Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture is located in the northwestern part of Hunan Province, Hunan Province's "Northwest Gateway", and Hubei, Guizhou, Chongqing, three provinces and municipalities border, has always been "Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, Guizhou throat" place. The state has a total area of 15,462 square kilometers, now has jurisdiction over Jishou, Luxi, Fenghuang, Guzhang, Huayuan, Baojing, Yongshun, Longshan 8 cities and counties, the end of 2005 the population of 2,683,400, in the total population of ethnic minorities 2,008,600 people, accounting for 74.85%, of which: 1,105,900 people of the Tujia ethnic group, 886,100 people of the Hmong ethnic group. The state capital is Jishou. Xiangxi Folklore \x0d\\ Dress \x0d\ The dress of the Han Chinese is no different from that of the foreigners, while the dress of the Tujia and Miao people is rich in ethnic and local characteristics. Tujia men, the elderly, wearing collarless large-sleeved full corset, young people, head wrapped in green or white cloth pajamas, was a human road, wearing a pair of corsets, more rows of cloth buttons, pants for the green, blue cloth plus white cloth pants waist, shoes are green with white soles. Women, head knotted hair braids, wrapped in white cloth or green silk handkerchiefs, not wrapped in herringbone road. Unmarried women, some will be hanging behind the braid, but more are coiled on the head, after marriage, the braid will be pulled into a bun, bundled in the net set. Clothes are long and collarless, with short sleeves and large cuffs, open to the right side of the placket, and the placket and cuffs are rolled with inch-wide five-color flowers and plum strips or silk embroidery strips. The pants are also made of blue and green cloth, with a white waist, large and short legs, and the upper edge of the mouth is covered with flowery plum strips or silk embroidered flower strips. Shoes were slightly pointed, with a green face and white sole, and embroidered flowers on the uppers. Laboring women are not used to wearing socks, and most of them wrap their feet in green or white cloth. Ears hanging gold and silver earrings, wrists wearing silver or jade bracelets, fingers wearing gold and silver rings, chest hanging "tooth money", tied with silver practice, silver bells, silver teeth cuttings, silver beads and a large string, walking jingling. Miao women like to wear a silver collar around their necks, tied with silver practice, silver cards, silver bells, etc., head wrapped in blue and white cloth fear than the Tujia, Han people's long. \x0d\ Tujia children (including Han Chinese) dress prominently in the hat, according to the age, the season to determine the shape of the hat, such as spring and fall to wear "purple and gold crown", summer to wear "winter melon ring", winter to wear "dog head cap", "fish tail", "wind hat". These hats, in addition to the five-color silk thread embroidered into the magpies haunting the plum, "Phoenix Peony", "long life and wealth", "easy to raise people", "Fu, 禄, life and happiness" and other patterns and art words, but also in the front of the hat is decorated with the "Big Eight Immortals", "Little Eight Immortals", "Eighteen Luohan" and other silver Bodhisattva, the cap after the suspension of the silver plate, silver bells. Whether men or women, small wrists are wearing a silver ring, silver ring hanging on the hollow silver hammer and silver bell. \x0d\\\\\\x0d\\\Mongolian Catch-Autumn Festival\x0d\ is a large-scale folk festival held by the Miao folk before the autumn harvest or before the start of the autumn festival for entertainment, mutual markets, male and female youths and to celebrate the imminent arrival of a good harvest, and so on. \x0d\ About the origin of the Catch the Autumn Festival, some say it is to catch the "Autumn Day", some say it is to "catch the swing". Legend has it that a long time ago, there was a young man named Ba Gui Dajia in the Miao Village, who was a good shot and an upright person, and was highly admired by all. One day, he went out hunting, see a mountain eagle from the air, they raised their hands and drew the bow, an arrow hit. With the eagle fell at the same time, there is a flower shoes. This flower shoes, embroidery is extremely exquisite, a look from the smart and beautiful Miao village girl's hand. Ba Gui Dajia was determined to find the owner of the shoes. He designed and manufactured a windmill that could sit 8 people at the same time, named "Eight People Autumn". On the day of Autumn, he invited men and women from villages near and far to come and play autumn for fun. Playing the swing is the favorite activity of the Miao girls, Ba Gui Dajia thought, the girl who made the flower shoes, will definitely come. Sure enough, his wish came true. He found the owner of the flower shoes, the beautiful girl Qiniang. Later, they built up a relationship through singing Miao songs and became husband and wife, living a very happy life. Since then, people have followed this example and held this event once a year. \x0d\ And there are places where it is said that Shen Nong sent a man and a woman to the East, to find the seeds back, planted five grains to get a good harvest, so the Miao forefathers called this man and woman for the Autumn Gong Qiuwu Granny, Catch the Autumn Festival is the Miao forefathers to be grateful to the Shen Nong and the Autumn Gong Qiuwu Granny and the folk festival held activities. The