The Shui people, with a current population of 345,993, mainly live in Sandu Shui Autonomous County, Libo, Duyun, and Dushan in the Qiannan Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, Guizhou Province, as well as in Kaili and Liping in the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture. , Rongjiang, Congjiang and other counties, with a small number scattered in the western part of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
The residence of the Shui people is located south of the Miaoling Mountains in the southeast of the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and in the upper reaches of the Duliu River and Longjiang River. With dense forests and picturesque mountains and rivers, it is suitable for the development of agriculture and forestry. It is the hometown of fish, rice, flowers and fruits on the Guizhou Plateau. The Shui people are good at farming, mainly growing rice.
The Shui language belongs to the Shui branch of the Zhuang-Dong language family of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The ancestors of the Shui nationality once created their own writing, called "Shui Shu". Its shape is similar to oracle bone inscriptions and bronze inscriptions. It is an ancient writing with a history of 2,000 years, but it only has more than 400 characters and is limited to religious activities. use. These texts were all transcribed and copied without block printing, but the Shuishi scripts in various places are basically the same. Most people in the Shui Tribe don't know him. Chinese is commonly used in their daily lives. The Shui people have their own calendar. The Shui calendar is basically the same as the lunar calendar, but August of the lunar calendar is the end of the year and September is the beginning of the year. There are four Hai Days from the end of August to the beginning of October in the lunar calendar, which are the days when each village of the Shui tribe takes turns celebrating the New Year. The Shui people’s New Year celebrations are called “Jiuduan”, which is very grand and lively. At that time, gongs and drums are beaten, reeds are played, and entertainment activities such as horse racing, singing and dancing are also held. Aquatic people advocate black and navy blue.
The Shui tribe has a historical relationship with the ancient "Luo Yue" tribe, and was developed by one of them. As early as before the Qin and Han Dynasties, many tribes lived in the Lingnan area and the southeastern coast. In 214 BC, the Qin Dynasty unified Lingnan, and the ancestors of the Shui people gradually migrated north to the border of Guizhou and Guangxi; in the Sui and Tang Dynasties, they were collectively known as "Xidong Man"; in the Song Dynasty, The "Fushui Prefecture" was established there, which was commonly known as "Fushui Man"; the name of the prefecture implies that a group of people who claimed to be "water" had already formed. In the mid-13th century, a large number of Han people moved here; from the 13th to the 17th century, a large number of Han soldiers were transferred here to guard and set up camps, and their descendants gradually merged with the Shui people.
There are more than 8,000 Shui tribes in Yunnan, accounting for 2% of China’s Shui tribe population. They mainly live in Huangnihe Township, Fuyuan County, and are also found in Dahe, Long'an and other places in Yiliang County.
Clothing
Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Shui people were in the stage of feudal landlord economic development. They were mainly agricultural economy, mainly producing rice, and also engaged in handicraft industry. They were good at weaving and dyeing cloth, and advocated black and navy blue. . This characteristic is clearly reflected in the costumes of the Shui tribe. The men of the Shui tribe wear collarless blue shirts and melon-pipe caps, while the elderly wear long gowns, with their heads wrapped in lining and leggings on their feet. Women wear blue, black, and blue round-collared shorts with wide sleeves, trousers, knotted cloth aprons, and embroidered blue cloth shoes.
Shui women's clothing is mostly made of Shuijia cloth, and is a collarless half-length gown or long gown with a large placket. The gown is above the knee and generally does not have embroidered edges. And festival and wedding attire is completely different from usual. The shoulders and cuffs of the wedding jacket, the knees of the trousers are all inlaid with embroidered ribbons, and the turbans also have colorful patterns. Wearing a silver crown on the head, a silver collar on the neck, silver bracelets on the wrists, and a silver elegant collar on the chest, the silver ornaments on the chest are only worn during festivals. Silver earrings on her earlobes, and embroidered shoes on her feet. The bride is often dressed up with flowers and grace. In addition, women's embroidered suspenders are more artistic. It is said to be a "belt", but it is actually a gorgeously embroidered "T" shaped "curtain" with straps on both sides of the upper end. The "curtain" is large enough to cover a child. It is made by wrapping a white ponytail with white silk thread, adding other colored silk threads, embroidering various patterns separately, and finally patching the embroidered patterns onto the strap fabric. The strap is beautiful and practical, and is the best gift for a mother to give to her married daughter. A married woman carries her baby in a sling. The suspenders were intricately embroidered and were part of her personal adornment.
