Tujia customs

The Tujia people are a ethnic group with a long history. They live in the Wuling Mountain area, which borders Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing and Guizhou. The Tujia people call themselves "Bifzivkar", and the Han people call "Bizkar" as "Tujia". Historically, the Tujia ancestors were called "Man" or "Yi". Before the Song Dynasty, the Tujia people living in the Wuling area, together with other ethnic minorities, were called "Wuling Man" or "Wuxi Man". After the Song Dynasty, the Tujia people were individually referred to as "Tuding","Tubi","Tumin" or "Tuman". After the change of land and return, with the increase of Han immigrants,"Tu","Ke" and "Miao" were often compared to distinguish the Tujia, Han and Miao ethnic groups in Wuling area.

There are four branches of the Tujia people: Bizka, Mengzi, Linka, and Nanke; the northern branch of the Tujia people are distributed in Xiangxi Prefecture and Zhangjiajie City in Hunan Province, Enshi Prefecture and Yichang City in Hubei Province, southeastern Chongqing in Chongqing City, northeastern Guizhou Province Guizhou Province. They call themselves "Bizka","Bijika","Mijika" and so on. The northern branch of the Tujia ethnic group (Xiangxi Prefecture and Zhangjiajie City in Hunan Province, Enshi Prefecture and Yichang City in Hubei Province, southeastern Chongqing in Chongqing City, northeastern Guizhou Province Guizhou Province) calls itself "Bizka, Bijika, Mijika, etc."

The southern Tujia people (only distributed in several villages in Luxi County, Xiangxi Prefecture, Hunan Province) call themselves "Mengzi." The southern Tujia language cannot speak with the northern Tujia language, and now only more than 900 people in Luxi speak it. The Tujia nationality in the south branch is only distributed in Tanxi Town, Luxi County, Xiangxi Prefecture, Hunan Province. It calls itself "Mengzi Hei" and its language is Mengzi (southern Tujia), which is now spoken by only more than 2,000 people in Luxi.

The local Tujia people in Fenghuang County, Hunan Province call themselves "Lingka." Lingka believes that he is a descendant of the Ba people's Qijun, and the local Miao people call it "Kaga." However, there are many differences in culture and other aspects between Linka and the former two. The Linka people have been sinicized, so it is difficult to verify whether Linka is a Sinicized Bizkar or another ethnic group that has been sinicized.

According to the sixth national census in 2015, the Tujia population is approximately 8,353,912, ranking seventh among the 55 ethnic minorities in China, second only to Zhuang, Hui, Manchu, Uyghur, Miao and Yi. The Tujia people also have their own language-Tujia, which belongs to the Tibetan-Burmese language group of the Sino-Tibetan family, which is a branch of Tujia languages. Some people also believe that it belongs to the Burmese Yi language group. It is a very ancient and unique language within the Tibetan-Burmese language group. The vast majority of Tujia people speak Chinese, and today only a few inhabited areas still retain Tujia language. They do not have their own national script and currently use the Latin script created in 1984, and Chinese is commonly used.

The Tujia people are mainly engaged in agriculture. In terms of handicrafts, they are famous for embroidery and weaving, and Tuhua bedding is especially famous. It has been greatly influenced by the Han people in economic and cultural development, but it also retains its own characteristics. The "golden tung oil" in western Hunan and the "dam lacquer" in western Hubei are both well-known products at home and abroad. "Xilankapu" is a wonderful flower among Tujia ethnic crafts, also known as "beating flowers and bedding." It is a kind of Tujia brocade that is listed as one of the top five brocade in China for its unique craftsmanship and wonderful composition.

Tujia people love to live in groups and like to live in wooden buildings with hanging feet. Houses are built in one village and one village, and there are few single households. Most of the houses built are wooden structures, with small blue tiles, latticed windows, hanging eaves, wooden railings, and horse-walking corners. They are antique and antique. Most homes have a small courtyard with a fence in front of the courtyard and a bamboo forest behind the courtyard. The roads are paved with bluestone slabs, the walls are built with planed wooden boards, and the pine light is illuminated. The family lives a peaceful pastoral life where the sun rises and the sun rises.

