What kind of weddings are there in Xianning, Hubei (Chibi)?

Xianning City is located in the southern part of Hubei Province and governs Xian'an District, Jiayu County, Tongcheng County, Chongyang County, Tongshan County and Chibi City. Xianning City is located in the hinterland of Central China, commonly known as "Southern Hubei". Xianning has resources on the ground, treasures underground, and unique natural endowments. It is known throughout the country as the "Hometown of Ramie", "Hometown of Tea", "Hometown of Osmanthus" and "Hometown of Nanzhu". Xianning is well-known throughout the country as the "Hometown of Bamboo", and its bamboo customs are mellow and simple, with a long history. Bamboo customs have been integrated into people's lives since ancient times and have been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years. Xianning's bamboo folk custom covers a wide range of aspects, such as production, marriage, age, festivals, funerals, etc. The people of Xianning have given bamboo the meaning of peace, auspiciousness, bringing good fortune and warding off evil. The main manifestations of the wedding customs are as follows: hair picking with bamboo sticks, crying wedding with bamboo songs, welcoming the bride in bamboo sedan, entering the door with bamboo umbrella, and dowry with bamboo pole.

The marriage process in Xianning

Marriage is a major event in a person's life. In the old days, it was often regarded as a "lifelong event." Because after marriage, the couple will stay together for life, grow old together, and have good fortune and happiness. Although in the old days, men and women often got married based on "the orders of their parents and the words of the matchmaker", and men and women did not have the right to choose their own spouses, the marriage was still quite grand. With the changes of the times, although this process has gradually been simplified, it is still very particular in rural areas, including the following aspects:

Introduction: In the past, the union of men and women only followed "the orders of their parents. The matchmaker's words." Nowadays, many people still use introducers to build bridges so that men and women can get to know each other and have a preliminary understanding. This is an indispensable part of marriage.

Engagement: Through the introduction of the introducer, the man and woman get the opportunity to meet and talk about each other. If a man and a woman intend to get married and obtain the consent of their parents, they will usually be engaged before getting married. In the old days, engagement was called "Fa Geng". Generally, a child would enter into a marriage contract based on "the orders of their parents and the words of the matchmaker" after they were born. Write the year, month, day and hour of birth of the man and woman on the Geng Shu. Make two copies and exchange them with each other, each holding a piece of paper. As tokens of "Ya Gengshu", the men usually give hairpins, earrings and other jewelry, and the women usually give them embroidery. Households from a well-off family will use more valuable engagement tokens, while poorer families will use ordinary tokens to express their feelings.

Date: Choose a good and auspicious day for your wedding day. The man's family asks a fortune teller to choose an auspicious day based on the date when the man and woman were born, and report it to the woman's family as a happy date, which is called the fortune teller's day. On the eve of the wedding day, the groom's family must send the gift money (commonly known as value silver or betrothal gold and silver) and gifts to the bride's family as originally agreed upon by both parties in order to prepare dowry, furniture and other wedding materials for the bride's family.

Welcome to the bride: The man is called to marry, and the woman is called to marry. One or two days before the wedding, the man sends "bianzhutan wine" and a carrying box (clothing, vegetables and food) to the woman, which is called a wedding gift. The woman returns home-made cloth shoes to the man. The man will make as many pairs as there are people in his family. On the wedding day, the man carries a sedan chair and plays double blows (two suonas and two large gongs) to the bride's house to welcome the bride. After the bride gets on the sedan chair, she seals the sedan door with a couplet. The man and woman each write a couplet, which requires a neat couplet.

Worshiping in the hall: The newlyweds worship their ancestors in the hall. When the newlyweds (bride and groom) enter the room, they first drink a cup of wine, and then the woman (mother-in-law or sister-in-law) who is the closest and most respected to the groom prepares rice cakes, candies, and sugar tea. Then the newlyweds both "go to the hall" to pay homage to their ancestors. Then pay homage to the parents, and then pay homage to the uncles, uncles, brothers, sisters-in-law, and the venerable and elder relatives. The guests will call out their names one by one to receive the gifts. Everyone who receives the gifts must take out "tea money". At the same time, rice bubbles and wedding candies were also distributed to onlookers. During the climax of the wedding, people would also jokingly smear the face of the groom's father or uncle with pot black, wear a sheepskin coat, tie a bell around his waist, a broken hat on his head, tie his hands and feet symbolically, or make him ride a donkey upside down. "Appearance" is called "playing father-in-law".

After the wedding ceremony, the bride is led into the bridal chamber by the sedan chairwoman (usually a woman with both children) and the groom. On the wedding night, there is a custom of having a bridal chamber in both urban and rural areas. It is said that "no matter how big or small the wedding is for three days", the elders and juniors gather together, noisy and laughing until late at night. While the wedding ceremony is taking place, relatives and friends ask for tea trays filled with red dates, peanuts, longans and melon seeds and scatter them to the bride and groom, and sing tent songs to encourage the bride to have a son soon.

Return home: On the third day after marriage, both husband and wife go to the woman’s house to visit her. The woman goes in front and the man goes in front when returning. They go back on the same day. In the past, a sedan was used as a means of transportation back home, but now we walk or take a car.

On the night of returning home, a "congratulations" ceremony will be held. Relatives and friends will write the groom's name on a red sign, beat gongs and drums, and set off firecrackers to deliver them to the door. From then on, others can no longer call the groom by his nickname, and the groom's family will Host a banquet for relatives and friends. At this point, the entire wedding ceremony is over.

