The Eye of Balance—A Study on the Ritual Healing Effect of Daliao in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Region

Abstract

The effects of religious ornaments have always remained mysterious. While believers put faith in the fortune these ornaments bring, materialists doubt their practical effects. I have always been confused by such "magical" things: no one has ever seen their magic, yet they appeal to so many people. Such symbols and ornaments appear in nearly all cultures: the character "fu" (good fortune) in China; the nioh figure in Japan; the scarabs in Egypt, etc. Ritual healing is one purpose of such symbols. In order to better understand what compels people to these symbols as well as their functions, I conducted a study on the ritual healing effects of a local symbol at Xishaungbanna Dai Autonomous Region called Daliao. My presentation is the ethnography below. Bamboo six-pointed-star-shaped ornaments, known as Daliao, are a common sight throughout the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Region in Yunnan province, hanging on doors and stuck in the ground in fields. Daliao serve as totemic guardians of the village, protecting homes and crops. Only a few studies have focused on the functions of Daliao, and collectively the consensus is that Daliao act as an overwatching eye warding off bad luck. Through field research to Manbian Village, I studied Daliaos’ functions and relating customs. In this paper, I hope to elaborate on the functions of Daliao from a medical-anthropological point of view: that Daliao serve as a stabilizer element in a community. For every community, there is a homeostasis recognized by people as the well-being and good conditions of the community as a whole and intruding this homeostasis or misplacing the elements in it leads to contamination and danger. Daliao helps Dai villagers cope with abnormalities in mind, restore stability and eliminate danger, acting to restore homeostasis in the community in the same way a medicine might within the body of a patient.