Religious syncretism of the Deang

Officially there think to the Deang, which live in southern end of Yunnan, like followers of the Buddhism Hinayana, that came to them, together with other influences of the Dai, when they happened to be under his domination, during the dynasty Ming.

Nevertheless, they still support numerous features of his primitive religions, in such a way that throughout the year the festivities happen animists and the Buddhists, and sometimes of important events, like the sowing or the death of someone, components belonging to both traditions are mixed in the same ceremony.

Between them it circulates a legend as which Sakyamuni and the Goddess of the Grain did a competition. And although Sakyamuni turned out to be winning he realized that without the products of the ground, in of whose production the Goddess of the Grain takes control, gifts could not be done to him, by what both deities were reconciled. In certain form it shows how in the heart of every person two cults coexist. A Buddhism more worried for giving solution to the big questions of the human existence, with an animism specialized from remote times in assuring the same existence.

Almost in every village there is a temple Buddhist, but there are also numerous trees that they represent to the different deities of his traditional pantheon. In this one in addition to the Goddess of the Grain, to whom ceremonies realize to him throughout the whole year, in each and everyone of the phases of the agricultural production cycle, to assure that the harvest is good, stand out other gods like:

- The God of the Earth, entrusted to assure the productivity of the ground.
- The God Dragon taken charge of the correct distribution of winds and rains.
- The God of the Village, who looks over the safety of all.
- The God of the Sky, responsible for the creation for the Deang.
- The God Snake, so that the numerous snakes do not hurt the people.

According to this traditional religion, the people if it is good will turn out to be rewarded going to the sky, if it has been bad, will go to the hell. Since according to his religious conceptions a world exists yin and another yang, of the shades and of the clarity, and the people, on having died, must go from the light to the shades, for what it must cross a big river. We already see that the crossing of a river is a constant in traditions as distant as the Greek (and his Stygian lagoon) and this one of the Deang. It is for it that they bury the people in coffins with form of ship, that will help them to cross the river to come to the world of the darkness.

As for the Buddhism, his penetration has been very different in the different ethnic groups included under the term Deang. In general almost all the villages have his temple, which is simultaneously a school and ceremony place. There are teachers and monks, the first ones Buddhists can read the writing in the language dai. In the temple novices study. Both monks and novices are fed by the people of the village.

Between the ethnic group Rumei slightly strict Buddhists have established religious schools, and a big harmony exists between this religion, and the traditional one.

Between the ethnic group Bulei the schools Buddhists are very strict, and in many villages one neither eats meat, domestic animals nor grow up, having given in many of the traditional ceremonies, and even there nor get frightened the wild animals that go to the sown fields.

Between the ethnic group Liang, while in some areas, like the area of Zhengkai, the influence of the Buddhism has been very superficial, in others, the schools the most orthodox Buddhists have taken big changes to his life and culture.

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