Yi people's customs

Yi Village in Yunnan: Yi Village in Zhiju Village originated from the "Southwest Yi"(collectively referred to as Southwest Ethnic Groups) recorded in Han history. According to records in books such as "The Origin of the Yi People" and "Southwest Yi Chronicles", the Yi people called themselves "Ni". In ancient Chinese,"Ni" was pronounced as "Yi", so Chinese records were often called "Yi". In 1956, during the period of breaking down the name of ethnic discrimination in the old society, the Yi people sent representatives to Beijing to meet with Chairman Mao. After understanding the situation and listening to opinions, Chairman Mao gave suggestions. Since the term "Yi people" had a derogatory meaning (barbarian people), he changed "Yi" to "Yi", which means that there are "rice","silk", food and clothing under the house (), symbolizing prosperity, so the "Yi people" were changed to "Yi people".

There are many branches of the Yi people, including Nuosu, Niesu, Nasu, Naisu, Nie Zu, Luowu, Asipo, Axi, Sani, Nipo, etc. who call themselves. In the above-mentioned self-proclaimed claims, Nuosu, Nie Su, Nasu and Nie Zu have the same original meaning in Yi language, and they are written differently in Chinese characters due to differences in dialects. Nuosu is the largest group among the Yi people (its self-proclaimed abbreviation is also commonly used as "Ni" and "Nuo"), and is mainly distributed in the Liangshan area of Sichuan. There is no direct communication between Yi dialects in various places, but about 30%-50% have the same or similar words and have the same or similar grammatical structures.

The Yi people are also the sixth largest ethnic minority in China. They mainly live in the three provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan in southwest China, with a total population of more than 9 million. There are 8.714,393 registered people in China (2010), and nearly one million people in Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and other countries. There is a common religious ceremony host "Bimo" in Yi branches, and there is also a common traditional festival "Torch Festival".

"Chengzi Ancient Village", an ancient Yi village in Luxi County, Honghe Prefecture, Yunnan Province, is a unique residential building for the Yi people. The houses of Yi people in Liangshan mostly use slab roofs and earth walls. There are houses shaped like "ganlan" in Guangxi and the Yi areas of eastern Yunnan. The Yi people's "Tuzhang House" is very similar to the Tibetan-style stone building, with the same flat roof and the same thickness. The difference is that its wall is made of soil, which is fixed with plywood during construction. After filling the soil, it is compacted and raised layer by layer to form an earth wall (the so-called "dry building"). The production of flat tops is similar to that of stone towers, and also has the function of drying. Tuzhangfang is distributed in central and southeastern Yunnan. The soil in this area is delicate and moderately dry and wet, providing a large number of convenient and accessible materials and conditions for the construction of Tuzhang House.

Most Yi houses are three or five rooms. One room in the center is the main room, which is a place where family members gather and also a place to receive guests. On the left side of the wall, there is a fire pond. Three pieces of stone stand beside the fire pond to form a tripod shape, and the pot is supported on it, called "Guozhuang". People are strictly prohibited from stepping on and crossing in Guozhuang, otherwise it will be considered unlucky. Above the Guozhuang, there is a rectangular wooden frame hung with strips and bamboo strips are laid on it for roasting dried meat of wild animals or garlic, pepper, and chili. The fire pond is used for cooking, tea, heating and lighting. The Yi family, old and young, often sits around Huotang to celebrate the joy of family life. Huotang has become a place for the Yi people to convey their culture. Ordinary Yi people lay a straw mat next to the fire pond and sleep wrapped in felt.

to the many branches of traditional costumes of the Nuosu Yi people in Liangshan, the Yi people vary greatly from place to place. There are nearly a hundred different costumes, which are dazzling and unique. The Yi people's cowhide armor helmets are unique costumes of the Yi people, and few have been preserved, especially helmets. Women generally wear a rimmed or embroidered large and right-lapped top, black head heads, earrings, and silver rows on the neckline. Except for the Yi people in Xiaoliang Mountain who wear skirts, Yi women in other regions of Yunnan wear long skirts. Many branches of women's trousers are embroidered with exquisite lace on the feet. The cuffs and necklines of married women are also embroidered with exquisite and colorful lace, especially the embroidery on the waist is even more dazzling.