Most of the Tujia penthouse buildings are made of wood. Previously, the Tusi King strictly prohibited the local people from replacing tiles, and only allowed to add cedar bark and thatch, saying that "you can only buy horses, but you are not allowed to replace tiles." It was not until the 13th year of Yongzheng in the Qing Dynasty that the land was changed and returned to the flow. Generally, there are four fans and three rooms arranged horizontally, with three pillars and six cavalry or five pillars and six cavalry. There is a main hall in the middle, which is used for shrines of ancestors of past dynasties and is the core of family sacrifices. According to the terrain, the building is divided into half cranes, half cranes, double-cart and two-wing cranes, hanging key heads, curved ruler cranes, water-side cranes, and cranes across the gorge and hole. Rich people have carved beams and painted buildings, with high eaves and high corners, and winding stone steps. It has a poetic artistic conception of a castle in the air.

Tujia people have cheerful personalities, simple tea and simple food, and a very regular life. Most of the food they eat is produced by themselves and is pollution-free; tea is a necessity for Tujia people, and they like to drink and brew tea. Tea is boiled in large earthen pots and is kept in fire pits all year round. It is the "tumbler" among Tujia people's kang. Tea is often brewed with rattan tea, old tea leaves or tea fruits, etc., commonly known as Changshou rattan and Shencha, and the scientific name is Maoyanberry. "Live in the mountains and rely on the mountains, and rely on the mountains to eat." This is a talk about Tujia life experience and an unwritten secret of Tujia people's longevity.

Tujia young men and women mostly fall in love and get married through singing pairs, and there is also the custom of "crying for marriage". Women begin to cry 7-20 days before getting married. There are crying wedding songs such as "Girl Crying Mother","Sister Crying Sister","Crying Matchmaker", etc. It started with a light song, and the closer we got to the wedding date, the sadder we became. Until his mouth was full of tears and his eyes were red and swollen. They regard whether they are good at crying for marriage as the criterion for measuring a woman's talent and morality.

The fire in the Tujia people's fire pond never goes out all year round. In winter, we build ponds for heating, and usually cook with tripods on fire. The Tujia people in the Cape of Good Hope in Tianfu are hard-working and simple, and have the habit of doing early work from the beginning of spring to late autumn. They are upright and forthright, trustworthy, and have good morals. Relatives, relatives and neighbors take care of and help each other when encountering weddings, funerals, housing construction, and natural and man-made disasters.

In the event of a marriage, the whole village people can go to congratulate each other without gathering for three days, helping to welcome the bride, pay gifts, decorate the new house, cook and settle the banquet, and take care of the guests. When he met Bai Xi and heard the funeral report, the whole village rushed over and helped arrange the funeral during the day, and danced to watch the funeral at night until the funeral was carried out, digging the tomb, and carrying out the funeral and building the tomb. They all did their own things. When building a house, beams and pillars were erected, and the village was dispatched, but no one received a penny. During the busy farming season, wheat is cut, seedlings are planted, grain is threshed and farmed. Everyone takes the initiative to help the weak households, and the owner's family only provides food and drink. When collecting grain, one family is collected, and then two families are visited. They help each other without remuneration. They have been following each other for thousands of years.

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In addition to rice, the most common staple food of Tujia people is rice. Grain rice is mainly rice noodles, mixed with a suitable amount of rice, boiled in a tripod pot, or steamed in a wooden steamer. Sometimes we also eat bean rice, that is, mung beans, peas, etc. are boiled together with rice and eaten. Baba and tuan are also the seasonal staple foods of the Tujia people. Some even eat it until planting seedlings. In the past, sweet potatoes have been used as staple food in many areas. It is still a regular food in some areas after winter.