Characteristics of Xianning’s wedding customs

Xianning is the famous “hometown of bamboo”, and bamboo culture has deeply penetrated into people’s daily lives. Bamboo has a beautiful meaning in ancient my country and is loved by literati. Literally speaking, the character bamboo is composed of two characters "ge" that resemble bamboo leaves. The two "ones" are not separated, symbolizing unity, steadfast love and happiness of husband and wife. Especially in southern wedding customs, bamboo is used as an auspicious object for good omens. Such as using bamboo sticks to lift the bride's hijab, carrying the bamboo sedan, giving bamboo fans, carrying rice sifting mirrors, etc. We also often use the words "childhood sweetheart, childhood sweetheart" to describe our love life. Bamboo is also homophonic to "wishes". "Wish you (bamboo)" and "bless you (bamboo)" are eulogies that give people beauty, happiness and good luck.

Bamboo stick hair-raising: In modern wedding customs, the bride's family will conduct separate hair-raising ceremonies before welcoming the bride. The wedding ceremony is usually held on the wedding day. The wedding ceremony symbolizes that the newlyweds have officially entered the adult stage, formed a new family, and shouldered the mission of spreading their branches. The time must be chosen, and the parents or "lucky" elders will comb the groom's or bride's hair, saying auspicious blessings while combing it. For example, "One comb to the tail, two combs to the level of the eyebrows, three combs to the children and grandchildren, four combs to the four silver shoots," which means blessing the newlyweds to grow white together. In Xianning, bamboo combs or bamboo sticks are used to perform head-raising ceremonies to bring peace and auspiciousness.

Bamboo Song Crying for Wedding: A few days before the bride gets married, there is a custom of crying for marriage. The content includes crying about one's growing up process to express gratitude to parents for raising oneself, and also crying about one's unwillingness to leave home and the feelings of farewell to sisters of the same age. When Xianning people marry a girl, they have to cry for seven or forty-nine nights. They strictly follow the rituals of "trying to cry, crying together, urging to cry, crying separately, teasing to cry, sighing to cry, and crying to each other". The entire process of crying to marry is " If you don’t get married without songs, you won’t cry; if you don’t get married, you won’t cry for flowers.” One of the "Mother and Girl Songs" weeps about the bamboo song: "The bamboo flowers are blooming and the branches are yellow. My mother worked hard to give birth to a daughter. It is difficult to repay her kindness today. In the next life, she will become a bamboo shoot to taste it, and she will become a bamboo stick to hold my mother's hand." The two bamboo baskets helped my mother build a farm, mother, mother, it was not in vain that my daughter came into the world."

Bamboo sedan to welcome the bride: The sedan used to welcome the bride in Xianning is not an ordinary sedan, but a large sedan made entirely of handmade bamboo. . The sliced ??osmanthus bamboo slices are staggered left and right, flattened and pressed tightly to weave a whole side of meticulous and beautiful bamboo weaving, and each side of the bamboo weaving is then connected to form a traditional bamboo sedan. Using a bamboo sedan to welcome brides also represents the auspicious blessing of taking bamboo, and also shows the love of bamboo of Xianning people.

Entering the house with a bamboo umbrella: After the bride gets off the sedan chair, she must be escorted into the home by the bride who leads the sedan chair holding a bamboo umbrella, which symbolizes the spreading of branches and leaves.

Tent pole dowry: The tent pole is the pole used when hanging mosquito nets in ancient times, usually bamboo poles. The so-called bamboo pole dowry means that when a woman gets married, the bride's brother will give two bamboo poles. "Nanzhu, Nanzhu, one bamboo every year, grows every year" means that the bride can have children and have children. After arriving at the groom's home, the groom's family will give a certain amount of money as a gift to show good luck.

Tea ceremony: There is a tea ceremony in Xianning wedding customs. It is to put tea on the wedding bed and on the wedding night, the groomsmen hold the tea tray and spread the blessings on the tent. It implicitly wishes the couple a long-lasting sweetness and an early birth of a child. It conveys the message The ancient tea's sacrificial meaning reflects the ancestors' consciousness of using tea to worship the fertility god in order to have children. Wedding tea in Xianning area also includes engagement tea, festival tea, wedding tea, tea-carrying tea, tent tea, etc. In addition, there is also tea served by the bride’s family members, usually on the morning of the first day of the Spring Festival during the wedding period. The bride wears a dress and flowers, holds a tea tray, and goes to various houses to pay New Year greetings and serve tea. The groom carries a pot to add tea, and in some places, the sister-in-law carries the pot. Its purpose also means "harmony". It is to serve tea and go to the doors of each house in the village to communicate with family members, so as to make walking easier in the future.

Summary

Nowadays, with the development of the times, wedding customs are becoming simpler and more modern, but people are still very particular about some small details. , in order to take its auspicious meaning, which is also a characteristic of our country's wedding customs. As a witness and ceremony of entering the marriage hall, the success of a wedding directly affects the happiness of the marriage and family to a certain extent. The composition of the family ensures that there will be successors to the society and the nation, so marriage is not only related to individuals and families, but also to the harmony and stability of the entire society.

With the progress and changes of the times, we must inherit and carry forward the traditional culture of marriage customs, and at the same time keep pace with the times and develop scientifically.