"In Naga, Heilongjiang, it's quacking cold in winter!" "Why is it so cold?" "I'm telling you, if you go to the Maodaozi (toilet) to pee in winter, you have to bring a small stick and pull it while urinating, otherwise it will freeze." "Ah! Is it so cold? " "Not to scare you, it's true!" This is a joke I heard in the 197s about the dialogue between Heilongjiang people and southerners. However, although the words are exaggerated, it is a fact that the winter in Heilongjiang is frosty and dripping into ice. As the saying goes, "La Qi La Ba freezes off the chin" is a portrayal of the deep winter. This is enough to make southerners "talk about cold color change." It is normal that the winter in Harbin is MINUS 2 degrees. In Mohe Arctic Village, there is a record of more than 5 degrees below zero.

In the past, Heilongjiang people had their own ways to resist the severe cold-men and women all wore "all-in-one" or black cloth or blue cloth with large cotton-padded jackets and trousers. In order to prevent the cold wind from pouring into clothes, men like to tie belts, while women wrap their feet and necks. Men wore cowhide, pigskin and later cotton rubber shoes, while women wore their own cotton shoes made of Melaleuca, and some wore straw sandals and later cotton rubber shoes. Men wear fur hats mainly made of dog skin hats, while women wear fur hats such as dog skin hats in addition to cotton horn towels and rimless cotton hats. Especially when a woman goes out of town, she has to borrow a dog skin hat to wear. Haha, this is not a farce, but the orthodox costume of Heilongjiang people in the past winter.

Some people may ask, there are many wild animals' fur to make hats in the vast forests and grasslands of Heilongjiang. Why did they fall in love with this dog skin hat? !

indeed, there are many furs that can be used to make hats in Heilongjiang. For example, otter skin and mink skin are precious fur. In the early years in Northeast China, people regarded mink, together with ginseng and humulus scandens, as the "Three Treasures in Northeast China". Mink skin is not only expensive, but even if it is made into a hat, it is not suitable for sheltering from the wind and cold in the countryside, and it can only become an ornament for people with status in big cities. Fox skin and raccoon skin are also rare things. Hats are light and warm, but because they are expensive, ordinary people can't afford them. In those days, anyone who wore a fox skin and raccoon skin hat was enviable. Mountain rabbits are easy to get, but the skin is thin and brittle, not strong, and the hair is not ground. A mountain rabbit skin hat has been worn for a winter, and its hair has been polished near its neck. Compared with many other fur hats, dogskin hats are not only much cheaper, but also have long fur, comfortable wind pressure and wear resistance. Therefore, from the practice of use, people "weigh the pros and cons" and wear a dog skin hat that is both economical and affordable. From this point of view, it is a popular choice for people in Northeast China, especially in Heilongjiang Province, to wear dog skin hats.

The old-fashioned dogskin hat is a watermelon petal-shaped helmet, a front hat face, a back hat circumference, and two side hat ears, and there are small hat ears above the hat ears to facilitate ventilation. Every winter, people wearing different colors of dog skin hats can be seen everywhere in Heilongjiang with blue sky, white snow and black soil, as if they were painting colorful decorations for this beautiful picture of ice and snow in winter.

In the past, people living in Heilongjiang liked to keep dogs to look after their homes. Whose bitch is carrying a cub, and before she gives birth, neighbors, relatives and friends come to say hello to her uncle and aunt, and the dog owner calls, "When your bitch gives birth, please leave me one!" "okay! Come and see often, or the bitch will not be able to stay after giving birth. If she comes late, she can be carried away by others. " In this way, I don't know how many puppies a bitch can give birth to. Anyway, people who want puppies are "on the number" first. The news of the bitch's cub spread like wildfire, and people who want puppies come to have a look every day after dinner. The bitch is very protective of her cubs, feeding her cubs with her own milk, watching people very warily, and sometimes "woof! Wang! " With a few loud cries, the master shouted at the bitch, and everyone was still talking about the dog cubs. When the puppy opened his eyes, the owner took advantage of the bitch's inattention, handed the puppy to the person who asked for the puppy, took the puppy home with his clothes covered, and fed it with rice and rice soup to raise it day by day. The bitch's worry is useless. She gave birth to several cubs and was finally carried away. Sometimes, the owner keeps a puppy, which is also the luck of the bitch, otherwise it is really pitiful. The puppy gradually grew into a big dog, and it was necessary to raise the puppy again. Some people have two or three dogs. At that time, dog owners often named dogs according to their posture and coat color, such as "big black", "rhubarb", "flower neck" and "four eyes", which were very vivid.

Although "cats are treacherous courtiers and dogs are loyal courtiers" and dogs are good friends with human beings, old dogs still need to be strangled. There is a saying among the people that "killing donkeys after finishing grinding", which is by no means "stopping dogs after watching the yard"! People are used to strangling dogs in dog days, cooking dog meat, cooking dog broth and making up delicious food. The stripped dog skin is dried, tanned with nitrate or bauxite, which is also called "cooked skin". The cooked dog skin is cut into dog skin hats, dog skin mattresses, dog skin socks, dog skin hand muffs, dog skin sleeves, dog skin pants, and so on. Later, when there were supply and marketing cooperatives in the countryside and local shops and leather factories in the county, people sold their dog skins and went to the shops to buy their hats.

