Traditional customs and habits of the Yao people
The Fengguang Yao people in Bama Yao Autonomous County are an ancient ethnic group in China. They are one of the ancient Eastern "Jiuli". They are also the most widely distributed ethnic group in southern China of China and one of the oldest ethnic groups in the world. Legend has it that the Yao people are descendants of Panhu and his wife, the Third Princess (Han nationality). The Third Princess was the daughter of Emperor Ku, so Panhu was the grandson-in-law of the Yellow Emperor (Han nationality ancestor). Examining ancient history, the Yao people were actually descendants of Emperor Yao in the southwest.
Because they were good at making earthen ware and pottery pots in the Neolithic Era, the earliest Yao ancestors were called kiln people; they developed into rotating and shaking blank making, and kiln people were renamed Yaomin; Lei, one of the four major surnames of the Yao ancestors, originated from Fang Lei, the concubine of the Yellow Emperor who invented silkworm breeding and silk reeling. Therefore, the Yao people were good at raising sericulture, and the name Yao people was derived from Chiyou; Later (Outstanding contributor to early Chinese civilization) led the Sanmiao and Yaomin to go through the Xia, Shang and Zhou conquests, and some of them became labor, called "Yao" or "Yao"; in the Song Dynasty, they were also called "Mo Yao"; now they are collectively referred to as Yao.
Today's Yao people also call themselves "Mian","Jinmen","Bunu","Bingduoyou","Heiyumeng","Lajia", etc. Due to differences in production methods, living conditions, clothing, economic life, customs and habits, there are also other nicknames such as "Chashan Yao","Pan Yao","Shanzi Yao","Dingding Yao","Huashan Yao","Guoshan Yao","Goulan Yao","Qingxi Yao","Baiku Yao","Hongyao","Landian Yao","Babai Yao","Pingdi Yao","Ao Yao", etc. Moreover, since ancient times, the She people have called themselves Shanyao, Yaojia, Yao people, etc. They all have the totem of Pan Wang and the four major surnames Pan, Lan, Lei and Zhong, and some words are the same.
Due to continuous migration, the Dongmeng Yao Village in Yaoshan, Libo, which is deep in the mountains, has crossed borders and extended to Asia, Europe, the United States, Australia and other continents. There are also Yao people in Southeast Asia in Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and other countries. The Miao and Yao people in Laos are collectively called the "Lao Song", which means Lao people living on the mountains. In Europe and the United States, there are also immigrant Yao people in the United States, France, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Sweden. Secondly, in Australia, New Zealand, Australia and African countries, Yao people also live in them, and have become a worldwide nation.
According to the book "Overview of the International Yao Nationality", the Yao people (mainly Pangu Yao) from European and American countries moved from Thai refugee camps to European and American countries to settle in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States sent troops to invade Vietnam and Cambodia. The situation in the Indo-China region was turbulent and wars were frequent. As a result, tens of thousands of civilians were forced to leave their homes and became homeless because of fleeing the war. They fled to Thailand and became refugees. The United Nations Department for Refugees sent these refugees to live in refugee camps.
After the war ended, in order to resettle these refugees, the United Nations allowed the refugees to choose their destination based on their wishes and helped them return to their places of origin or migrate to a third country. In the refugee camps in Thailand, some of them were Yao people. It was at this time that some of these Yao people moved to settle in European and American countries, and were later called "Oriental Gypsies."
The handsome "Baiku Yao" teenagers living in the mountains now live in about 50,000 Yao people in the United States, mainly living in Washington State and California on the west coast of the United States. They focus on inheriting their own culture and learning Yao language, Yao customs, and Yao legends during Panwang Festival. The Yao people who settled in the United States, France and other countries all called themselves "Mian". Due to the sparse population, the Yao people are in the same boat. They speak the dialect among each other and in their families and still organize their lives strictly in accordance with traditional customs. In particular, traditional religious activities and religious consciousness still have strong control among people. Their families are monogamous, with some families having up to three generations living together. At present, extended families are tending to fade, and two-generation families are gradually becoming the mainstream. In addition to studying in local English and French schools, Yao children and teenagers also consciously learn some native languages, including Yao, Chinese, etc., and some even receive education in Yao schools run by their own ethnic intellectuals.
