Hani

The traditional religion of the Hani, a Tibeto-Burman people of the Ailao Mountains in southern Yunnan, is polytheist, with nature and soul worship and a special reverence for ancestral spirits. Its priests are of three kinds: those who direct the main celebrations, the beima, who perform exorcisms and magic, and the nima, men or women, who make predictions and give medicinal herbs.

The past is kept in oral literature: a creation myth, the flood story, and the epic of the ancestors who crossed the river, chanted at festivals and sacrifices. Each Hani learns to recite the names of his ancestors from the first Hani family down to himself.