Most unmarried women in central and southern Yunnan wear bright cockscomb hats decorated with red tassel and beads. The cockscomb hats are often cut from cloth shells into cockscomb shapes, and embroidered with dozens, hundreds or even thousands of silver bubbles in size. In the past, Yi people living in mountainous areas, both men and women, liked to wear a "ear tile"-sheepskin felt. It looks like a cloak, woven with wool, long to the knee below, the lower end decorated with hair tassel, generally dark black.

Yi men wear black narrow sleeves and lace right open jacket, under the pleated wide leg trousers. There is a lock of hair about three inches long on the top of the head, which is called "Heaven Bodhisattva" in Chinese and "Zi Er" in Yi language. This is the way Yi men show their gods and must not touch them. It is wrapped in a green, blue, and black head more than ten feet long, and the right front is tied into a long vertebral shape as thick as a thumb-called "Zier" in Chinese. Men regard the need not to be beautiful and use their leisure time to pluck out their beards one by one. They wear yellow or red ear beads strung with red silk threads on their ears, and red silk threads under the beads.

Chuxiong Yizhou Fashion Festival In Chuxiong Yizhou, there are two places that hold fashion shows for Yi girls every year, namely the "Fashion Festival." One is the Clothing Festival in Zhiju Village, Yongren County, which takes place on the 15th day of the first lunar month every year; the other is the Clothing Festival in Santai Township, Dayao County, which takes place on March 28 every year. During the Clothing Festival, it is the best time for young men and women of the Yi nationality to choose a partner. Yi girls can show themselves best by seeing whose clothes are the most beautiful. Yi women's costumes rely entirely on handmade peach blossoms and embroidery, and it often takes a year or two to make a suit.

Therefore, whoever has more clothes and good patterns will be regarded as a hard-working, capable and skillful person. Different from the competition style, people no longer wear all clothes on their bodies, but keep changing new clothes. Some girls change five or six sets of clothes a day. As a result, there was another scene at the festival: beside the mountain pipes and under the green trees, old people set up countless tents, cooked food, and faithfully guarded the costumes of their girls.

Most Yi people are accustomed to eating three meals per day, eating coarse grains, noodles and rice as their staple foods. For the Yi people in the Shousha River, Anning River and Dadu River basins, breakfast is mostly rice with dumplings. Lunch is served with cake as the staple food, with wine and vegetables. Among all the cakes, the cakes made with soba noodles are the most distinctive. It is said that buckwheat flour cake has the effects of digestion, elimination of accumulated food, anti-sweating, and anti-inflammation, and can be preserved for a long time without deteriorating. Guizhou Nuning Qiao Crispy has become a well-known traditional snack in the area.

The meat is mainly pork, sheep, and beef, and they like to cut it to the size of a fist and cook it. The Han people call it "Tuotuo meat." Da, Xiao Liangshan and most Yi people abstain from dog meat and do not eat meat such as horse meat and frog snakes. The mountains are also rich in mushrooms, fungus, and walnuts. In addition, the vegetables produced in vegetable gardens make the sources of vegetables very extensive. In addition to being eaten fresh, most of them are made into pickled cabbage. There are two types of pickled cabbage: dried pickled cabbage and soaked pickled cabbage. Another dish known as "Doraba" is also the most common dish among the people.

The Yi people like to eat sour and spicy food, and are fond of alcohol. They have the etiquette of treating guests with wine. Alcohol is indispensable for resolving various disputes, making friends, weddings and funerals, etc. There is also a folk custom of "beating sheep" and "beating cattle" to welcome guests. Whenever a guest arrives, he will kill the guest first, and according to the visitor's identity and degree of closeness, they will treat him as cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, etc. Before killing an animal, the live animal should be brought to the guest, asked to see it and then slaughtered to show respect for the guest. Wine is a welcome gift to honor guests. In Liangshan, as long as guests enter the house, the owner must first respect the guests with wine and then make various dishes. The food given to guests is very decent when the pig is fat. During the meal, the housewife should always pay attention to the rice in the guest's bowl and add it at any time before the guest eats it up to show her sincerity in hospitality. When eating, the elders sit above, and the next generation sit on both sides and below in turn, adding rice, serving vegetables, and soaking the soup for the elders.