festival reflects the Miao people's pursuit of a good harvest, prosperity of six animals and happiness. \x0d\\crying for marriage\x0d\\The Tujia girls no longer go out to do their work ten days and a half months before they receive notification from the male party of the day of the marriage. First in the hammock boudoir set up a square table, set tea ten bowls, invite relatives and neighbors children sit around in turn, crying marriage song, the bride in the middle, called "package seat", the right woman for the "seat", the left woman for the "seat". ". The bride sounded, "Anshi" to take over the cavity, in order to cry to go, day and night. Crying rules: mother and daughter cry, aunt and nephew cry, sister cry, uncle and nephew cry, sister-in-law cry, scolding the matchmaker? Crying three or five days, there are up to ten days and a half months. The main content of the mother and daughter to recall the love, to talk about the pain of separation, to thank the thought of nurturing, to brother and sister-in-law to take care of elderly parents, to teach the daughter to behave in the world, and so on. \x0d\ The songs of crying for marriage are usually about crying for the mother and crying for the aunt. The words vary, but there are also fixed words, such as "than the ancients", "*** room crying", "ten paintings", "ten embroidered", "December", "10", "10", "10", "10", "10", "10", "10", "10", "10", "10", "10" and "10". ", "December" and so on. Crying has a tune, rhythm and staccato, is a very difficult combination of singing and crying art. The bridegroom must seek a teacher to practice beforehand (secretly, of course). Crying with "buzz", "brutal", "ah ah ah ah ah" and other tone of voice, a sob, a complaint, mournful and moving. For example, "Crying Sister": \x0d\\ Same drink of water from the same well, same footsteps on the same rocky road; \x0d\ Same village, same village, same village for 18 years, same play, same play, same play, same play, same play, same play, same play, same play, same play, same play, same play, same play, same play, same play. \x0d\\\ The same stools at daytime, the same oil lamps at night; \x0d\ the same linen baskets, the same mills, the same grinding mills, and so on. \x0d\\ And the crying mother: \x0d\ Mother, I have to go now, comb your hair again. \x0d\ Once I remember the wildflowers on my temples, when did my forehead become wrinkled with bitterness? \x0d\\ The cradle is still ringing in my ears, my mother has turned white for her daughter. \x0d\ The swallows are leaving the nest, my food, when will they turn back? \x0d\ Mother cries for her daughter: \x0d\ The gong and sedan chair are urging her to leave, she hasn't said enough; \x0d\ There's a leap in three years, why don't you ask about the first day of the fifth night? \x0d\\ Hey, children go ah mother difficult to stay, the future of the day you start again; \x0d\ filial piety parents diligently hold the family, husband and wife love ah spend spring and autumn? \x0d\ The custom of Tujia women crying for marriage has been passed down for a long time. Qing Dynasty Tujia poet Peng Tanqiu recorded that: "ten sisters song, love relatives, sad parting, song for the sound of Man, very sad, tears with the sound down, is the 'Bamboo Branch' legacy of meaning also." There is a poem about crying for marriage in the ancient Bamboo Branch Lyrics: \x0d\\\ Peach Festival, good luck, unlimited sadness about parting. \x0d\\crying mother, sister-in-law, sister-in-law, tears of affection. \x0d\\ With the cry to celebrate the joy of marriage, with song and dance to worship the dead relatives, seems incredible, but fully reflects the unique endowment and cultural awareness of the Tujia people. \x0d\\\x0d\\ Hmong Marriage Customs\x0d\ Most Hmong areas have a high degree of autonomy in marriage, and Hmong young people everywhere have a traditional form of free socializing with the main purpose of choosing a spouse. In western Hunan, it is called "catching the edge of the field" or "meeting the girl", in southeast Guizhou, the Miao are called "traveling to the party", and in Rongshui, Guangxi, it is called "sitting on the girl" or "walking". Rongshui in Guangxi is called "sitting sister" or "walking village", northwest Guizhou is called "stepping on the moon", and Qianzhong and some western Miao are called "jumping flower", "Jumping Field" and so on. In such social activities, young men and women can sing and talk to each other in groups of three to five or alone, openly or quietly. Love in the form of song pairing is the most representative of the Miao marriage culture and a custom rich in ethnic colors. Some Miao communities also have special places for young people to fall in love, such as Youfangping in Southeast Guizhou, and Girls' Rooms in Northeast Yunnan. Miao youths choose their spouses not on property and family status, but more on personal talent and character. \x0d\ After finding a suitable lover, both sides can exchange love objects. Marriage, in general, requires the consent of parents. In most Hmong areas, youth independent marriages coexist with parent-arranged marriages, and the two situations are not necessarily irreconcilable contradictions, depending only on which tendency is heavier. Generally speaking, parents and children respect each other and seek each other's advice, and forced marriages are rare. Moreover, social customs allow and uphold the free choice of young people. Therefore, more often than not, marriage is conducted