Gorgeous traditional Mulao wedding customs
The Mulao people developed and evolved from the ancient "Liao people". In the "Hua Yang Gong Zhi·Nanzhong Zhi" by Chang Qu, a native of the Jin Dynasty, there are records of the activities of the "Liao people" along the southern edge of the Yunling Mountains on the Yungui Plateau. After the Tang and Song Dynasties, records of the community of "Liao" and "Ling" people appeared in historical books such as "Lingwai Dai Answer" and "Xi Man Cong Xiao". "Tianhe County Annals" and "Qing Dynasty Unity Annals" say: "Actors are also called Liao, and commonly called Mulao." It can be seen that Mulao has a close relationship with Liao and Ling. Academic circles generally believe that the Mulao ethnic group was formed from officials and musicians. The Mulao people were not regarded as a nation in history. After ethnic identification on August 30, 1953, the Mulao people truly became a member of the Chinese nation's big family.
The scope of marriage for Mulao people is not limited to their own ethnic group. They can marry with surrounding Han, Zhuang and other ethnic groups. However, Mulao people with the same surname do not intermarry, but people with the same surname but different "Dong" can usually intermarry. Intermarriage within other Fang people is "incest" and is prohibited by clan rules. "Dong" was originally a grassroots social unit divided into basic units based on payment of food. Since most of the Mulao ethnic group lived together with the same surname, they were divided into "houses" below "Dong", which actually became the surname and house organization under the feudal patriarchal system. In the Qing Dynasty, the Mulao region was divided into "li" below the county level, and under "li" was "Dong". There are about ten households every "winter", with a "winter head" elected by everyone to be responsible for raising food and collecting money.
Mulao young men and women have always practiced free love. In addition to interactions and acquaintances during festivals, gatherings and fairs, the main way of love is to sing songs and answer each other and make friends on the "slopes". The "downhill" season is the spring of March and the golden autumn of August. Young people wear their best clothes, and go to the market to find partners to sing songs. After finding satisfied opponents, they invited them to the beautiful hillside lawn and started singing duet, using songs as a medium, asking and answering questions, satisfying each other and giving each other tokens. Finally, the matchmaker was asked to inform the parents and determine the wedding date.
The matchmaker first asked by the man. If the woman's family agrees, she will hand over the daughter's birth characters to the matchmaker and forward them to the man. After the man's parents received the woman's eight characters, they believed that it matched their son's eight characters, and the marriage was basically a complete success.
The method of receiving relatives varies slightly from place to place. The most interesting one is the "gift of ten sisters". One month after the bride passed the door, she and her peers in the village volunteered to form ten best men to go to the unmarried bride's house to become sisters. She stayed with the bride day and night, helping her make new shoes, sew wedding dresses, and prepare dowries. On the day of their marriage, the ten sisters dressed exactly like the bride, wearing the same "lover's shoes" and "wedding dress", holding the same "sister's umbrella", cutting the same hairstyles, wearing the same braids, and even having similar behaviors and postures. If it were not for relatives and friends, I really didn't know who was the bride and who was the best man. When we arrived at the groom's house, eleven girls entered the house together, and it was very lively.
On the day of receiving relatives from
, there was the custom of setting up "song cards" in many places. When the man and his party go to the woman's village to pick up the bride's bride, they have to sing and answer cross-examine before they can enter the bride's home through the "song card". Similarly, the woman's escort team had to answer the question song before entering the groom's house when she arrived at the man's village. Sometimes singing from morning till night, the crowd was packed. Finally, if you can't answer, then ask yourself to answer, or by parents to sing "reconciliation song", declared "column door song" end. In the long-term antithetical song, the host should supply delicious food and drink to the guests to ensure that the antithetical song is energetic and full of emotion.
After the bride enters the house, many places want to "make a song hall", namely put challenge arena song inside and outside bridal chamber, men and women sing answer. At the climax, cheers and laughter resounded, making it an excellent place for young people to show their talents. On the wedding day, the newlyweds do not stay overnight, and both the groom and bride have to spend the night with the guests and relatives and friends. After breakfast the next day, the bride returned to her mother's home with the person who sent off. It was not until the social day in February of the following year that the man's family took the bride back to his home for the festival. On this night, couples had to sleep together. The next day, the bride still returned to her mother's house. Normally, the bride only temporarily returned to her husband's house to stay for a few days during the busy farming season, and stopped returning to her mother's house for a long time until she became pregnant and had a child.
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The marriage process of the Mulao ethnic group said that the matchmaker's family liked a certain woman, so he asked the matchmaker to go to the woman's family to inquire. If the woman's parents agree to the marriage, they will hand over her birth date to the matchmaker and bring it to the man's family. After receiving it, the man's parents first put the eight characters under the incense burner. On the morning of the 3rd, 6th and 9th, if there are no unexpected signs such as chickens barking and breaking equipment during this period, they can perform the "eight characters" and ask a fortune teller to tell the fortune. If the eight characters of a man and a woman do not match each other, such as water conquers fire, fire conquers gold, etc., they can get engaged. Otherwise, if the man's family returns the eight characters, the marriage will fall through.
