Mulam

The folk religion of the Mulao, a people of northern Guangxi who trace their ancestry to the old Ling and Liao tribes, was traditionally animist and polytheistic, and Han and Zhuang neighbours shaped it. Shamans led the ceremonies; at the dragon boat festival they performed rites to secure the harvest and drive off harmful insects.

The great festival was Yifan, a thanksgiving at which animals were sacrificed. In the third lunar month people honoured Huapo, the goddess of birth, whose garden is said to hold flowers that become children, with pigs and oxen killed before her temple. Buddhist monasteries stood near Luocheng, and in sickness or disaster the Mulao called Taoist masters, usually of the Meishan order.