by parents after free love. The specific steps are that the young people talk about it, and the man consults his parents and then invites a matchmaker to the woman's home to talk about the marriage. Under normal circumstances, the woman's parents will not object to the marriage, and sometimes it is necessary to use chicken divination to decide whether the marriage is feasible. Once the matchmaking is finalized, the two sides will discuss the date of marriage and the bride price. Before the marriage, the man must send a sum of money or other property for the girl's uncle's family, called "uncle money". If the parents do not agree, young men and women can elope, seeking the support of relatives or social forces, over time, the parents will recognize a fait accompli. Of course, there are those who follow their parents' orders, and there are also a few emotional tragedies caused by parental arrangements. \x0d\ There is also a form of marriage or a form similar to marriage by stealing. Young men and women through free love, willing to be a lifelong partner, the man in a day and night, invited a few friends or brothers to bring the woman or "snatch" to the family, that is, into marriage. Three days later, only to ask a "full blessing" of the old man with a chicken to go to the parents of the woman "reported marriage", please ask them to recognize the marriage. Then both sides agree on the date and specific matters for the wedding ceremony at the bride's home. \x0d\ Hmong young people generally marry between the ages of 16 and 20, but there are also early marriages, around 14 or 15 years of age, and couples who marry early usually do not live together until they reach adulthood. In the choice of marriage, the same clan (with the same family name) does not marry, aunts and uncles have priority in marriage, and different generations do not intermarry. Different ethnic groups and even different branches of the Hmong also basically do not intermarry. Many areas of the Hmong have married couples on the day of the custom of different rooms, the bride and the bridegroom's sisters to accompany the bride and bridegroom's sisters **** degree of the first night. Some places to do wedding is mainly in the woman's home. Qiandongnan Miao have "not fall husband's home" (sit home) custom, that is, the bride back to the door that is long lived in the mother's home, only in the New Year's festivals or busy farms by the summons to return to the husband's home to live, until after the pregnancy to live long husband's home. Sitting at home for as long as one or two years to four or five years. \x0d\ After marriage, divorce is possible for reasons such as incompatibility. Generally, the divorcing party is required to make amends to the other party. Widows are allowed to remarry, usually by transferring rooms from one generation to another, but it is not compulsory. The Hmong are all monogamous families. The nuclear family and the main family are the main family structures in Hmong society. The status of women and men is relatively equal before and after marriage, and women have some say in family affairs, but overall it is still a male-dominated society. Children's descent is from the father, lineage is calculated according to the father's lineage, and family property is inherited according to the father's lineage. The Miao have a system of hyphenated names for fathers and sons, which is now typical of Qiandongnan, but no longer exists in other regions. The Miao have their own family name, but now most of them have common Chinese surnames. \x0d\\ Catching corpses \x0d\ Xiangxi's catching corpses, no one can point out its real situation to this day. \x0d\ According to the unanimous statement of the locals: the person who drives the corpses is a mage in Taoist robes, and no matter how many corpses there are, they are all driven by him alone. This is the same as the Hong Kong movie. Said: "drive" the corpse rather than "lead", because the master is not behind the corpse, but in front of the corpse to lead the way, one side walking and banging a gong to make the night walkers to avoid, there are dogs in the house to close the dog. Corpses in more than one, that is, with a straw rope to link them up, every six or seven feet a. It is very difficult to drive corpses in places other than western Hunan. First, accommodation is a problem. Secondly, the night walkers do not know how to avoid the gongs, but come to see the fun, not to scare people to death. Third, many villages, there is no road outside the village, it is necessary to pass through the village, most places are not allowed to enter the village of the corpse, let alone jumping and jumping corpse? At the same time along the road residents do not understand the situation, there is no way to ask them to cooperate with ---- heard the sound of the gong on the dog shut up, because the body is afraid of the dog, the dog bites the body clothes a pull, the body is not down, a dog is also easy to deal with, to a group of corpses on the clothes and even the skin and flesh bite a mess. Even to drive the corpse are bitten, things are serious, but in Xiangxi not these difficulties. \x0d\ Why is there a business of "corpse chasing"? Because the upper reaches of the Yuan River in western Hunan, the place is barren, the poor people go to Sichuan or Qiandong area, for peddling, medicine or hunting mainly, those places have many high mountains, the miasma in the mountains is very heavy, malaria is often