was introduced into the Lahu area from Dali 大理, Yunnan, which made the Buddhist beliefs of the Lahu people flourish. In modern China, Western Christianity and Catholicism were successively introduced into the Lahu area.
The Cultures of the Lahu people
Lahu clothing 拉祜族服饰
The costumes of the Lahu people are beautiful, loose and generous, and full of national characteristics. Black clothing is a prominent feature of Lahu costumes. Most of the clothing is made of black cloth, decorated with coloured threads and coloured cloth with various lace patterns, and then inlaid with white silver bubbles, so that the entire colour is deep and contrasting.
The Lahu men wear a collarless right open top and trousers with wide trousers, wrapped in a black headscarf. The young man also had to wear a jacket with a black face and a white lining. There are two main types of women’s clothing.
One is a black tunic with a right front, with slits on both sides at the waist level, the feet are straight to the feet, dozens of silver balls are embedded in the collar, and black trousers with a diagonal crotch are worn underneath. The other is a short blouse with a small cardigan, bordered with floral stripes, no collar, small cuffs, and a tube skirt.
Lahu foods 拉祜族饮食
The Lahu people used to have the habit of eating two meals a day, and the staple food was locally produced rice. The Lahu people like to cook vegetables, meat, seasonings and water in a thin bamboo tube every day. The rice produced by doing this has the fragrance of bamboo and maintains the original flavour of meat and vegetables.
The Lahu people have the habit of eating barbecued meat in the past and now. They usually use two bamboo sticks to sandwich the meat coated with salt and spices in the middle and put it by the fire to slowly brown, fragrant and crispy before eating. Lahu people generally do not eat dog meat. They think that eating dog meat, and killing and beating dogs is immoral because dogs are good friends of human beings.
Lahu usually likes to drink roasted tea. Roasted tea, namely, is made by roasting the tea leaves in a small earthenware pot and pouring it into hot boiling water. If guests come, they must roast tea to entertain them. The first pot of tea brewing is for you to drink, and the second pot is for guests to drink. The reason for this is that the owner of the first tea drank it by himself to show that the tea is non-toxic, so please rest assured. In the second course of brewing, the tea taste is strong and the taste is the best, so use the second course of tea to entertain guests.
Lahu architecture 拉祜族建筑
The places where the Lahu nationality lives are all mountainous areas, so the buildings of the Lahu are generally built on the top of the mountain and halfway up the mountain. The bamboo fences in the village are repaired once a year by men, women and children in the whole village. Usually, whoever sees it broken will repair it voluntarily.
There are two types of houses for the Lahu people: one is a bamboo building on a pile, and the other is a floor-to-ceiling thatched hut. The floor-to-ceiling thatched hut is built following ancient customs and choosing a location. The bamboo building on the pile was influenced by other ethnic groups and developed on the basis of the floor-to-ceiling thatched hut.