Customs
There is a folk custom of respecting the elderly. Whenever it is the birthday of an elderly person, the children of the younger generation will specially sew homemade white cloth gowns and white cloth headbands to honor the elderly and wish them good health and longevity. When a person dies, he is buried. The deceased was a woman, and the coffin could only be put together after being inspected by her parents' family. During the period of suspension, a hall is set up to open a ceremony, and male and female singers are invited to sing and dance.
The hanging mouth-swallowing house is a unique custom of the Shui people. There are 5 types of "swallowing" with special names and shapes. The whole thing is a wooden carved human head. Hanging on the door of a house is used to "swallow" evil spirits and eliminate disasters.
Marriage Customs
Marriage is monogamous. In the past, parents arranged it, but now more people get married freely.
The marriage customs of the Shui people retain a strong traditional color, and pay attention to marrying with a matchmaker. Before marriage, young men and women can use antiphonal singing activities during festivals and markets to make friends and fall in love. Even if you are free to fall in love and have a fixed love, you must find a matchmaker to get married, otherwise it will be against etiquette and customs and you will be discriminated against. After a young man and woman fall in love, they first ask someone to tell their parents. If the parents express their willingness, the man will ask a matchmaker to go to the girl's house to deliver gifts and make an engagement. He will also choose an auspicious day and send someone to carry the piglet to the girl's house to "have a drink". When the bride is officially welcomed, the big pig is carried to the bride's house to "have a big drink". Toast songs are sung at banquets. Every time the hostess sings a song, the guests have to drink a glass of wine to show the host's hospitality by getting drunk. The family members of both the man and the woman do not participate in the reception and send-off. Except in a few places where the bride's brothers carry the bride to her husband's house, in most cases the bride in full dress walks in front with a red paper umbrella deliberately torn open, and the groomsmen and bridesmaids pick up and see off the bride. And a long queue carrying dowry followed. Generally, the bride leaves her mother's house at noon and enters her husband's house at six or seven in the evening. She is not allowed to enter until the auspicious time.
Relatives of the groom's family have to go out to avoid the bride when she enters the house, and can only go home after the bride enters the house. On the wedding night, the bridesmaid and the bride sleep together, and the bride returns to her parents' home the next day. After the wedding, the groom invites the bride back to start their married life. Some brides stay home for as long as a month or two for the first time. The so-called "sitting at home" is actually the remnant of the wedding custom of "not leaving the husband's house". On the way to get married, brides are most afraid of thunder and sudden changes in weather, so weddings are usually held in autumn and winter.
Food customs
The Shui people take rice as their staple food and like glutinous food. In addition, the Shui people also grow some wheat, cereals, millet, red barnyard grass, sweet potatoes and rice beans as supplementary grains. .
Shui farmers are not good at growing vegetables, so the vegetable varieties are relatively monotonous. Green vegetables, broadleaf vegetables and large-leaf leeks are the most common vegetables. The aquarium attaches great importance to breeding and fisheries. Therefore, various livestock, poultry and aquatic products provide necessary meat food for the aquarium's life.
Aquatic sour soup is very unique, including spicy sour (made from chili peppers), spicy sour (made from tomatoes), fish sour (made from fish and shrimp), and smelly sour (made from pig and beef bones). made) and many more. Among them, spicy sour is the most commonly used. Spicy sour is made from fresh red chili peppers. The preparation method is: wash the fresh red peppers, add water and grind them into a pulp, add a large amount of sweet wine (or glutinous rice porridge), put them in a kimchi jar and seal them, and then ferment them to make a delicious sour soup. When eating, cook various vegetables such as cabbage, green vegetables, young bamboo shoots, large-leaf leeks, Guangcai, etc., scoop in appropriate amount of acid, and bring to a boil. Paste chili noodles, salt and a little vegetable soup to make dipping water. When eating vegetables, you should eat them with dipping water. It is delicious and extremely appetizing. There are very few stir-fried dishes, and "hot pot" is eaten all year round. A large pot of sour soup with dipping water is almost a daily dish. Even if there is tofu, meat or fish occasionally, it is customary to add it to the dish, cook it into a pot and eat it with water.