Yi people "jump vegetables" in Wuliang Mountain and Ailao Mountain in Yunnan There is also a unique form of serving food and the highest etiquette for guests at banquet-"jumping vegetables", that is, serving food while dancing. This is a long-established traditional food culture that perfectly combines dance, music and acrobatics. At banquets, square tables are usually arranged along two sides, and guests sit around three sides, leaving a "food jumping" channel in the middle. Three gongs kicked off the "vegetable jumping": folk music such as gongs, lusheng, sanxian, muffled flutes, and leaves were played together; amid the shouts of the girls and young men,"Woowali-Thiathii", I saw a Yi man holding a tray with his hands bowed with his hands, and his footsteps were sometimes high and low, sometimes rapid and sometimes slow. Another person held a dish plate on his head and arms (a total of 24 bowls) and followed him into the venue.

They sang a simple and pure folk music concerto, with funny strange looks on their faces, and danced easy-to-go dance steps that were easy, beautiful, smooth and consistent, and appeared one after another. The two partners, who danced with towels, were full of strange behaviors, escorting them suddenly forward, backward, left, and right like colorful butterflies playing with flowers. A pair of vegetable handlers have to serve four tables. The partner arranges 32 bowls of vegetables into a Eight Trigrams Array, each bowl of vegetables like a "chess piece". It has its own positioning, and all tables are placed one by one in accordance with ancient rules, without any chaos.

The Yi girl's coming of age ceremony "dress changing ceremony" is also called "Shaluo."

The patrilineal small family system is prevalent among the Yi people in various places, and their young children often live with their parents. Women have a lower status. The inheritance is divided equally among the sons, and the inheritance is generally owned by close relatives. In the history of the Yi people, father and son names were popular. This custom continued among the Yi people in Liangshan until before the founding of the People's Republic of China. Monogamy is the basic system of Yi marriage. A higher bride price is required to be paid to marry a daughter-in-law. Staggered marriage is more popular, and transfer of spouses is implemented when the husband dies. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, some Yi areas in Yunnan still maintained a public housing system, and the Yi people in Liangshan maintained strict hierarchical intramarriage.

When Yi girls enter adulthood (usually at the age of 15), they are traditionally required to hold a grand coming of age ceremony-"Skirt Changing Ceremony", also known as "Shaluo", which means "changing skirts, combing double braids, and pulling ear strings", marking that the girl has grown up. Before "Shaluo", Yi girls wore red and white children's skirts with single braids and ear threads hanging on their ears. After the "skirt changing" ceremony is held, you must wear a three-string mop dress with black and blue in the middle. The original single braid must be changed to double braid, and you must wear an embroidered head handkerchief and hang earrings.

After the "skirt changing" ceremony, the girl can freely go shopping, rush to the venue, watch horse racing, make friends, and fall in love. The time for "changing skirts" is determined according to the development status of the girl. It is generally selected between the ages of 15 and 17, and it is usually selected for a single year. Because in the eyes of the local Yi people,"changing skirts" at the age of two will be disastrous and will not be auspicious for life. As for the specific date of the "dress change", the elderly must be asked to carefully choose and calculate it before finally setting an auspicious day.

Since "changing skirts" is a symbol for a woman from childhood to adulthood, parents attach great importance to this. Especially the mother. She is a considerate person to her daughter and knows her daughter's physiological condition best. Before changing the skirt, she enthusiastically prepared lace black hapa, a new skirt, as well as beads of different colors and silver medals on the collar and other clothing items for her daughter.

The Chuxiong Yi people's "girl room" is in the Chuxiong Yi people, and there is also a unique marriage custom-"girl room". As long as a girl is 16 years old, her parents will build another small grass building for her and let her spend the night alone. Young men over the age of 20 can climb the grass building of their beloved girl at night to talk about love. They blew contempt together, matched the tune, and told each other their love. Even if there were several pairs of young men and women at the same time, they were not restrained. Once the love matures, a man and a woman can get married as long as they obtain the consent of their parents. The parents of both parties generally do not interfere with their children's choices.

