Weird and little-known folk customs in the Mosuo People's Daughter Country on the Lake of Lugu

Lugu Lake, a national-level scenic spot known as the "Mysterious Eastern Daughter Country" and the "Living Fossil of the Human Matriarchal Clan Territory", is not only the lakes and mountains are picturesque, dreamy, quiet and beautiful, but also because of the local ancient primitive social form and the preservation of the unique, ancient, simple and unique customs in the world. Tens of thousands of Mosuo people who live on the lake still live in a matriarchal family centered on women, living a life of Axiao's walking marriage in which men and women do not marry. This seems to outsiders who have entered the 21st century. It is unbelievable, it really makes people feel confusing and full of mysterious temptation.

At the junction of the mountains of Sichuan and Yunnan, there is a mysterious "Lugu Lake". In the local dialect,"Lu" means ravine,"Gu" means li, and "Lugu Lake" means "lake in ravine". This land and water is known as the "Mysterious Eastern Daughter Country" and the "living fossil of the matriarchal clan territory of mankind." The most famous thing here is the "walking marriage" custom of the Mosuo people on the shores of Lugu Lake. In modern society, there are still a large number of Mosuo men and women who practice "walking marriages". What is a walking marriage? Men do not marry, and women do not marry. Men and women are imprisoned in their own matriarchal families for life. In the eyes of modern people,"matriarchal" heads are naturally very strange.

In fact, the "Lugu Lake" area is not the "Women's Country" in historical classics. As for the title of "Eastern Women's Country", it is also a term "borrowed" by later generations from "Journey to the West". Although "Journey to the West" is just a mythical novel by Wu Chengen, many of the characters and place names in it are written with noses and eyes. The so-called "Xiliang Women's Country" is an example. In the fifty-fourth chapter of "Journey to the West","The Dharma Nature Came to the West to Meet the Country of Women, and the Heart of the Monkey has a Plan to Get rid of Fireworks" wrote: "The people there are all long skirts and short jackets, pink faces and oily heads, regardless of age, and are all women. They are doing business on the two streets. When they suddenly saw the four of them (Tang Priest and disciples) coming, they all applauded and laughed: 'The race is here! The race is here!'"

As early as the previous time, by the Zimu River, a local old woman warned: "You still have good fortune and come to my house! If you go to the second house, you won't be able to finish it. My family of four or five members, all of whom are old, has stopped all the "wind and moon affairs". Therefore, I refuse to hurt you. If you go to the second house, the old people are small and the young people are big, who will let you go! I want to have sex with you. If you don't obey, you will be killed. I'll cut off all the flesh on your body and make it into fragrant bags..."From Wu Chengen's description, it is not difficult to see that the" daughter country "in" Journey to the West "is really abstinence, and even cardamom women are not blessed to enjoy the" wind and moon affairs ". The "sexual hunger" of generations has plagued the whole society.

According to the "Old Tang Book·The Biography of Dong Nv" records: "It is connected to Maozhou and Dangxiang in the east, and it is connected to Yazhou in the southeast. It is separated by Luonan and Bailangyi." It can be inferred from this that during the Tang Dynasty, a "daughter country" had appeared in the area of the Dalong River and Dadu River, a tributary of the Yalong River and the Dadu River, where Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet met. The so-called "Dongnu Country" at that time should have been the ancestors of the Mosuo people. It is difficult to say which of the Mosuo people of "Lugu Lake" or Wu Chengen's "Xiliang Women's Kingdom" is more qualified. After careful examination, we find that the official history does have records of the "Nvguo", and the earliest documentary materials appear in the "Northern History" or "Sui Shu".

The first record of the "Women's Kingdom" in historical books can be found in the "Sui Shu·Biography of the Women's Kingdom":"The Women's Kingdom is located south of Cong Ling, and its country has women as the king." "The Old Tang Book: The Biography of Nanman and Southwest Man" changed its name, changing the "Nvguo" in the Sui Dynasty to the "East Nvguo". The book writes: "The East Nvguo is another name for the Western Qiang, because there is a Nvguo in the West Sea, so it is called East Nvyan. Folk customs regard women as king. It is connected to Maozhou and Dangxiang in the east, and to Yazhou in the southeast, separated by Luonan and Bailangyi. Its territory runs in nine days from east to west and twenty-two from north to south. There are more than eighty cities large and small." In his "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty", Xuanzang also recorded the customs and customs of the "East Women Kingdom":"The land of the East Women is long from east to west, and narrow from north to south."

