In the more remote places there are still vestiges of Bai primitive animism. It is not difficult to find places where different gods are honored, such as the God of the Mountain, the God of the Crops, the God of the Hunt, the Dragon King or the Mother Goddess of the Dragon King. The Bai believe that spirits can cause illness, but can also protect them. In some of the villages there are female shamans, sometimes with enough power to enter into trance, who still play an important role in the spiritual life of Bai villages.
The Nama branch of the Bai, which live near the Mekong River, still preserve the cult to the white stone. This cult relates the Nama culture and religion to that of other peoples living further north, as this is a common cult among those minorities that descend from the old Qiang nationality. The Nama themselves don't know very well why the white stone is important, some of them attribute its sanctity to be the ancestors' bones that should not be moved, others say that they are demons' bones, dangerous of being moved, others talk of vague legends where the goats become stones; and other more say that the white stones are a representation of the Fire God, a deity worshipped around China.
The Bai believe that the soul does not die with the body, but rather goes to the Kingdom of the Shades. To send it there, after the death of a person they perform numerous ceremonies.
For the Bai the number 6 is the most auspicious.
Source: cultural-china.com
Editor: Shi Liwei
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