After young men and women get engaged, they have to prepare for the wedding banquet. Pork and chicken are often used for wedding banquets, but mutton is generally not used (mutton is used for funerals). The Yi people in Shiping, southern Yunnan, have the habit of inviting their male and female partners to have a meal and drink before getting married; in the Yi people in western Yunnan, when they marry their daughters, they have to build a shed with branches in the courtyard or dam for guests to drink, smoke, eat, and sit idle. People call this temporary shed made of branches a "green shed".

The Yi family's marriage custom of "splashing water to snatch the bride" According to the Yi family's customs, when the bride comes out of the cabinet, her feet are not allowed to touch the soil, otherwise there will be a risk of children becoming wild. The young man who takes the bride must carry the bride and help her mount the horse. There are also various rules on the way back to marriage: if the mountains are high and the roads are narrow and it is impossible to ride, the young man who receives the bride must take turns carrying the bride on his back; when crossing the river and wading, the person must also carry the bride across the river, and the bride's embroidered shoes must not touch water.

The Yi people also believe that clear water can drive away evil, send away demons, and bring happiness. Therefore, when the Yi people are newly married, they must splash water. In order to withstand this test, when welcoming, when selecting their unmarried partners to pick up the bride, they must be strong and capable. They must not only withstand the cold caused by splashing water, but also complete the arduous task of "stealing" the bride. They often review them repeatedly when recommending candidates and hire them on the best, and some will not hesitate to travel long distances to select talents.

The Yi people's wedding is completed through "robbery". On the first night of the "bride grab", the girls launched a fierce water battle against the young man. The girls violently attacked the young man using various methods such as splashing, pouring, shooting, etc., making it difficult for the young man to "snatch the bride" to resist. So, the clever young man found a place to store water before dark and quietly poured out part of it to reduce the attack of the "flood".

After a night of splashing water, the Yi people's wedding began when morning came. At this time, the girls hugged the bride, and the boys went to "compete for it." The girls defended strictly, and the boys must be smart and changeable. They must take advantage of the loophole that appeared in an instant, snatch the bride and run straight for one or two miles of the mountain road. Only then did they change to walking. It can be seen how difficult it is to "snatch" the bride to her in-law's house! However, the Yi people believe that only by doing so during the wedding can dispel evil spirits and ensure that life will not be disturbed in the future.

On the night of the wedding ceremony, according to Yi custom, if the bride does not resist and fight, she will be laughed at. It is said that the children they give birth to in the future will not be recognized by their ancestors and will not be able to enter the "underworld" after death! Therefore, when the banquet guests dispersed, the couple in the bridal chamber still had a fight. They fell and beat, tearing off their clothes and scratching their faces. The banging sound from the bridal chamber shook the neighbors everywhere.

The next morning, the groom led the bride to identify her parents. In the afternoon, the groom made an appointment with a partner and followed the bride back to her parents 'home to recognize her parents-in-law. If the young man accompanying him is a naughty boy, when they arrive at the bride's house, the young man will enter the house first and call him father and mother sweetly first, and then the groom also, making the bride's parents confused which one is their son-in-law.

The wedding of the Yi people in Xiaoliangshan, Yunnan is quite unique. When getting married, the man must prepare a horse and bring gifts such as wine, cloth, meat, and noodles to welcome the bride. The girls in the village can use all their skills to splash water at the welcoming guests and catch them and play hard. All the people who send off the bride must be men. When the bride arrives at the man's door, she cannot enter until the sun sets. Before entering the door, one person holds a wooden bowl filled with mutton, raising handles and wine, and circles it around the bride's head to show that life is prosperous after marriage. Then, the bride was carried into the house by her cousins.

Yi folk dance "Da Ge" The Yi people can sing and dance well, and the folk also have various traditional tunes, such as mountain climbing tune, entrance tune, welcome tune, drinking tune, wedding tune, crying tune, etc. Some tunes have fixed words, while some don't, they are improvised. Folk songs are divided into male and female tones, and folk songs from various places have their own unique styles. Yi dances are also quite distinctive. They are divided into two categories: Da Ti dance and solo dance. Most of them are group dances, such as "Da Ti Dance","Dance Ge","Dance Le","Dance Yue","Dance Dance" and "Guozhuang Dance". The movements are cheerful and have a strong sense of rhythm, and are usually accompanied by flute, yueqin and sanxian.

