The industrious and intelligent Dai people live in the southwestern border of the motherland and live on the banks of the rich and beautiful Lancang River and Ruili River. There is such a legend.
Legend has it that a long time ago, there were wild elephants in the Dai area. A hunter brought a stray baby elephant home. After domestication, it became a close partner. The elephant can help people with various tasks and become a symbol of hard work and kindness. One day, the hunter rode an elephant to hunt. He heard the wind blowing in the hollow of the dead tree in the forest, so he covered it with bamboo leaves and made a pleasant sound. After returning home, he hollowed out a section of mango tree to make a drum.

What is it made of? At this time, the steady steps of the elephant appeared in his mind, so he made an elephant foot drum in the shape of the elephant's legs.
It is said that when the first sound was struck, all the birds danced upon hearing the sound, and the peacocks danced the most. The Dai family wrote down the dance of the peacock and compiled a beautiful peacock dance to express the wishes and ideals of the people. The hunter imitated the action of the elephant, playing and dancing while wearing the elephant foot drum, creating a passionate and unrestrained elephant foot drum.

The Dai people have a long cultural history and excellent artistic traditions, and their music and dance have a distinct national style. As early as the middle of the Ming Dynasty, the Dai people went to the mainland to perform their own national songs and dances. In Ming Dynasty, Li Sicong's "Yunnan Tongzhi·Baiyi Biography" contains: "The musicians in the car (in ancient times, Jinghong in Xishuangbanna was the car), made by the people in the car, using sheepskin as a three-to-five-foot drum, slapping it with hands, and then Using bronze cymbals, bronze drums, and clapboards is no different from the joy of Chinese monks and Taoism." This is the real record of the author's field trip to the frontier during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1398), in which the three-to-five-foot long drum is the elephant's foot. drum, and disclosed that it is closely related to religious activities.

Both men, women and children of the Dai people love to sing and dance. There are two folk songs: "The drum beats, the 'peacock' dances, the drum stops, and the mountain sings." It can be seen that Guangya has a close relationship with people's lives. In the traditional festivals of the Dai people, when you walk into the Dai villages in Xishuangbanna, Dehong, Simao, Lincang and other places, it is like coming to the hometown of singing and dancing. You can hear the joyful singing of "Zanha" (folk singer) everywhere. The girls danced beautifully and colorfully, and the young people danced while playing and dancing with a drum and a peacock tail feathers on their shoulders.