"Yao Capital of Shenzhou" Changgu Square, Jianghua Yao Autonomous County, Hunan Province In China, the Yao people are mainly distributed in Guangxi and Hunan Province; they are also distributed in Yunnan, Guangdong, Guizhou and other provinces; the western section of Nanling, where southern Hunan and northern Guangxi are located, is the area with the highest concentration of Yao people in China. According to statistics in 2015, the Yao population is 2.853 million: 1.71 million in Guangxi, 705,000 in Hunan, 203,000 in Guangdong, 190,000 in Yunnan, 44,000 in Guizhou, and hundreds in Jiangxi. There are 7 Yao autonomous counties and 48 Yao townships in Guangxi, with a total land area of approximately 29,300 square kilometers, accounting for 13% of Guangxi's total land area. The Yao population of Jiangyong County in Yongzhou, Hunan Province accounts for 63.2% and is the county with the highest proportion of Yao population in the country; Jianghua Yao Autonomous County in Hunan Province has a Yao population of 340,000, which is the largest in the country and is known as the Yao Capital of China.
Nowadays, many Yao people in China, America, France, Canada and Thailand communicate with each other and carry out cultural exchanges. As a result, Yao script has become a world-wide Yao script (Mian language). However, Yao Wen is still in the experimental stage and has yet to be popularized and promoted. Therefore, Chinese is commonly used in China.
The Yao people also have their own language, which belongs to the Yao branch of the Miao Yao family of the Sino-Tibetan family. Because each branch is complex and varies greatly from place to place, and some cannot even talk to each other, the language differences are too big. There are many languages such as Mian, Bunu, and Lajia. Chinese or Zhuang is now widely spoken, and some people also speak the languages of neighboring ethnic minorities.
The Yao people are generally scattered and live in small communities, mainly living in mountainous areas. Therefore, the houses include bamboo houses, wooden houses, latrines and a small number of mud-walled and tiled houses. The house is generally a three-room building, with a hall in the middle. The front of the houses on both sides is a stove or fire pond, and the rear is a bedroom. In front of the house and behind the house, there are separate bathing sheds or pig and cow pens.
Yao residents mainly eat corn, rice, sweet potatoes, etc. as their staple foods. Daily dishes include soybeans, eyebrow beans, pumpkin, peppers, poultry and livestock. The Yao people living in mountainous areas also have the habit of cold eating, and the production of food is considered easy to carry and store. Therefore, the staple food, rice cake and bamboo tube rice, which are both staple food and non-staple food, are their favorite foods. During labor, the Yao people all picnicked on the spot. Everyone gathered together and took out the dishes they brought to eat together, while the staple food each ate the food they brought.
Yao people like to eat pickled food. "Bird vinegar" is a famous food with unique flavor of the Yao nationality. It is pickled with bird meat. The Yao people in Dayaoshan, Jinxiu, Guangxi use "bird pots" to catch migratory birds and pickle them into vinegar. It is a delicious dish to entertain distinguished guests. Sometimes, this method is used to pickle pigs, cattle, mutton, etc. The Yao people also like to eat insect pupae. The ones they often eat are pine pupae, kudzu vine pupae, wild bee pupae, bee pupae, etc. The Yao people also like to use the characteristics of mountainous areas to process sugar, sweet potato sugar, bee sugar, etc.
Most Yao people like to drink alcohol. Generally, they brew it with rice, corn, sweet potatoes, etc. at home and drink it twice or three times a day. The Yao people in Yunnan like to use glutinous rice to brew water wine and drink it. When going out, they often use bamboo tubes to hold water when drinking. The Yao people also like to use cinnamon, wild ginger, etc. to brew tea, believing that this tea has the effect of refreshing and clearing fatigue. The Yao people in many areas like to make camellia oleifera. They not only eat and drink every day, but also use camellia oleifera to entertain guests. On Qingming Festival, every household has to make dyed flower rice.
banquet guests include the "tea and bathing welcome wine" known as the "Three Rites of the Yao Family"; the "bowl of wine and meat" for the dignitaries of the whole village; the "Xianxian" with mixed delicacies from mountains and wild games; and the "Dragon Sausage mat" with the famous "Dragon Sausage". In addition, there are also "door-to-door red wine" to mediate civil disputes, and "fried beans and boiled eggs" to announce the breaking of diplomatic relations.
