Dano

Midsummer in Korea, marked with swinging and wrestling.

Dano is a Korean midsummer festival on the fifth day of the fifth month in the Korean lunisolar calendar. Historically it marked a pause in agricultural work and hopes for health during the warm season. Families enjoyed seasonal foods such as surichwi rice cakes, washed their hair in sweet-flag water and joined games including swinging and wrestling. These practices developed through local history rather than one universal origin story.

The Gangneung Danoje festival is especially distinctive. Rituals honour the guardian deity of Daegwallyeong and other local spirits and involve preparing sacred wine, escorting the deity into town, shamanic ceremonies, the Gwanno mask drama and community markets. Its preparations begin in the fourth lunar month and extend beyond the single Dano day. UNESCO recognises this living cultural heritage.

Dano shares the fifth lunar month's fifth day with China's Dragon Boat Festival, but their ceremonies, foods and histories are different. The database lacks a Korean lunisolar rule; assigning a Hindu tithi or fixed Gregorian day would be wrong. Annual dates should be sourced from the Korean calendar and the official Gangneung programme.

The fifth day of the fifth month, at the turn into summer: hair washed in water boiled with sweet flag, swinging contests for women and ssireum wrestling for men, and surichwi rice cakes. It was once one of Korea's three great festivals.

Women wash their hair in water boiled with sweet flag, and swing standing up on long ropes; men wrestle at ssireum for a prize that was traditionally an ox. Surichwi rice cakes are made. The Gangneung Danoje, with its mask plays and shaman rites, runs for weeks.

Now much diminished as a national observance and kept fully in only a few places - Gangneung Danoje, a month-long shamanic festival on the east coast, is recognised by UNESCO and is where the old form survives. The same date is the Dragon Boat Festival in China.