Aquatic customs and habits: Both men and women of the Aquatic tribe like to wear green and blue clothes.

Men wear long or short shirts with large lapels and wrap their heads with green cloth.

Women usually wear a blue cloth collarless half-length gown with a large placket on the upper body, a bib with a thorn pattern on the chest, and blue cloth trousers on the lower body.

Women's clothes are surrounded by lace.

Wear a skirt during festivals and comb your long hair into a slanted bun on your head.

On every grand festival or banquet, they like to wear various earrings, necklaces, bracelets and other silver jewelry.

The Shui people take rice as their staple food, followed by corn, barley, wheat, sweet potato, etc.

They like to eat glutinous rice, fish, shochu and sweet wine, and use these as sacrifices and as necessary food for entertaining relatives and friends during festivals. Most of the houses are made of wood. Historically, they were mostly "thousand-column" style buildings. Nowadays, bungalows account for the majority.

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The Shui people are warm and hospitable. When guests arrive at home, they should take the initiative to say hello, offer a seat, give them water, etc.

During festivals, when guests arrive at home, they should be warmly received regardless of whether they know them or not.

Wine is the most expensive meal when entertaining guests, and distinguished guests are treated to slaughtered piglets and fish.

Pig heads and chicken heads symbolize nobility, so chicken heads should be presented to guests, while pig heads are reserved as offerings at the farewell banquet.

The family form of the Shui tribe is a monogamous father-family.

Two or three hundred years ago, young men and women of the Shui tribe were relatively free to fall in love and marry. However, with the development of the feudal economy, marriage relationships were marked by a distinct class mark, emphasizing "matching the family" and "marriage is about wealth."

Under the constraints of feudal patriarchy, the marriages of young men and women were mostly arranged by their parents.

When the bridegroom gets married, he does not welcome the bride, but asks a few unmarried young people to do so on his behalf.

The bride holds an umbrella and walks to the groom's house without any ceremony.

After entertaining the guests, the bride returns to her parents' home on the same day or the next day. It usually takes half a year before she goes to live with her husband's family.

The funeral customs of the Shui people are complex, and the procedures can be roughly divided into six stages: mourning, burial, auspiciousness, burial, monument erection, and removal of clothes.

Religious beliefs and important festivals The Shui people used to believe in many gods and believed that all things had animism.

"Liuyi Gong" and "Liujia Gong" are the righteous gods.

According to legend, he is the creator of "Shui Shu".

Whenever encountering life, death, disease, or disaster, ghost masters are invited to perform divination and chant sutras, and animals are sacrificed to ghosts and gods, with fish sacrifices as the characteristic feature.

The main divination methods include egg divination.

In ancient times, there were stone coffin tombs of the Shui people. The coffin was shaped like a "ganrail" and surrounded by carved bronze drums and various patterns, which is quite characteristic of the nation.

In the late Qing Dynasty, Catholicism was introduced.

But the number of believers is very small.

The Shui tribe has its own clan calendar, which is basically consistent with the Xia calendar.

The difference is that the water calendar uses August as the end of the year and September as the beginning of the year.

The four Hai Days from the end of August to the beginning of October are the "Duan" Festival, which is the most solemn festival of the Shui people.

In the language of water, it is called "borrowing".

It is equivalent to the Spring Festival of the Han people.

During the festival, activities such as horse racing, bronze drum dance, and Lusheng dance are held.

And held a grand banquet.

Some Shui people celebrate the Mao Festival, which takes September as the festival.

In addition, there are "Ejie Festival", "Xia Festival", "Suning Xi Festival", etc., and festivals such as Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, June 6th and July 15th are also celebrated.

Miao Customs Family The Miao people generally practice a small family system centered on the patriarchal family.

Most of the family members are two or three generations living together, while there are very few families with more than four generations living together.

Most of the time, after a son gets married, he separates from his parents and starts a new family.

Parents often live with their youngest son or their most beloved son.

In the family, male heads have greater power, followed by female heads, and adult children have the right to "discuss."

Only men have the right to inherit family property.

At the time of separation, except for one share left to the parents as "pension land", the rest will be inherited by the son.

If there are many brothers, they will be divided equally.

There is no primogeniture (or eldest son) inheritance.

In some places, the eldest son of the ex-wife can get more points, but there is no system.

Women have no inheritance rights.

In some places, such as some Miao people in southeastern Guizhou, unmarried girls are also given a small portion of land for living expenses, called "girl land", which is managed by their parents or brothers who live with them.

Afterwards, they had no right to enjoy it, and some of them were not recovered until the girl died.

A son-in-law has the right to inherit property.

If the widow does not marry another person, she can still inherit her deceased husband's property. If the house is transferred, the property will be inherited by the original husband's son.

The relationship between direct relatives and collateral relatives of the Miao people is generally relatively close, with only a slight degree of intimacy.

They formed a family, helping each other and supporting each other in poverty.

Among members of the same generation in the family, regardless of direct lineage, regardless of closeness or distance, they are all referred to as brothers and sisters.

Those who are related to their parents are called uncles and parents.

People of the same generation as the grandfather are called grandfather or grandmother.

The generations above the grandfather are generally called grandfather and grandmother.

To the juniors, they usually call them by their first names.

The Miao people pay great attention to family education and family rules.

It is a traditional virtue to be filial to parents, to be friendly to brothers and sisters, to respect elders and to care for younger ones.

Uncles and sisters-in-law should not be incompatible with each other.

Elders cannot make fun of their daughter-in-law or granddaughter-in-law.

Juniors cannot play frivolously in front of their elders.

The Miao family has strong internal cohesion.

In daily life, they care about each other more.

If a family has major difficulties, the whole clan will help; if there are those who are poor and have no clothes, the whole clan will do their best to support them.

If there are disputes among each other, minor matters will be criticized and persuaded, while major matters will be resolved by a public discussion among the clan members convened by the most prestigious people in the clan.

In the family, the concept of unity and external relations is also very strong.

Miao families used to have their own surname, the Miao surname.

It originated from ancient clans and was generally called a certain branch or a certain branch.

Some branches are named after their leaders, while others are named after places or animals.