Among them, many food customs are quite interesting, such as bringing a bag of meat and two gourds of rice wine to the marriage proposal. If the woman agrees, she will accept the meat and pierce the gourd if she does not agree; selecting a son-in-law often involves the act of "burying an egg", and the decision is made based on the changes; when a girl gets married, she will give burnt soybeans to her neighbors; the divorce ceremony is a "broken bamboo tube". Each party carries a barrel of wine, exchanges the bamboo tube and breaks up harmoniously.
The Yao people who worship Panhu abstain from dog meat and turtle meat; the Yao people who worship Miluoda abstain from sow meat and eagle meat; the vast majority of Yao people abstain from snake meat; pregnant women abstain from lard in the first few days after giving birth; Dogs, cats, snakes, and frogs are forbidden to sacrifice to gods; after hunting animals, you must first pay homage to the mountain god before you can eat them separately.
Yao costumes in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan The costumes of the Yao people are also rich and colorful, with differences among different self-proclaimed Yao tribes. As early as the "Han Dynasty of the Later Dynasty", there are records of the Yao ancestors "having good colorful clothes." Yao men's clothing is mainly blue and blue. There are divided into pairs of plumes, diagonal plumes, pipa plumes and long skirts. The Yao men in Qujiang, Guangdong have "clothes embroidered with lace" in color, while the Yao men in Wenshan, Yunnan wear a long collar with a small amount of embroidery and red pompous flowers on the collar. Pants vary in length, ranging from the elderly to the foot and the shorter to the knees.
Men from Dayaozhai, Nandan County, Guangxi, wear white bloomers that reach the knees. Near the knees, they are embroidered with 6 red straight strips of varying lengths. People call them "Baikuyao."
"White Kuyao" women's costumes can be divided into three types: those wearing a large plock and trousers around the waist. The lengths of the trousers vary from place to place. Some people wear collarless short clothes with belts tied to their waists, and wear pleated skirts and leg wraps of varying lengths. The "white pants Yao" woman wears a sleeveless head coat with no stitching on the sides, only the bottom edge. There are also people who wear knee-long slanted or unbutton-free clothes with long belts around the waist, and wear trousers or shorts. In some areas, long clothes are short at the front and long at the back. Women's clothing is colorful, with large-scale embroidered or woven flowers decorated on the collar, back and chest, cuffs, trouser legs and skirt bodies. The patterns are all geometric patterns, which are completely different from the curved patterns used for embroidery by Miao, Yi and other ethnic groups.
Yao women's headdresses are colorful. They like to make headdresses with silver hairpins, silver flowers, silver beads, curved silver plates, etc., and have a unique style. Girls, unmarried or married women can be distinguished by their headwear. In addition to their jackets decorated with silver medals, many Yao women also wear silver bracelets, earrings, collars, hairpins, head needles, etc.
Some Yao women in Dayao Mountain in Guangxi wear three large arc-shaped silver hairpins on their heads, with both ends turned upwards and weighing about one pound.
Yao women in Shangsi County, Guangxi, have their hair curled on top of their heads and covered with a silver-inlaid crown and a small square headscarf woven with long patterns.
Yao women in Xilin County, Guangxi, tie their heads in a bun, cover them with earthen white cloth, and use red and black silk threads to embroider them into patterns. They wrap a blue cloth dyed with white stamens. The ends are tied with red lines to form a number of hair balls, and wear them tightly around the head with small beads of various colors. The hair balls are concentrated on the back of the neck, and a square shoulder cloth is draped around the neck.
Guoshan Yao women headwear with black cloth for Yao women in Du 'an, Guangxi. The top of the Mubian Yao women is covered with a silver head cover as big as a bowl. Two bone forks are inserted into the side of the head cover. Two small silver chains are hung at the ends of the bone forks, and silk threads are hung at the lower ends of the two silver chains.
Yao women in Tianlin County, Guangxi shaved off the hair around them, leaving only the top of their heads, then wrapped the braid on their heads, and wrapped it in a 30-foot-long black cloth, shaped like a straw hat.
The headdress of Yao women in Tiandong County, Guangxi is a 9-inch long and 2.5-inch wide cloth belt sewn with blue cloth. It is inlaid with silver decorative patterns, and lace is embroidered around the pattern.