Whether it is the "Women's Country" or the "East Women's Country", they are both the legendary "Women's Country". It seems that this ancient and mysterious country is not very large. Cong Ling is today's Pamirs. "South of Cong Ling" should be in Xinjiang. Master Xuanzang, the prototype of the Tang Priest, went to Tianzhu to seek Dharma, and he traveled precisely this westward road. To be precise, the specific location of the "Women's Country" should be in today's Kuqa County in Xinjiang. Kuqa was called "Qiuci" in ancient times, which means "prosperous city-state". Wu Cheng 'en inserted a lingering "romantic encounter" in "Journey to the West", which has some historical foundation.

"Sui Shu" records in detail the general situation of the "Women's Kingdom":"The mountain is the city, five or six miles away, and there are thousands of people." The natural conditions are not very good-the climate is cold, and hunting is a profession. The most famous products here are just cinnabar, musk, yak, horses and so on. The mineral that can earn a large amount of "foreign exchange" is salt. The whole country relies on this thing to survive. "I always sell salt to Tianzhu, and the profits are several times."

A "daughter country" that relies on mountains to eat mountains, relies on water to drink water, and knows how to do business, has a good life. Unfortunately, the street was not filled with naturally beautiful and pure beautiful women; it was rather frightening. "Sui Shu" says that the people of the "Women's Country" have strange expressions: "Men and women paint their faces in color, which may change several times in a day. Everyone wears hair and uses leather as shoes. Taxation is impermanent." How much beauty and sexiness can these flowery and grotesque faces give people? Even in a small country, the family members are very elegant. The "Queen" is naturally different: "The royal residence has a nine-story building with hundreds of maids, and the court is heard every five days. There is also a little queen who knows state affairs together. Her customs are noble women and despise her husband, but her nature is not jealous." If the queen dies, how will a new king come into being? "When the queen died, the country collected money and asked the two virtuous daughters of the deceased's family, one became the queen and the other became the little king." This is somewhat similar to a loose hereditary system. The so-called "Queen" and "Xiao Wang" are both positive and negative.

The funeral customs of the "Daughter's Country" are also very strange: "When a noble person dies, the skin is peeled off, and gold fragments and flesh are buried in a bottle. After a year, he buried it with iron inside his skin." It seems that only by doing so can a rich person have an immortal soul and an eternal body.

Since the appearance of "Daughter Country" in the Book of the Sui Dynasty, this woman's regime has actually come from afar to make pilgrimage to China and earth. In the sixth year of the founding of the Emperor, that is, in 586, the "Daughter Country" sent envoys to pay tribute. Yang Jian, Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, received them with high spirits. The history books did not disclose the specific details in detail, but only scribbled a line: "In the sixth year of the founding emperor, envoys were sent to pay tribute, but then they stopped." The "Eastern Women's Kingdom" that appears in the "Old Tang Book" is a change of color, but it is still the same place of people. In fact, it is difficult for women to live in harmony with their male neighbors who are obsessed with each other. Their primitive folk customs are bound to be threatened from all directions. If you want to survive, you can only change yourself. In Li Tang's official classics since then, I have never heard of any "daughter country". Nowadays, the "Lugu Lake" marriage should be a "dream in the dream" and "outside the body" of the "country of daughters".

Night visit to Xiao

When Mosuo women were at the age of making friends with Ah Xiao, they usually had their own greenhouse in the flower house. Once they made friends with Ah Xiao, this greenhouse became a small world for dating.

The initial dates were mostly hidden and conducted quietly. In the dead of night, men often walk or ride to female A Xiao's house and press the secret signal to meet or take a riprap to the roof of a flower-filled building, or play a flute to play strings, or use a horse bell, or knock on the door with a pipe. There are many secret signals. The waiting woman opens the door and introduces male A Xiao into the bedroom. Before dawn, the man hurried away and returned to his home. After a period of secret visits, the woman made the male A Xiao public, and the male A Xiao could openly visit the female A Xiao, and could also enter the room, go to the female A Xiao's lower room to have tea and chat, and enjoy the warm reception.