I suddenly remembered those idioms and phrases about dogs, such as cruel and heartless, desperate to jump over the wall, dog's blood spraying, dog's eyes on people, dog's strength, cock crow and dog thieves, evil friends, dog's guts, dog's mouth can't spit ivory, dog's head strategist, dog's head and mouse's brain, and so on. It is true that every idiom and phrase is the crystallization of the wisdom of our ancestors, and it has its allusions, sources and established things. It can be said that dogs are all treasures, but they recite many derogatory words, which seems unfair.

Speaking of "wearing a dog skin hat", it reminds me of an unforgettable past.

The dogskin hats worn by my second brother and I have already been polished in several places. After my family moved from Laotun to the county seat, my father's salary of tens of yuan per month was not comfortable, and my family didn't have spare money to buy new dogskin hats for our two brothers. Later, my father's good friend, Uncle Shu Gui, one of the "Iron Triangle", saw that he bought a dog skin hat with yellow cloth and yellow hair for my second brother and me in the county department store, which made us both soar. During the winter vacation, my brothers and I went back to Laotun, playing dog sledge in Xihetao with my great uncle, playing sledge in Dongshan slope with my old uncle, and pulling Artemisia pole back from the meadow with my third uncle's horse sledge. Although the wind was biting in the wilderness, our hearts were full of joy, because we were wearing new dog skin hats.

My family set up camp in Laozhifang Hutong, a county town, and got a white dog. Speaking of this white dog, there is really a story. The second brother likes dogs very much, but he is embarrassed to ask others for puppies. Coincidentally, one day neighbor Tian Pangdi told his second brother that someone had thrown a puppy at the garbage dump on the east road. Hearing this, the second brother ran out of the alley and picked up the puppy in the garbage. The puppy is just born and has not opened its eyes yet. On closer inspection, I can see that my whole body is white, my face is half black and half white, and some of them are special. The second brother happily carried the puppy home, bathed him, fed him rice soup with sugar, and cuddled him in the bed at night, and let the puppy play on his chest ... The puppy opened his eyes, and the family found that one of his eyes was blue and the other was red, so he named the puppy "Yin and Yang Eyes". "Yin and Yang eyes" grew up day by day, and the blue eye was almost covered with white eyes during the day, and the red eye was brighter at night. "Yin and Yang eyes" are both popular and "in charge". When the second brother whistled far away, he immediately ran from the yard to the front and back. In winter, the second brother made a cloth bag, two small wooden poles, whipped the dog and taught it to pull the sledge. It takes a lot of effort to pull the sledge, sometimes a basket of coal, and sometimes half a bag of grain. When my mother works in a pancake factory in a grain store, she waits outside every time before she gets off work. When my mother walks home from work, she even skips around. Later, the "yin and yang eyes" were somewhat unruly. Others don't bite, but only Uncle Chen who comes to pick up swill every day. As soon as Uncle Chen entered the hospital, he jumped forward and bit his trouser leg without spilling his mouth. I was so angry that Uncle Chen broke the pole and touched the wire. Later, the chick of Aunt Wang's family in the East Hospital lost one or two chicks every day. At first, I thought it was eaten by a weasel. As a result, one day it was caught red-handed. My father was worried that the "Yin-Yang Eye" would cause trouble again, so he asked his second brother to strangle it. The second brother said that the "Yin-Yang Eye" had never been tied since childhood. On that day, he tied a rope around his neck, but he refused to go, and he earned it straight and shed tears. "Eye of Yin and Yang" ended the dog's life on the old willow tree in the west of the house. The family thought of its contribution to guarding the home at ordinary times, and couldn't bear to skin and eat dog meat, so they dug a deep pit and buried it.

There are many legends about dogs, but the legends of Nurhachi being rescued by dogs and magpies are widely spread in Northeast China. Because of this, there is also a saying that Manchu people don't kill dogs, eat dog meat or wear dog skin hats. But the legend belongs to the legend, and the statement belongs to the statement. In my opinion, the dog's spirituality and ability to catch prey should be the real reason why Manchu people love dogs.

When we came to Zhang Jiazhou to lead the Bayan guerrillas to fire the former site of Jiangjiayao, the first shot of the * * * production party against Japan, we seemed to see the mighty and unyielding pledging team wearing dog skin hats to return my rivers and mountains; When we stood in front of the embossed wall of the northeast anti-Japanese allied forces in Jingbo Lake, it seemed that we heard the gunfire of the anti-Japanese allied forces wearing dog skin hats fighting the Japanese aggressors in Baishan Blackwater; When we visited the landscape of the Tiger Mountain in Hailin and the Yang Zirong Memorial Hall, the heroes wearing dog skin hats rushed to the beautiful snowfield and appeared in front of us like movies. When we visited the former site of the Front Command of the Four Fields in the Twin Cities Liberation War, through those old photos, we reappeared the battle scenes of PLA officers and men wearing dog skin hats crawling on the ice and lying in the snow, rushing into the front, risking their lives and bravely killing the enemy, and the vivid pictures of the brave and mighty front-line troops who braved the enemy's bullets. When we visited the Tieren Wang Jinxi Memorial Hall in Daqing, we silently told the heroic spirit of entrepreneurs wearing dog skin hats and cotton-padded jacket. When we visited Xing 14th Village in Gannan, the first village in Longjiang, through the exhibition of village history, we made a time-space crossing along the footsteps of those who wore dog-skin hats to explore the land ...

"Wearing dog-skin hats on their heads" not only decorated the boring northern winter, but also gave people the courage and strength to overcome nature in the ice and snow. Nowadays, "wearing a dog skin hat" has gone away with glory, and a series of touching stories and wonderful chapters written will warm my heart!