Moreover,"dage" spreads throughout Yunnan. This form of song and dance is popular not only among the Yi people, but also among the Bai, Naxi and other ethnic groups. It is just that the names are different, such as "dage","left foot dance","tage","dancing Lusheng" and other names. According to textual research,"Da Ge" is a transfer from "Ta Ge". As early as the Han and Tang Dynasties,"Ta Ge" was once a very active folk song and dance among the people in the Central Plains and southern China.

Yi Left Foot Dance Gala

Sichuan Liangshan Yi Torch Festival The Yi festivals mainly include the "Torch Festival","Yi Year","Paying to the Lord","Mi Zhi Festival","Dance Song Festival", etc. Its "Torch Festival" is the most common and solemn traditional festival in the Yi area, usually on the 24th or 25th of June in the summer calendar. Every time during the Torch Festival, Yi men, women and children wear festive costumes, play livestock sacrifice tablets, and dance, sing, horse racing and wrestling to their heart's content. At night, holding torches, circle around houses and fields, and then gather together to light a bonfire and dance.

The Year of the Yi People is an important festival for the Yi people. From ancient times to the present, the Yi people have attached great importance to the New Year and are very lively. There is no way to find out when the Year of the Yi people began. Many rituals during the New Year of the Yi people in Liangshan are related to ancestral worship, and the entire festival is full of strong ancestral supremacy.

The Year of the Yi People is called "Ku Shi" in Yi language."Ku" means the year and "Shi" means the new year, which means New Year. It is a traditional sacrificial and celebrating festival for the Yi people in Liangshan and Big Liangshan. "Ku Shi" is generally selected in October of the lunar calendar, when the crops are harvested. The Yi Year is three days. The first night of the Yi Year is called "Juoji", the first day of the New Year is called "Ku Shi", the second day is called "Duobo", and the third day is called "Apji".

The Yi people in Maimaichong, Shuangbai County, Yunnan Province "Tiger Jumping Festival" The Yi people in Maimaichong, Shuangbai County, Yunnan Province have a special custom of "Tiger Jumping Festival" during the New Year. On the eighth day of the first month, adult men in the village gathered at the site of the land temple behind the village to kill dogs and offer "Mi Si"("Mi" means soil,"Si" means master, and Mi Si is the main god of the earth). Then the village's "Bimo" offered sacrifices to the earth owner and invite the tiger god. Eight villagers dressed up as tigers and danced. The "tigers" had tall ears, thick tails, and tiger patterns all over their bodies. The Chinese character "Wang" was painted on their foreheads and a large copper bell hung on their necks, making them majestic. After "Bimo" finished chanting the memorial speech and inviting the tiger god, the tiger king led the tigers into the village.

During the entire Tiger Jumping Festival, all men, women and children in the village were immersed in a joyful atmosphere of welcoming, sending tigers off, watching tigers jump and driving away evil ghosts. The local people were convinced that only through the annual traditional tiger jumping, paying homage to the tiger god and praying for the blessings of the ancestors can all villagers have a bumper harvest, a prosperous population, and a happier and happier year by year. It reflects a cosmology view of the Yi branch of the "Luoluo" people. They believe that everything in heaven and earth is created by tigers. Their reverence for tigers reflects a harmonious relationship between man and nature. Generally speaking, the "Tiger Sheng" is primitive, simple, and is not influenced by the outside world. It is a treasure of Nuo Yi culture.

In the Yi people in Lunan, Guishan and other places, during the festival, people play the big three strings and dance "Axi Jumping the Moon", and hold wrestling, bullfighting and other activities; the Yi people in Chuxiong, Maitreya and other places also hold traditional "fire sacrifice" ceremonies. On the night of the festival, deep in the mountains where the Yi people live, there are "burning trees and silver flowers never night" everywhere, and the scene is very spectacular.