The religion of the Bai

Most of the Bai practise the Buddhism from the VIIth century. In fact, Guanyin, the goddess Buddhist of the compassion, plays an important role in the most ancient myths of the Bai. Also, the Chinese influence is evident for the importance that the Taoism and the confucianism have between them.

Joined to the Buddhism there remains a popular religion called of the Benzhu or Local Gentlemen, also call of the "community god".

The "Community god" is the religion most extended between the Bai. Every village has his god, who venerates and protects him. In general they are deified historical personages: heroes, warriors, wise persons or popular leaders. One believes that they are capable of protecting the cultivation and the cattle, of preventing the people from suffering illnesses and to bring the peace and prosperity to the village, by what they are venerated before any important event. This religion of the "community god" keeps alive the memory of numerous legends and mythical personages, since in the villages almost given to the shore of the lake Erhai, the different temples dedicated to so varied deities offer an example of very particular religious syncretism.

In the most remote places there are traces of a primitive animism. And according to the activities that they realize in the villages, or between the clans they adore to the deities that they could consider you propitiate, like God of the Mountain, the God of the Cultivation or the God of the Hunting. In these communities they believe that the spirits cause the illnesses. The priestesses of these primitive religions, sometimes with certain powers to reach the situation, still play an important role in the religious life of the villages bai.

Between the Nama, one of the branches of the Bai, which live close to the river Mekong (Lancang in China), gives itself the cult to the white stone. This cult relates the culture and religion Nama to that of other peoples who live more to the north, since it is a common cult between the peoples that descend from the ancient Qiang. The proper Nama do not know very well because the white stone is important, and there are any of them that attribute his holiness to be bones of the ancestors who must not be moved, others say that there are bones of demons, dangerous of being moved, others speak about vague legends in which the goats turn into stones; and others that it is a representation of the God of the Stove, a deity spread over the whole China.

This cult to the white stone is the same way mysterious between the peoples who profess it more to the north, and the theories on his origin and meaning are so numerous as between the Nama. And curiously, different.

The Bai believe that the soul does not die with the body, but it goes to the kingdom of the shades, to lead it there, after the death of a person numerous ceremonies are done.

For the Bai the number 6 is more auspicioso.

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