There are also many men who appear openly at the beginning of their marriage. When a man visits female A Xiao for the first time, he must bring his original matchmaker or one of his trusted boyfriends, and bring tea, sugar, or dresses for female A Xiao with him. The other party's family warmly welcomed the visitors, and took part of the tea and sugar brought by male A Xiao to sacrifice to the ancestors, and part of it was given to the households in the village or only to relatives, thus tactfully announcing that the family's daughter had a male A Xiao. In the evening, the woman's mother or sister led the male A Xiao to the female A Xiao's bedroom. Female A Xiao can also serve wine to male A Xiao in her greenhouse. In the initial stage of his visit, the male A Xiao often avoided men such as the woman's brother or uncle, and gradually became casual over time. After making friends with Ah Xiao public, the families of both parties became "comparing children makes them black", that is, in-laws. Every festival, we should visit each other with gifts. Help each other during weddings and weddings, and each other's family has to go to the funeral after someone died. When the man A Xiao goes far away, the woman sends chickens, eggs, incense, intestines, pig fat, etc. in gift boxes made of bamboo strips for A Xiao and his partners to enjoy on the way. This relationship of "comparing children makes them black" was born with the establishment of the A-Xiao relationship. It also disappeared with the dissolution of Xiao's relationship.

The children go home separately

A married couple has a child. On the day after the child is born, the woman's home will hold a naming ceremony for the child. He brought "Bashbaha"(the food offered to the gods and ancestors during the naming ceremony for the child) and sweet wine to the man's family to congratulate him. The man's family sent a woman with rich food to visit the woman. On the eve of the full moon of the first child, the man's home will kill pigs and sheep, prepare wine and hold a banquet, and hold a grand "Ruohashe" ceremony (i.e. full moon wine) at the woman's home to entertain the men, women and children in the woman's village and neighboring villages to celebrate. When a child reaches the age of 13, he also has to pay homage to his biological father's home, and the biological father gives him a commemorative gift to express his congratulations.

All children born to A Xiao's walking marriage live with their mother, follow their mother's surname, and are jointly raised by the mother, uncle and aunt in the family. When children reach adulthood, they bear the main responsibility for supporting these elderly people. Male A Xiao is not a member of the female A Xiao's family and has no legal obligation to raise children. However, he provides necessary care in terms of production, labor and material life. When he has children, he must visit and help frequently, and consciously assumes certain obligations of raising children. Therefore, for the Mosuo man, his considerable energy is to raise his nephew together with his sisters, and at the same time, he also has to devote part of his energy to helping the daughter A Xiao raise his biological children. After biological children grow up, they must also fulfill certain obligations to support their biological father, and their biological father will also be in mourning after he dies.

empathy

Xiao's relationship lasted for varying lengths of time. It varies depending on the situation, from a few days to a few months to a few years, more than a decade, or even a lifetime. If they unite, they will gather, and if they disagree, they will disperse. Geographically, the farther away man and woman Axiao are, the more unstable they are. Most of Axiao's marriage took place in one or two nearby villages, and a few were dozens of miles away. Because the man and woman Axiao live in their mother's home and have no economic relationship and daily life and close contact, they are quite temporary and unstable. Between A Xiao, no one relied on each other economically. You don't belong to me, and I don't belong to you. Neither party can monopolize the other or rely on the other. This made Xiao's relationship relatively indifferent, and naturally he would not be single-minded.

There are men and women A Xiao who are loyal to each other, and there is also one who makes friends with multiple A Xiao. Most of them are more than a few, and a few are as many as a dozen or dozens of people. Generally, when he was young, Xiao's relationship was very unstable. As you grow older. The number of Axiao he made friends with gradually decreased, and the relationship became stable. Some adult men and women generally have a long-term stable Ashau in their prime years, and may also have one or more temporary Ashau as supplements, that is, one formal Ashau and several informal Ashau. Long-term Ashaw as official Ashaw. However, he could only communicate secretly with informal Xiao.

During the process of making friends between Xiao and Xiao, if they discover that the other party has been in love with another person, bad character or emotional incompatibility with him, the relationship between Xiao and Xiao will be dissolved accordingly. The dissolution of Xiao's relationship is relatively free and easy, and generally does not require any formalities. Because it does not involve interest issues such as the division of property and the ownership of children. Xiao's divorce is also difficult to cause disputes and disputes. Both parties can be calm as if nothing has happened, and can even maintain a good relationship as ordinary friends. Therefore, it is easy to lead to separation and recombination.

When the man no longer wants to maintain the relationship with A-Xiao, some ask someone to send a message informing the other party to terminate the relationship with A-Xiao; some simply say to the woman,"I'm not coming"; or if they don't visit the woman for a long time, they will naturally dissolve it.

If the woman is unwilling to maintain a relationship with Ah Xiao, she will directly tell the man not to visit her home; or when the man Ah Xiao visits, she will either look troubled, refuse to share the same room, or hide in the home of relatives and friends. The man felt that he was not interested, so he withdrew rationally and stopped visiting. There was a breakdown in the relationship between Xiao and Xiao. After being restored, there are also cases where the mirror is broken and restored.