Guoshanyao women in Hezhou Prefecture, Guangxi cut off their hair near their forehead, placed a round bamboo ring on the top of their heads, wrapped the bamboo ring with their hair, wrapped it with a piece of cloth, and then wrapped it with a square black cloth. Tuyao women used to shave their heads. The little girl wore a small watermelon-shaped hat, and when she was 14 or 15, she wore an oblate wooden hat. The hat was covered with towels on the left, right, front and back, and there were about 20 towels, plus silk thread hat straps, weighing about two to three kilograms to seven or eight kilograms.
Some Yao women in northern Guangxi, northern Guangdong, and Yunnan used to wear hats with tall brackets, black cloth on them, and drooping red beads, which had a unique style.
The Yao people in Mushan Village, Zijing Town, Guiping City pay great attention to etiquette and do not have great respect for their elders and the elderly. When you encounter an elderly person on the road, you should take the initiative to say hello and make way to the bottom of the road. Rider must immediately get off his horse when he sees an old man. In front of the elderly or elders, do not cross your legs, say dirty words, do not spit everywhere, and do not call the elderly and elders by their names. Eat at the same table as the elderly and elders, let them sit at the table, take the initiative to add rice and vegetables to them, and move delicious dishes to the elderly and elders.
There are also many etiquette taboos in daily life. When you meet on the road, whether you know each other or not, you must say hello warmly, otherwise you will be regarded as impolite. On weekdays, the washbasin cannot be used to wash your feet. It is forbidden to use bowls and chopsticks with each other during meals. It is forbidden to dry clothes and clothes at home. Avoid spitting in the house. No pigs are killed every day, no chickens are killed every day, and no cattle and horses are bought and sold every day.
When a guest arrives home, the guest must say hello to the housewife first, and the host will be happy, otherwise he will be considered arrogant and rude. When entertaining guests, chicken, meat, and salt are placed in bowls in rows. No matter whether the guest or guest, they must be eaten in turn and must not be disturbed. Guests and elderly people finish each bowl of rice, and women fill it for them. Salt has a special position in the Yao food customs. Yao areas do not produce salt, but they cannot lack it. Salt in the Yao nationality is a gift to invite a Taoist official and a close relative. It is commonly called "salt letter". Anyone who receives a "salt letter" must forget about it no matter how important it is and keep an appointment on time.
Special attention should be paid to: Huotang is the core of the Yao family. The tripod and stove chamber on the Huotang cannot be stepped on, and the firewood in the Huotang is forbidden to be burned upside down.
The adult ceremony for Yao men "Dujie" The Yao people have a unique custom, which is also the adult ceremony for Yao men. It is called "Dujie". It is an indispensable sacred lesson for Yao men in their growth process, and it is even more solemn than marrying a newly married daughter. The Yao people do not believe that 18 is the age of adulthood. In their view, no matter how old they are, as long as they pass the exam, they are a man, and they are protected by the gods and recognized by society. They can hold public office in the whole village and gain the social value of a man's life.
A man who has not yet completed or has not passed the test cannot be regarded as a truly valuable man. He has no social status, cannot be admired by a girl, or even cannot find a wife. If older people have not held a ritual, they must find an opportunity to do it, otherwise they will not be recognized as Yao people. It has been passed down to this day, Dujie still occupies an important position in the social life of the Yao people in Jiangcheng.
Historically, the Yao people generally did not intermarry with foreign tribes, and the custom of recruiting for marriage was relatively common. Today, there is no such backward rule. Young men and women fall in love freely before marriage. They take advantage of festivals, gatherings, and off-season visits to find spouses through singing. Both parties agree, that is, give each other tokens,"each cooperate, not by their parents"; they also need to seek parents 'consent and ask the matchmaker to agree before they can get married. Flower throwing is an entertainment and social activity for young men and women of the Yao nationality in Funing County. It is called "Wuduo" in Yao language. Many young men and women become lifelong partners through bag throwing activities.
Chashan Yao, a fellow Yao people living in Dayao Mountain in Guangxi, basically maintains traditional customs in marriage due to the influence of their place of residence. In order to seek love, the young man Chashan Yao has a popular custom of "climbing stairs", which is unique to the ethnic customs.
