Dano (festival)

Dano (Korean: 단오), also called Surit-nal (수릿날), is a Korean traditional holiday that falls on the 5th day of the fifth month of the lunar Korean calendar. It is an official holiday in North Korea and one of the major traditional holidays in South Korea. South Korea has retained several festivals related to the holiday, one of which is Gangneung Dano Festival (강릉단오제), designated by UNESCO as a "Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity".

In the Mahan confederacy of ancient Korea, this was a day of spiritual rites and enjoyment with song, dance, and wine. Traditionally, women washed their hair in water boiled with Sweet Flag (창포; changpo), believed to make one's hair shiny. Women also put Angelica polymorpha (궁궁이; gung-gung-i) flowers in their hair out of the belief that its aroma would repel evil. People wore blue and red clothes and dyed hairpins red with the iris roots. Men wore iris roots around their waist to ward off evil spirits. Herbs damp with morning dew were once believed to cure stomachaches and heal wounds. Traditional foods include surichwitteok (수리취떡), ssuktteok (쑥떡), and other herb rice cakes.

Folk games associated with Dano include swinging, ssireum (wrestling), seokjeon (a stone battle game) and taekkyon (martial art). The swing was a game played by women, while ssireum was a wrestling match among men. In addition, mask dance was extremely popular among peasants due to its penchant for satirical lyrics flouting local aristocrats.