Religious customs of the Miao people
The Miao people used to believe in animism, worship nature, and worship their ancestors. "Guzang Festival" is the largest sacrificial activity among the Miao people. Generally, there is a small sacrifice every seven years and a big sacrifice every thirteen years. It is held on Yihai day from October to November of the lunar calendar. At that time, a Guzi ox will be killed, Lusheng dance will be performed, and ancestors will be sacrificed. Invite relatives and friends to gather together during meals in order to enhance feelings and family harmony.
The main beliefs of the Miao people include nature worship, totem worship, ancestor worship and other primitive religious forms. In traditional Miao society, ghosts and gods are superstitious and witchcraft is prevalent. There are also some Miao people who believe in Christianity and Catholicism. The Miao people who believe in Buddhism and Taoism mainly speak the eastern dialect of Miao, which is called "Baddeibzhal" in the Miao language.
Since modern times, as Western missionaries have penetrated into the mainland of my country to preach, some Miao people have converted to Christianity in areas such as the junction of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, Kaili in Guizhou, and Yuanling in Hunan, and a few in southeastern Yunnan. The Miao people believe in Catholicism. Especially in northeastern Yunnan and northwest Guizhou, the Christian faith once had strong momentum and great influence. Foreign missions or missionaries have opened many primary and secondary schools, medical institutions, and even implemented some economic development projects in the Miao areas, which have played an indelible role in the progress of the Miao society and the improvement of their political status. Famous pastors include Dang Juren, Bogeli, Zhang Daohui, Wang Shude, etc. from Anshun. The first two died in the Miao area.
Among the Miao people abroad, a small number of Miao people in Vietnam and Laos believe in Catholicism. The Miao people in Western countries such as the United States and France also believe in Christianity and Catholicism. The Miao people in Laos and Thailand are also influenced by Buddhist culture. Despite this, in their society, traditional ancestor worship, soul concepts, etc. are still retained to a large extent.
National festivals of the Miao people
The Miao people are a nation rich in ancient civilization and pay attention to etiquette, and their festivals are unique and distinctive every year. Traditional Miao festivals are divided into functional meanings: 1. Festivals for agricultural activities; 2. Festivals for material exchange; 3. Festivals for men and women to socialize, fall in love, and choose spouses; 4. Sacrificial festivals; 5. Commemorative and celebratory festivals. In chronological order, one year is divided into twelve months, and each month has more than one festival. The 1st to 15th day of the moving month (rat or child month) (the first child day to the second Yin day) is the Wan Nian Festival, of which the first child day is the Tiansui Festival, and the Miao people do not go out (far away); The first Chou Day is the Di Sui Festival. During the period from the 1st Chou Day to the 2nd Chou Day (2-14), people visit relatives and friends one after another, congratulate each other on the New Year, sing duets between men and women, play with dragon lanterns, lions, etc.; The 2nd Yin day (the 15th) is the tail year (burning dragon lanterns). The first ugly day of the partial month (Niu month or Chou month) is the She Day, also known as the Dragon Head Festival. The Miao people offer sacrifices to the earth god, Jielong and Anlong (Miao language Ranrong). The first Yin day of January (Tiger month or Yin month) is a festival for material exchange and socializing between men and women (called March 3 Street Festival in Chinese). The first day of February (the Rabbit month or the Mao month) is the Ox King Festival (called April 8 in Chinese), the Cherry Blossom Party for men and women, and the Buddha's birthday. The first Chen day and the second Yin day of March (Dragon or Chen month) are the Little Dragon Boat Festival and the Big Dragon Boat Festival respectively. The Little Dragon Boat Festival later commemorated the patriotic poet Qu Yuan (surnamed Mi), also known as Qu Yuan Festival. , Singer's Day. The first Si day of April (Snake month or Si month) is the Dragon Subduing Festival (known as June 6th and June Festival in Chinese) and the New Eating Festival (barley ripening). The first sub-day of May (horse month or noon month) is the Xiaonian Festival (called Seven Sisters in Miao language, namely the Big Dipper). The second Yin day of June (the sheep month or the last month) is the Duck Festival, and the second Chen day is the Autumn Festival. The first Shen day of July (Monkey month or Shen month) is the Wine Festival (glutinous rice is harvested to brew sweet wine and rice wine). August (rooster month or unitary month) is the Festival of Sacrifice (mainly activities such as bone-backed cattle, pig-eating, incense dancing, repaying Nuo wishes, and making dragons available to worship ancestors and souls). During the Hunting Festival in September (Dog month or Xu month), a day is chosen to worship the three gods of Meishan and start hunting. October (Pig month or Hai month) Mao day and noon day are the Pig Soup Festival (killing the New Year pig), Stove God Festival (sacrifice to the Kitchen God), and New Year's Eve (New Year's Eve, called the Miao people's October New Year in Chinese). In addition, due to different branches and regional cultural differences, the Miao people also have some unique festivals of the local branches, such as the Huashan Festival.