Most of Panyao's weddings are after the autumn harvest. Before the Spring Festival, there are two types: "marrying a daughter" and "marrying a husband". Before holding a formal wedding, there must be a process such as spouse selection, marriage proposal, and engagement. The wedding banquet has three meals of "main wine" and six meals of "partial wine"(breakfast and midnight snacks). On the morning of the fourth day, the relatives left, and the men each presented a "nipple gift"(also known as Xiaoyuan gift), that is, 8 to 9 kilograms of pig legs each and 4 to 5 kilograms of other pork. On the fourth or fifth day, the couple went back to stay overnight and went back to the rear to complete the house.
The
is on the wedding night of the Yao people. The groom and bride cannot sleep in the same bed. The groom generously gave up his own bed and let the siblings and intimate girlfriends who accompanied the bride share the bed with the bride and talk confidences. After the groom gave up the bed, he invited unmarried young men and women to the village to sing folk songs all night long. The main content was to say goodbye to the unmarried young people, explaining that they had established a family and started a career, shouldered family responsibilities, and could no longer play with everyone as before, and hoped that young people of the same age would find a sweetheart as soon as possible and start a family as soon as possible. The groom will not be able to enter the bridal chamber until the bride returns to her mother's home on the third morning before he can spend the night with the bride.
There are many traditional festivals for the Yao people on the Panwang Festival, which can be divided into large festivals and small festivals. The big festivals include Pan Wang Festival, Spring Festival, Danu Festival, Zhongyuan Festival, Shewang Festival, Qingming Festival, etc., and the small festivals are almost monthly.
The Danu Festival of Yao nationality in Xidu 'an is relatively grand. It is said to be a festival commemorating the struggle of ancestors against chieftains. The festival falls on the 29th day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar. According to legend, this day is the birthday of the ancestor of Yao nationality, so it is also called "Zuniang Festival".
Panwang Festival is a festival for the Yao people who call themselves "Mianzhi", commonly known as "Tiaopan King" and "Huanpan King Wish". It is held every three to five years, on the 16th day of the tenth lunar month, and is generally held by one household, several households or a village. The main ceremony consists of the master dancing to pray, singing the song of the king of pan, dancing the long drum dance, and praying to the king of pan for blessings and blessings. In the past, a large number of livestock were slaughtered for sacrifice.
Yao traditional festivals and dances Yao people also have special traditional festivals such as Praying Prayer, Prayer Liao Digui Festival, Ox Festival, Spring Festival Sacrifice, Singing Hall, and Paga Festival. Due to the large number of people during the festival, rice is generally not cooked in an iron tripod pot, but steamed with wooden Zhen. This kind of rice has a stronger aroma. Every festival. Yao people still have to make cakes. The main festive dishes are chicken, duck, fish, pork, tofu, vermicelli and various vegetables. The Yao people in the Wuling Mountains like to make tofu rounds and wrap them in "purse bundles" during festivals.
Spring festivals are held every year, usually in the third month of the lunar calendar. At that time, young men will go up the mountains to hunt and go down the river to catch fish; women will make rice dumplings and steam five-color glutinous rice. On New Year's Eve, Hualuyao would first serve a piece of meat and a ball of cake to the dog, called a dog sacrifice, before the family could have a meal. They believe that the grain seeds are brought by dogs, and that the first sacrifice to dogs is a pre-prayer for a good harvest of the grain. Festival dishes should be colorful and colorful. In addition to chicken, there are also river fresh food, hunted mountain poultry, game and tofu. In some places, the Yao people also cook black rice on April 8th.
The Yao people in Liannan, Qingyuan, Guangdong Province "Shuagtang" is a Yao girl in Jiangshui County, Hunan Province. Every year, when the "Picnic Festival" is celebrated on the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar, she eats flower eggs, makes flower cakes, and eats flower sugar. When girls are eating flower eggs, flower candies and flower cakes, young men are not allowed to peek, and violators will also be punished. Shuagetang is a large-scale recreational activity for Liannan Paiyao to worship ancestors and celebrate the harvest. It is mostly held after the 16th of the tenth lunar month. The duration varies, about 3-9 days.
At that time, every family will have water wine and glutinous rice cakes to entertain guests. Many young Yao men and women will take the opportunity of playing the song hall to choose the right person. Once the men and women agree, the parents of both parties can use the matchmaker to make a marriage appointment and use pork and wine as gifts.