prevalent, the living environment is so bad that, in addition to the local Miao people, the outsiders are seldom to go. Dead in those places of the Han people, no one is rich, and the Han people in the tradition of transporting the body back to their hometowns to bury the concept of deep, but, in that thousands of miles or hundreds of miles of rugged mountain roads, even if there is money, it is difficult to use a vehicle or stretcher to carry, so some people have created the line of this strange economic method of transporting the body back to their hometowns to catch the corpse in western Hunan. \x0d\ Maybe it's a mysterious witchcraft, maybe it's a superstition to fool people, maybe it's just a trick to get money, maybe it's just a sensational rumor? Whether it is right or wrong, please discern for yourself. \x0d\\\\\x0d\\\ put compulsion \x0d\\ Xiangxi's "compulsion" and Thailand's "head-scratching" are known as the two major evil arts in Southeast Asia. Xiangxi's compulsion is the same as Xiangxi's zombie driving, so far no one can point out its real situation. Unlike zombie-removal, the practice of parasites has been passed down in almost all of western Hunan, while zombie-removal is mainly practiced in four counties of western Hunan, namely Yuanling, Luxi, Chenxi and Xuipu. In western Hunan, parasites are commonly called "grass ghosts", which are said to be attached to women's bodies and endanger others. Those women who are said to have parasites are called "grass ghost women". \x0d\ The so-called way of releasing parasites and what parasites really look like, in addition to the claims passed down from generation to generation, no one has ever seen, but it is y rooted in the hearts and minds of the people. The Hmong people believe in parasites in almost the entire nation, only the weight of the different places is different. \x0d\ In the Miao conceptual world, compulsion has snake compulsion, frog compulsion, ant compulsion, and other categories. Compulsions in the person who has a compulsion to reproduce more, can not find food, will have to have a compulsion to the person himself to attack, to ask for food, so that the owner of the compulsion is difficult, will release the compulsion to go out to endanger others. \x0d\ In fact, this kind of intimidating compulsion is not the patent of the Miao people. Compulsion has long been widely spread in the Jiangnan region of ancient China. Initially, the compulsion refers to the insects born in the vessels, later, the moths born after the corruption of grains and the insects born from the deterioration of other objects were also called compulsion. Ancient people believed that parasites had mysterious and unpredictable nature and great toxicity, so they were also called poisonous parasites, which could enter the human body through food and drink to cause diseases. The patient is like being bewitched by ghosts and confused. The pre-Qin people mentioned compulsion mostly refers to naturally occurring mysterious poisonous insects. The long-term superstition of poisonous parasites developed the concept and practice of making parasites. According to scholars, people in the Central Plains during the Warring States period already used and taught the method of creating parasites to harm people. \x0d\ The Miao people are located in remote areas, the old medical backwardness, many diseases can not be effectively treated. Therefore, in every case of ineffective diagnosis, often blamed on the compulsion. With the popularization of scientific and cultural knowledge in the Miao region and the improvement of medical standards, the influence of compulsion superstition in the Miao region is now becoming smaller and smaller. \x0d\\\\\x0d\\ Tatsuju Charms\\x0d\ A traveler who is conscious of having arrived in Tatsuju is interested or not in these usual issues. Chenzhou place is famous for Chenzhou charm, Chenzhou charm of the legendary miracle and is known for catching corpses. The highway is on the south bank of the Yuan River, so it's only natural to look forward to the opportunity to figure out this old thing when you go to the city on the north bank. \x0d\ But the traveler's curiosity will be dampened. Most of the locals are baffled by the Tatsumaki symbols and have no interest in them, nor do they believe in them. Maybe you'll run into a "big" person, with a big body, a big voice, and a big personality. His last name is either Zhang or Li (as he should be.)! A typical philistine, serving in the Chamber of Commerce, with a good bragging mixed into the Office of the Honorary Counselor), will tell you, the spirit of the charm of the Chenzhou, that is, with a knife to cut the neck of a chicken, reattach it, with a mouthful of charm water, thrown to the ground, the chicken will instantly run away, sprinkle a handful of rice to the ground, the chicken is actually rushed back to eat the rice! You asked him, "Have you ever seen this with your own eyes?" He must have said, "Really? He must have said, "Truly it is a matter of seeing." Perhaps if you think about it slowly, you will realize that you have also seen this with your own eyes somewhere. It turns out that it was in a book somewhere fifty years ago. This big man was a famous talker in the area. Everything in the world seems to know clearly, only do not know whether their own words are false or true, is the book there or their own fabrication. Most of the local people for the "Chenzhou Fu" is a thing, as usual, do not understand.