Tujia cuisine is mainly characterized by sour and spicy food. Every private household has a pickled cabbage jar to marinate pickled cabbage. Almost every meal is inseparable from pickled cabbage. Sour chili fried meat is regarded as delicious. Chili is not only a dish, but also a condiment that cannot be separated from every meal. For example, during the transplanting season, a meal of "premature" is needed in the morning. Most of the "premature" is snacks such as glutinous rice balls or mung bean flour made of glutinous rice. It is said that eating glutinous rice balls for an "premature" meal means a good harvest and good luck. Tujia people also like to eat Camellia oleifera soup.

Wine is indispensable for Tujia people during festivals or when hosting guests. Among them, the common ones are sweet wines and smack wines brewed with glutinous rice and sorghum. The alcohol is not high and the taste is pure. Glutinous rice cake is one of the most popular foods among Tujia people. On the Double Ninth Festival, my daughter delivers cake on the moon, and throws cake on the beams of the house. During festivals, gifts to relatives and friends are generally sent to each other. In addition to glutinous rice cake, there are also sorghum cake, millet cake, grain cake, etc.

bacon is also a top dish of the Tujia people. After the winter solstice, large pieces of pork are marinated with salt, pepper, and five-spice powder, hung on the kang, burned in the cypress branch field, and smoked. Generally speaking, inviting guests to tea means eating tea, rice or glutinous rice balls, poached eggs, etc. Tujia people in western Hunan, Hunan, prefer to use covered bowls of meat, which means covering the mouth of the bowl with an extra piece of fat meat and containing refined meat and ribs below. In order to show respect and sincerity to guests, the meat for guests should be cut into large slices and the wine should be served in a large bowl.

The Tujia people have to have banquets for weddings, funerals, house repairs, etc. They are generally accustomed to having nine, seven or eleven bowls of dishes per table, but there are no eight-bowl tables or ten-bowl tables. Because the eight-bowl table is called a spoon eating flower table, and the ten of the ten bowls is the same as the stone, which is regarded as disrespectful to the guests, so the eight and ten are avoided. The Tujia people set up banquet and water distribution mats (only one bowl of boiled meat, the rest are vegetarian dishes, most of which are tables held before or after the official season), ginseng mats (with seafood), crispy buttons mats (with a bowl of rice noodles or fried noodles) and five-grade and four-lining mats (4 plates and 5 bowls, all meat dishes). When entering the table, the seats are divided into generations, old and young, and the dishes are served in an orderly manner.

Tujia people also love to sing folk songs. Folk songs include love songs, crying marriage songs, waving songs, labor songs, pan songs, etc. Hand-waving dances, Youyang folk songs, and Youyang ancient songs have been included in the national intangible cultural heritage list. In 2010, 100,000 people danced hand-waving dances together in Youyang County set a Guinness World Record. It was named by the Ministry of Culture as the 2011 - 2013 "Hometown of Chinese Folk Culture and Art". On October 18, 2010, Yanhe Tujia Autonomous County in Guizhou Province was named "Hometown of Tujia Folk Songs in China".

Traditional dances include the "Hand-waving Dance", the "Eight Treasures Bronze Bell Dance" and the song and dance "Mogus". The "Hand-waving Dance" is a popular ancient group dance, including more than 70 movements in hunting, military affairs, farming, banquets, etc.; It is associated with worshipping ancestors and begging for a bumper harvest, and it must be danced no matter what grand gathering. The "waving hands" usually starts on a single day in the lunar calendar, and the number of days it lasts is also odd. It is usually three, five, or seven days. It is usually on the ninth day of the first lunar month or the third day of the third month of the third month. There are tens of thousands of people participating.

The "Hand-waving Dance" has a clear rhythm, beautiful movements, simple, and a strong atmosphere of life. Hand-waving songs can also be divided into big hand-waving songs and small hand-waving songs. Big hand-waving songs are epic in nature; small hand-waving songs are mostly bitter songs and love songs, which are lyrical works. It has strong national characteristics and unique mountain flavor.

