The traditions and rituals of the Nanai people

Abstract

These speech materials consist of four topics about the traditional culture of the Nanai people: childhood educations and child rearing rituals, birth rituals, wedding and funeral rituals. The foundation of the traditional upbringing of the Nanai people was to cultivate diligence, humility, taking care of the elderly and sick people and moral values such as “you can never take someone else’s things.” In the child upbringing and traditional education the Nanais were based on the praises and encouragement, and used bedtime stories, legends and tales and various plays. The narrative stories about the birth rituals show us the various methods as a substitute for medicine such as wood chips made from thinly sawed trees. Due to the high infant mortality rate there were many methods that were used to protect the baby’s life such as various amulets. In the part “Wedding rituals” contained the three phases of the preparation for wedding which are inquiry, uncorking, and wedding ceremony. During these phases the aspects of meticulous exchanges between the two families of the bride and groom were mentioned in detail. The author told in detail about wedding khalat with embroidered Three World and so forth. As for the funeral rituals, the Nanai people believe that when a person dies, his soul leaves him and though the outer shell dies, the soul is alive. This is why before sending a dead person to that world, he was treated like a living person. Here presented the various funeral and burial rituals. All these stories on four topics help us to deepen understanding on the way of life and traditional values of the Nanai people.