Special delicacies of the Miao people
Glutinous rice is one of the staple foods of the Miao people. It plays an important role in the lives of the Miao people and is a favorite food of men, women, old and young. People think that eating sticky rice is not enough. It is hungry, tastes bland, and is not as fragrant as glutinous rice. It can be eaten without vegetables. It does not require chopsticks and is very convenient to eat with your hands. Most of the gifts given when visiting relatives and friends and the staple food of various festivals (sister festivals) are various foods made of glutinous rice. There are brilliant white glutinous rice steamed in a steamer, glutinous rice dyed with colorful flowers, pillow-shaped and triangular rice dumplings, glutinous rice cakes, as well as wine-making, long-distance travel or uphill work, and bamboo boxes are often used to store the glutinous rice. edible. When a new daughter-in-law meets her father-in-law for the first time and a son-in-law meets his father-in-law, the above-mentioned gifts made of glutinous rice are must-have gifts. Therefore, the proportion of glutinous rice used is very large. The Miao people in the county generally use wooden steamers to steam and tripod pots to cook sticky rice. Most of the rice is poured with water and the rice soup is not filtered. The people call it "rice with soup", and in Miao language it is called "gaowenghe". The food is not bland but nutritious. Glutinous rice is first soaked in cold water to swell, filtered, steamed on a wooden steamer, and then placed in a wooden basin for consumption. Sticky rice or glutinous rice is mostly eaten once a day, all year round. It is believed that rice that is pounded and cooked immediately will nourish people if eaten. Rice that has been stored for a long time is old rice and will not nourish people if eaten. There are two types of grain processing tools: stone mills and water mills. They are tools that have been used for a long time and are necessary for every household.
Rice milling by water mill (sometimes called water mill) has a history of three hundred years, and it is said that it was introduced by foreign tribes. Each village near the water has one or several water mills, which are only used during the busy farming season. In droughts, they mainly rely on stone mills to grind rice. The processing method is to put the cage-dried or sun-dried rice into a stone mortar, step on the back end of the hammering rod to make the hammering rod rise and fall, and use the force of the fall to pound the rice. After the rice is pounded, the bran is screened out to obtain clean rice.
Miao costumes
Costume characteristics There are no less than 200 kinds of Miao costumes in southeastern Guizhou. It is the area with the most types and best preservation of Miao costumes in my country and the world. It is called the "Miao Costume Museum" ". Generally speaking, Miao costumes maintain the traditional Chinese folk craft techniques of weaving, embroidery, picking, and dyeing. They often use one main craft technique while interspersing other craft techniques, either with embroidery or with embroidery. Dyeing with embroidery, or combining weaving and embroidery, makes these costume patterns colorful and colorful, showing distinctive national artistic characteristics.
From the content point of view, most of the clothing patterns are based on various living objects in daily life, which play an important role in expressing meaning and identifying ethnic groups, branches and languages. These image records are called " An epic thing to wear.” From the modeling point of view, the traditional Chinese line drawing or almost line drawing modeling technique is adopted, with a single line as the outline of the pattern. From the perspective of production techniques, the five forms in the history of clothing development, namely the braided type, the weaving type, the sewing type, the patchwork type and the tailoring type, all have examples in the Miao costumes in southeastern Guizhou. The historical hierarchical relationship is clear, and it can be called clothing production. History Exhibition Hall. From the perspective of color, they are good at choosing a variety of strong contrasting colors, striving to pursue the richness and richness of colors, generally red, black, white, yellow and blue. From the composition point of view, it does not emphasize highlighting the theme, but only focuses on adapting to the overall sense of the clothing. From a formal point of view, it is divided into dressy and casual wear.
If silver jewelry is the representative symbol of Miao women, then clothing represents the unique artistic works of the Miao family. "Cihai" records that "Miao embroidery has been ranked alongside Hunan embroidery, Su embroidery, Shu embroidery and Guangdong embroidery, which represent the highest level of Miao embroidery." Miao embroidery and clothing are just as the famous art master Liu Haisu praised: "Miao girls' embroidery is ingenious. Hunan embroidery and Su embroidery are inevitably vulgar and have great commercial development and prospects.
Miao girls love to wear pleated skirts. There are more than 500 pleats on a skirt, and there are many layers. There are as many as thirty or forty layers of these skirts, from weaving to dyeing and sewing, to the final drawing and embroidery, all done by the girls themselves. Together with the flower belts and breast pockets embroidered by themselves, they are really colorful and beautiful. .
Headwear includes silver horns, silver fans, silver hats, silver handkerchiefs, silver headbands, silver hairpins, silver pins, silver crown flowers, silver mesh chains, silver flower combs, and silver earrings. Silver hats.
If the Miao girls in costumes gather together, it will definitely become a beautiful silver world. It is the nature of Miao girls to wear silver jewelry. They put their hair in buns on their heads and wear them. It is about 20 centimeters high and is made of exquisite silver corolla. There are 6 silver wings of different heights inserted in the front of the corolla. Most of them are decorated with two dragons playing with beads, butterflies exploring flowers, red phoenix facing the sun, hundreds of birds facing the phoenix, and swimming. The pattern of fish playing in the water. In some areas, in addition to the silver pieces, silver horns about 1 meter high are also inserted on the silver crown, and the tips of the horns are decorated with colorful flowers, which makes it more noble and gorgeous.