The sacred forests of the Dai
Protecting the ancestors or protecting the nature

Between the indigenous peoples who live in the south of China, there is a good number of them that have close to every village a small coppice to which they consider sacred. In most cases they think that this forest is the place where they inhabit the spirits that they protect to the village, and support a series of taboos to prevent any type of activity from being able to spoil him.

Between the Dai they live in the south end of the province of Yunnan, in the prefecture of Xishuangbanna, in spite of being nominally Buddhists for more than 1000 years, preserve still the traces of the primitive religion that was forcing them to preserve these coppices. In fact, as they say themselves, the Buddhism is for the future life, but the cult to the gods of the village is the one that helps them in the present. It is as it that practically every village of the Dai has his small sacred forest in honor of the ancestors of the clan, that the protective gods of the village are considered.

The animals of these forests, the plants, the ground and the water, everything is sacred and it is not possible to take. It is completely prohibited not only to cut trees, but to take any thing, to hunt, to cultivate the ground, and even to take the fruits of the trees, which allow to rot in the nature. In fact, during most of the year, except two occasions in which ceremonies are realized in honor to the ancestors, the people usually do not enter this forest.

A study realized by mister Gao Lishi (1) has calculated that in the above mentioned prefecture of Xishuangbanna the sacred forests of the Dai protect a 100.000 hectares whole, what there suppose five per cent of the entire surface of the prefecture. In his study it has not been possible less that to conclude that along his constant interaction with the forces of the nature, the Dai understood that if there was no forest there was no water, and if there was no water they could not cultivate the rice on which they depend to survive, to catch the fish that complement his diet.

The Xishuangbanna prefecture is only in China. For his tropical ambience and plenty of animal and vegetable species, he enjoys a special protection that has been evident in the declaration of numerous nature reserves and in the development of a tourism focused on this matter on the nature. Well, the sacred forests of the Dai constitute a third of the entire surface protected from this prefecture.

Recent studies have evaluated of scientific form the role of these sacred forests in the nature conservation. His conclusions show us that they realize several fundamental roles:

1. Protection of the biodiversity. Since in his interior the number of vegetable and animal species is much major than out of them.

2. Protection of the soil and of the environmental moisture.

3. Oxygen production.

4. Shelter of animals that fight of natural form against the agricultural plagues. To the being a calm place which rarely the people enter, is the favorite place to nest of different species of birds, which later have a fundamental role in the natural control of the plagues.

5. Natural protection from storms, fires and frosts.

6. Protection of the culture and traditions of the Dai.

We see once again that the indigenous knowledge so many times despised by the national majorities, are generated usually of a long interaction with the nature, and a desire to protect it with the conviction that to protect to the nature is they are protected themselves.

It is interesting to discover how the majorities realize that a modern development of the resources of the regions where they live through the minorities, cannot be successful if it does not bear in mind its own traditions. Since they are those who throughout the centuries have been able to use and preserve their own grounds, like pioneers of this one so necessary sustainable development.

(1) Gao Lishi. - Dai zu "longlin" chongbai dui shengdai huanbao of gongxian (Contribution of the sacred forests of the Dai to the protection of the nature). In "Dai zu wenhua lun". Publishing house of the Minorities of Yunnan. Kunming. 2000

Copyright © 2004 www.wuhancom.net