Palaung

The Palaung religion is the ethnic animism of the Palaung, who call themselves Ta'ang, an Austroasiatic people of the Shan highlands and the Yunnan frontier. It rests on a system of nature spirits called nats, which the Palaung honoured alongside the Buddhism most of them came to follow.

Palaung girls wear rattan hoops around the waist, and a legend explains them: in ancient times Palaung women could fly through the sky, until the men made rattan hoops and fitted them around the women's waists to keep them on the ground. Most Palaung followed Theravada Buddhism, and boys were sent to monasteries at the age of ten to learn the scriptures.