The biggest festival of the Miao people-Miao New Year Festival

The ancestors of the Miao people were Chiyou, one of the three ancestors of China (Yan, Huang, and Chiyou). This is a nation that is troubled and troubled. Miao New Year's Day is the most solemn festival celebrated by Miao people. It is prevalent in Miao communities in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture in Guizhou and Rongshui Miao Autonomous County in Guangxi. The dates of the Miao Year vary from place to place, but they are all held after the millet is harvested and put into the warehouse, that is, on the Chen (Dragon) Day, Mao (Rabbit) Day, or Chou (Ox) Day in the ninth, tenth or eleventh months of the lunar calendar.

This is a nation that is troubled and troubled. Miao New Year's Day is the most solemn festival celebrated by the Miao people, equivalent to the Spring Festival of the Han people. It is prevalent in Miao communities in Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture in Guizhou and Rongshui Miao Autonomous County in Guangxi. The dates of the Year of the Miao Dynasty vary from place to place, but they are all held after the millet is harvested and put into the warehouse, that is, the Chenlong Day, Maotu Day, or Chouniu Day in the ninth, tenth or eleventh months of the lunar calendar.

In the first few days of the Miao Year, every household has to clean the house and actively prepare for New Year's goods, such as making glutinous rice cake, making rice wine, making tofu, making bean sprouts, and usually killing pigs or buying pork. Wealthy families also make sausages and blood tofu, sew new clothes for their families, etc. On the evening of the New Year's Eve, the whole family had to eat New Year's Eve dinner at home. The New Year guard didn't open the door until midnight to set off firecrackers to welcome Long into his home. At dawn, every family has elders presiding over ancestral sacrifices at home. After breakfast, the young and middle-aged man went to his neighbor's house to pay New Year greetings, which is called "donfniangx" in Miao language to express his congratulations for a happy New Year. In the first two days of the New Year, there are a number of taboos at home, such as: do not go out to carry water, do not go up the mountain to chop firewood or mow; do not sweep the floor; women do not do needlework; in some areas, women do not cook and are replaced by men; men do not go out to pick up manure, etc.

Men and women in Miao Township usually marry during the Miao Year. Starting from the fourth day. Some elderly men and women also carry wine, meat, glutinous rice cakes, etc. to visit relatives and friends, or are busy receiving guests at home; some young men and women either play sheng dances, dance bronze drum dances, or bullfights in their respective villages; or young men go to other villages to "travel" in the square field, where men and women sing to each other and express their admiration. The activities before and after lasted about 9 days to end. This is the most solemn festival among the Miao people. Of course, the most solemn Miao festivals in some Miao areas are not the Miao Year Festival, but the festivals in their tribes. For example, Dunan Village in Leishan County, southeastern Guizhou, where the Zongba Festival (Jiaogou) is the most lively and grand. The festival is applying for cultural heritage from the country.

The "Miao Year" generally lasts for five to twelve days. During this period, drinking wine and dancing Lusheng are indispensable activities. On the "Shen" day or similar zodiac day in the Miao year, the village will also solemnly "start the drum", and men and women dressed up and dance around the drum happily. It is called "stepping on the drum". The men in the outer village and the girls in the village sang "Wandering" to each other at night, and this lasted for several days until the end of Zi Day or Chou Day. The young people gathered to the next village where the Miao Year was celebrated and continued to be happy. In the "Miao Year", there are many taboos and etiquette. For example, married women cannot be present during the killing of New Year pigs; for example, when offering sacrifices to ancestors on New Year's Eve, fish and beef are served on wooden skins, cowhide, and leaves, and the priest sings an ancient song to welcome and see off the ancestors, saying "pinching the ground"; for example, they do not sweep the floor, do not blow, do not boil raw, and do not pour water to go out on the New Year's morning to seek good luck; for example, they rush to set off firecrackers in the early hours of the New Year to signal that they start preparing meals; they are the first to go to the well to carry water to show their hard work; men and women with the same surname cannot sing love songs, etc. A few days before the New Year of the Miao Dynasty, the Miao people killed pigs and roasted wine to prepare for the New Year. As soon as the hour passed in the early hours of New Year's Eve, chickens, ducks, and fish were slaughtered to prepare New Year's meals. Some Miao villages began to worship ancestors in the early hours, while some Miao villages did not start to worship ancestors until afternoon. New Year's dinner begins at dawn. After drinking at home, the women stayed at home to receive guests, while the adult men began to go to other houses to drink alcohol and changed to one house after several bowls. For guests outside the village, each household would take the initiative to invite them to eat "Chuanzhai Rice". During the banquet, the hostess and sister-in-law sang and toasted, and the guests responded with songs. The banquet lasted until midnight or even dawn the next day.

Since ancient times, the Miao people have used the tenth month of the lunar calendar as the beginning of the year, and have a traditional custom of celebrating the Miao Year. In modern times, the Miao people in some areas have begun to celebrate the Spring Festival instead of celebrating the Year of the Miao Dynasty. However, in many Miao areas, both the Spring Festival and the Year of the Miao Dynasty are celebrated, and the Year of the Miao Dynasty is more important. The dates of the Year of the Miao Dynasty vary from place to place. Most of them still fall in October of the lunar calendar, and some fall in November or the first month. The content and form are similar in place.

The Leishan Miao Year Festival was a product of the ancient ancestors of China farming rice and formulating a calendar. In matriarchal society, women are mainly engaged in housework and weaving, while men are mainly engaged in gathering and pig hunting to obtain sources of food and clothing. Because men discovered edible fruits of rice, sorghum, millet, etc. during private hunting, after artificial cultivation, the fruit yield doubled compared with wild, leading to the germination of agricultural civilization. If you want to farm rice, you can only have a good harvest if you know the season. This requires the formulation of an astronomical calendar.

Totemism was prevalent in primitive society. The calendar names are named and arranged after the totem names of the twelve most powerful clans that participated in the formulation of the calendar at that time. The calendar was also determined based on the totem names of the twenty-eight more powerful clans at that time. After the calendar was formulated, the form of honoring the times to the people was that the clan leader who presided over the formulation of the calendar chose the date and presided over the ceremony of worshipping the sky. The leader was afraid of totem worship, and in order to show his ability to pass on the Tao of Heaven, he chose his clan's totem day to start the ceremony and worship the Lord. Sacrifice to our ancestors and merge the two into one. This is the original origin of the New Year's Festival.