The two parties 'eight characters matched, and the man left the eight characters and sent two kilograms of pork to the girl's house as a "warm marriage." Afterwards, the matchmaker agreed with both parties that the man would bring eight kilograms of pork, a pair of capons, two pots of wine, and some money, and go to the woman's house to get engaged. In some places, after the man leaves the woman's character characters, he asks the matchmaker to send three kilograms of pork to the woman's house to report it, which is called "returning to Liuhe", which is considered to have completed the engagement procedures. After the engagement, the fortune-teller chooses an auspicious day as the wedding day, and then chooses another auspicious day to go to the streets to buy clothes for the woman to sew new clothes.
Before marriage, the man entrusted a matchmaker to go to the woman's house to discuss the money and gift money. One month before marriage, the man must "explain the ceremony", that is, send the matchmaker to bring four kilograms of pork and half of the gift silver, as well as the selected auspicious days (the dyeing day, the opening day, the wedding day, etc.) to inform the woman's family. In some places, all the money and gift money are sent to the woman's home 20 days before marriage, which is called a "gift". On the day of receiving relatives, after the man arrives at the woman's house, the woman's house will host a banquet on that day to entertain the receiving relatives, and invite the family members, in-laws, and the sending guests to accompany them. After the banquet, the woman's family selected two young singers, a male and a female, and accompanied the two male and female singers who received relatives and guests to open two "song halls", gathering young men and women from the village to accompany them, the male guests and the female guests and the male guests to accompany them, singing and singing until dawn. The lyrics are rich and colorful in content, mainly songs of flattery to each other, ancient songs (or story songs), and pan songs of mutual criticism. There are also places where women's homes do not have singing halls. The bride was sent to the man's house the next day and the wedding was held. The man's family held a banquet to entertain the woman's bride's relatives and friends.
Mulao wedding customs characteristics Three pairs of door-crossing shoes At Mulao weddings, the bride must wear three pairs of new shoes in some places on the day of crossing the door. The occasion of wearing shoes is very particular. On the morning of the crossing, the bride put on a new pair of white cloth shoes in her boudoir, and was carried out by her brother. Everyone sent her sisters to accompany her to the man's house. When they arrived at the village of the groom's house, the procession stopped. A close sister of the bride took out a pair of new cloth shoes with a white background from the hanging bag and replaced the pair of cloth shoes on the bride's feet. When they arrived at the door of the groom's house, the team stopped again, and the bride's close sisters took out a new pair of white cloth shoes for the bride to change into. People believe that changing shoes several times in this way shows that the girl is innocent and pure from her birth to her husband's home today.
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blocks the door When a bride passes through the door, some places will be blocked by the "song door". This is an important activity item of Mulao's wedding customs. The village of the groom's house was filled with fellow villagers, men, women, old and young on the wedding day. The young men on sentry rushed over, and the young men who formed the "gecka" rushed forward. They pretended to have nothing happened. Some sat by the river or under a big tree at the head of the village, and some played on the road. When the party to send off approached, the pleasant singing flew to each other. With the singing, the girls who sent off knew that there was a "geka" ahead, so they quickly gathered together and after discussing it, they sang in reply. In this way, one question and one answer. In the song, if the other party cannot answer, the asking party will answer himself, so the victory and defeat will be clear. If the girls win, the younger generation will remove the song card and give the green light to let go.
The ancient "meeting for relatives" and "meeting for relatives" are said to be the ancient marriage method of the Mulao people, which has now disappeared. After the matchmaker runs the needle, if the two parties agree to get married, the man will pick up a load of wine and meat and place it at the intersection, and then avoid it. The woman, her parents, relatives and friends went here for a meal and took away all the rest. The next day, the woman's family returned the same load of wine and meat at the intersection. The man, his parents, relatives and friends also came to eat. This was a "wedding ceremony". The "wedding ceremony" was the first step of the entire wedding ceremony. It was completely hosted by a matchmaker and neither party met. On the day of the wedding, the man sent two beautiful girls to accompany the matchmaker to welcome the wedding. The bride was accompanied by dozens of female companions, each with an oil-paper umbrella, covering the bride all the way from passers-by. When he arrived at the groom's house, he covered his head with a black cloth and entered the bridal chamber. The bride could not see anyone or look up to the sky from the time she came out of her mother's house. That night, the bridesmaids competed with the male guests to sing folk songs to bet on victory and defeat until dawn the next day. This custom has disappeared today and is only preserved in the memories and narratives of the old people.