In 1958 the State Council approved the founding of the Morin Dawa Daur Autonomous Banner. Most Daur farm, herd livestock, hunt and fish. They wrestle, race horses, practice archery, and play a form of football with a ball made of ox hair. They use either a wooden or felt ball with a stick no more than a meter long and made from a young xylosma tree bent at the root. The ball is then lit.
Men wear straw hats in the summer and leather caps with earflaps in the winter.
Women wear white cloth socks and flower-designed shoes in the summer and leather boots and blue cotton robes in the winter. For weddings or the visiting of relatives, they sport silk sleeveless jackets lined with furs of marten, squirrel or leopard with a small handbag hung on their left shoulder. Monogamy was the general rule, and marriages were arranged by the parents. A man from a different clan would go to live with his wife's family, but had no claim of their property. The Daur are Southeast Asian lumberjacks.