The Shui people like to drink, and every family bakes rice wine. During festivals, celebrations or when relatives and friends come to visit, it is indispensable to entertain guests with wine. Aquatic hospitality has a long tradition, and taking turns is a cultural expression of hospitality.
Festivals
In addition to celebrating traditional festivals with the surrounding Han people, the Shui people’s main festivals include the Dragon Sacrifice Festival (also called the Heaven Sacrifice Festival) on March 3, June 6 and June 6. The 24th is the Mountain and Forest Festival, etc. During the festival, people like to dance copper drum drums and reed instruments, cook five-color rice for guests, and men and women like to drink white wine and sweet wine.
The festival customs of the Shui people are recorded in the "Shui Shu". The Shui people's calendar year is divided into twelve months and the four seasons of spring, autumn and winter. The ninth month of the lunar calendar is the beginning of the year, and the eighth month of the lunar calendar is the end of the year. According to the water calendar, the Shui people have their own unique traditional festivals, the "Duan" Festival and the "Mao" Festival. The "Duan" water festival is called "Jie Duan". It is the most grand festival of the Shui people and is equivalent to the Spring Festival of the Han people. The festival falls on Hai Day from late December to early February of the following year (late August to early October of the lunar calendar). But the days celebrated in different places are different. For example, in Sandu Shui Autonomous County, the first Hai Day is celebrated as a holiday, and the Shuilong area celebrates the second Hai Day; Hengfeng and Sandong areas celebrate the third and fourth Hai Days. Before the festival, the sound of bronze drums celebrating the Dragon Boat Festival is generally heard in all villages, and every household tidy up their furniture.
During the festival, men, women and children dress up in costumes, visit relatives and friends, and congratulate each other. The youths sang and danced in search of mates. They gathered on the "Duanpo" to hold a horse racing meeting. Neighboring ethnic groups also came to participate. There was a sea of ??people on the slope, forming a grand gathering of unity between ethnic groups. The origin of the Duanjie is said to be that in ancient times, there were several brothers. Each family lived in separate quarters and rarely met each other. When the millet was yellow, the brothers visited each other to celebrate the harvest. Hai Day was the day when their families separated. From then on, this festival was passed down from generation to generation. That is to say: "Duanjie" is a grand "Mao" festival for the Shui people to pray for a good harvest. It is called "Jie Mao" in Shui people's language. It is held on a Mao day every year in the tenth month of the water calendar (June of the lunar calendar). This festival is celebrated in some villages in Jiuqian, Sandu, and Shuiqing, Yongkang, Shuili, Epu and other places in Dushan County. On the day of the festival, people wear costumes and go to "Mao Po" to sing songs to wish for a good harvest and to worship their ancestors. Playing bronze drums and leather drums for entertainment in the evening.
Architecture
The aquarium's residential area is located in the subtropical zone, with rainy and humid conditions and dense forests, where jackals, tigers, leopards and wild boars often appear. The aquatic people live in "dry fence" houses to avoid ground moisture and wild beasts.
Aquatic wooden buildings are generally divided into upper and lower floors. The lower floor is the load-bearing component of the entire upper floor house, so the foundations should be repaired first. According to the performance of the wooden house frame structure, the roof foundation only requires the use of stones to stabilize the column feet according to the terrain. Generally, it is not necessary to repair the roof foundation plane. The lower columns are thick (generally more than 30 centimeters in diameter), and the mortises of the columns are connected vertically and horizontally with crossbars. The upper ends of each row of bottom columns are buckled with thick logs as beams, and there are pads between the beams, commonly known as "floor pillows." , the pillows are covered with wide floor boards (mostly boards made of pine or maple trees), forming a flat floor. The upper roof trusses usually have five columns and four melons (or eleven purlin steps) in each row, but there are also five columns and six melons (or fifteen purlin steps) in each row. The wooden building has a bucket-type structure, with a network of piercing beams between the columns. In particular, the upper roof trusses and column foot buckles are connected in a fishtail style, which is the most outstanding creation of Shuizu carpentry in the construction of gantry buildings. This fishtail-style "fighting angle" structure with buckles at the column feet firmly fixes the position of each column. Purlins are used on the top to hold each row of stigmas and melon heads, and the joints of each part are riveted with tenons and tenons, making the building highly integrated and very stable.
The supporting columns and beams of the lower floor must correspond to the upper floor racks, commonly known as "column top columns", which fully utilizes the compression resistance of wood.