Tujia people celebrate April 8, June 6 and the Tujia Year as their main festivals. The most solemn festival is the Tujia Year, commonly known as the "rushing New Year", which means that it is celebrated on the day before the Han New Year. The New Year is the 29th of the twelfth lunar month and the young year is the 28th of the twelfth lunar month. By then, every household will kill New Year pigs, dye them red and green, and dry them to make mung bean powder, boil rice wine or sip wine. Pork mixed dishes are an indispensable dish for Tujia folk to celebrate the New Year and festivals. Moreover, the second day of the second month of the lunar calendar every year is called Society Day, and we must eat Society Food at that time.

In the past, the Tujia people were superstitious about ghosts and gods and worshipped their ancestors. They had to perform "Nuo Hall Opera" during ancestral worship activities. They also had to pay great respects to their ancestors every New Year's Day, and also had small respects on the first and fifteenth days of the year. The foods used to worship the ancestors include pig heads, rice dumplings, rice cakes, chicken and ducks, and grain seeds. Before each meal, some people first use chopsticks to pick a small amount of vegetables and place them on the rice for a while, expressing their gratitude to their deceased ancestors to eat first before starting to eat them themselves.

On the 6th day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, there is a sacrifice to the earth king. Each village must set up a waving hall, and sacrifices such as pig heads and fruits are placed in front of the waving hall. On the first day of the October month, we sacrifice winter, slaughtering chickens and ducks and holding a banquet for guests. In addition, the Tujia people also worship the Kitchen God, the Earth God, the Grain God, and the Pig Official God. When building houses, they sacrifice to Lu Ban. In addition to wine and meat, they also include a big cock.

Funerals are basically buried in the earth. Before the Tusi system, Tujia people implemented cremation. During the Tusi system, earth burials have been implemented to this day, and the funeral is presided over by the Tuolaosi. When the Tusi sacrificed to the deceased, he spun the spinning wheel at the sky window three times and chanted scriptures and sent the deceased to the sky over the overpass. Then he pretended to be a dead person and went around the "Hatai". The children of the deceased followed the Turaosi to cry, and the Turaosi sang funeral songs and bragged. Suddenly, artillery exploded into the sky, crying, and it was extremely sad, which lasted for several days and nights.

Then the coffin containing the body was carried up the mountain for burial. During the period of the Republic of China, Tujia burials were presided over by Taoist priests. Three, five and seven days after the morgue, Taoist priests made different levels of dojo according to the owner's family background. There were names such as "Little Ten Kings","Big Ten Kings","Night Sutang","First Vertical Mast","Second Vertical Mast", and "Seven Vertical Mast". General dojo implements specific operating procedures such as laying down willow beds, opening roads, recommending death, handing over animals, ripening, scattering flowers and interpreting, removing lanterns, beating coffins around, saying prayers, and sweeping the hall. Relatives of the deceased wore linen and wore filial piety, followed the Taoist priest to perform the funeral ceremony, and also invited people to sing filial piety songs to mourn the deceased. After the founding of New China, the Tuolaosi and Taoist priests stopped their activities and held memorial services and sang funeral songs instead of dojo. He also believes that after death, people will go to another world to enjoy happiness.

Tujia people also have to perform funeral dances when they pay homage to their dead, and only those who "follow the right path" are qualified to enjoy the funeral dance. If their parents are still alive and the younger generation dies first, they cannot perform the funeral unless they already have children holding the "memorial card". The funeral dance in western Hubei is the most characteristic: it usually involves one person beating the drum and leading the singing in front of the memorial, and the other two or four people in pairs sing and dance. Most of the people performing the funeral are men. The content includes history, production, love, etc., and most of them are improvised lyrics and sung.

Most of the movements simulate the labor and war of birds, beasts and humans, often like a swallow holding mud, a tiger descending the mountain, and a beautiful woman combing her hair. Move your head, hands, shoulders, waist, hips, arms and feet together, and you can also dance while singing and drinking. The main movement requirements are eight-character steps, winding hands, bowing, bending knees, and swinging hips. The movements are exaggerated, simple and rough, with masculine beauty, and the image created is vivid and realistic. The singing of the funeral dance is sometimes high and exciting, sometimes low and soothing, but the whole dance music is joyful and devoid of sadness.