Even in the northeast, Manchu people are in an awkward position on national taboos-few people can correctly understand Manchu dietary taboos. Some people speciously think that Manchu people don't eat pork like Muslims, some people simply don't know that Manchu people have dietary taboos, and some people will casually say, "How is this possible?" The Manchu people I know eat dog meat! " But the most frustrating thing is that some people with Manchu on their ID cards like to preach everywhere that "Manchu eats dog meat" on the grounds that "times have changed" or "Manchu used to eat dog meat in previous generations". Then, when did the custom of Manchu people not eating dog meat, which is one of the national standards, begin? What is the origin?

Did jurchen in Jin Dynasty eat dog meat?

Xu's "Three Dynasties North Alliance" recorded the custom of nuzhen's banquet: "When Akuta summoned the toast to have a meal, people put a bowl of barnyard grass on the kang and put a dagger on it. The leeks, wild garlic and long melons were all salted, not pigs, sheep, chickens, deer, rabbits and melons. Or burnt or cooked, or raw, there are many mustard and garlic stains, and the list continues * * *, each taking a sword, cutting rice, eating it, and then handing cold drinks to thin wine, so it is called a royal banquet. " What's more, dog blood bibimbap is a very popular food in the Jin Dynasty, that is, "raw dog blood belongs to leek" and cooked barnyard grass rice that is neither soft nor rotten.

The Annals of the League of Three Dynasties in the North, written in the Song Dynasty, is an important historical material to record the war and peace in the Song, Jin, Hui Zong, Qinzong and Gaozong periods.

In a word, in the Jin Dynasty of 12 century, Nuzhen did not form a taboo of not eating dog meat or wearing dog skin products. However, not rejecting dog meat does not mean that you like to eat dog meat. After all, in the known literature, most of the records about Nuzhen's daily diet clearly point out that pork and mutton are the most common types of meat, mixed with some hunted wild animals.

When did the dog meat taboo begin?

So, when did Manchu people stop eating dog meat? Some scholars have written about jurchen eating dog meat in the historical materials of Yuan and North Korea in the early Ming Dynasty. For example, the Li Dynasty recorded that North Korean officials "killed more than ten dogs and drank ten pots of wine" to entertain jurchen and so on. However, it is clearly recorded in the "Jianlu" written by Korean Mao that the Jurchen people in Jianzhou do not eat dog meat or use dog skin: "Dogs are vulgar and cannot be slaughtered, and some people in China are vicious." This record appeared in the four years of Destiny (16 19), that is, as late as after the founding of Jin, Jurchen (Manchuria) people had a life taboo of not killing dogs, eating dog meat and using dog skin products.

In fact, in word-of-mouth family education, Manchu people themselves do not think that not eating dog meat is a distant custom. According to the most common saying, Nurhachi, the "old king Han", was so sleepy that he fell asleep in the reeds when he ran away from Li and killed him. Seeing that reeds were lush and hard to find, the pursuers set fire to him. A yellow dog domesticated by Nurhachi saw that he couldn't wake his master, so he soaked himself in the water, wet Nurhachi and the reeds around him, and saved his master's life, but he was exhausted among the reeds. Nurhachi woke up, stroking the body of his dog and vowed, "My descendants will never eat dog meat or wear dog skin in the future to repay the kindness of the dog savior." So, is the Manchu habit of not eating dog meat really just out of admiration for heroes?