Black Ash Applied to the Face to Predict Auspice

Spring festival is the most important one to the Daur people. On that day, people stop working, put up New Year pictures and antithetical couplets, prepare all kinds of delicious food such as shouparou (that is, braised meat eaten with hands instead of chopsticks), go and visit friends and kinsmen, and have various entertainments. Spring festival activities will not come to the end until the fifteenth day of the first month according to Chinese lunar year. On the sixteenth day hard-working Daur people are ready to go out hunting or prepare for cultivation. This particular day is named by the Daurs "Huowuduru", that is, "Black Ash Day". The senior of each family get up early in the morning, and then put on each one's forehead with a black dot. The young people, with their hands coated with a mixture of oil and black ash from the bottom of a pan, try to apply it to others' faces and thus make a lot of fun. As a result, this morning the faces of boys and girls are usually shiny black. The Daur people believe that this kind of entertainment of blacking the face represents happiness, and predicts continuous good fortune in the coming new year.

"Cai'ente Banquet" and "Stealing Wine Glasses" <<
Traditional Sport - Field Hockey >>