Mianren's local dough sculpture

Folk customs make life full of mystery and fun. If we compare the sacrificial activities from the old age to the climax of people's life, the general communicative etiquette activities naturally make every moment of life colorful, and the participation of people is essential. When the new house is put up, Liang Xingwang draws gossip, sticks congratulatory couplets, lights up and sets off firecrackers, and relatives, friends and neighbors call it "Tuoliang" when they make peach buns to celebrate. The new house was completed and moved into the house. When the new wheat comes on stage, it is necessary to grind a bucket of white flour as a snow-white tribute, stir-fry all kinds of exquisite flour flowers, enjoy the five soils, respectfully invite the land god to settle down, and wish the golden beam and jade column a thousand years. On the seventh day of July, the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl met at the Magpie Bridge and told their hearts. Weaver's skillful hand has always been the idol of human women. So on this day, girls and daughters-in-law eat "thimbles" and "sewing baskets" made of flour, expecting their ingenuity. On the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15, moon cakes became a legendary food. The design is exquisite and unique, pleasing to the eye, and it should be called a wonderful flower of dough sculpture art. In the first year of marriage, the bride's family will make mutton buns for her daughter. Poor families send a few, and wealthy families send a dozen or even dozens. They are all complete sets, and there are many modeling patterns related to life consciousness and reproductive worship. Jiangzhou, today's Xinjiang County, is a county in the southern plain of Shanxi. This area is rich in wheat in history and has always been the producing area of wheat and cotton in Shanxi Province. Therefore, on holidays, every household here should grind the first-class wheat into flour and knead it into various dough sculptures to celebrate the festival. Because the dough sculptures here pay attention to color and bright colors, the locals call them "flower buns". Jiangzhou flower steamed buns are exaggerated in shape and unique in shape, especially the "animal flower steamed buns". In Jiangzhou urban and rural areas, most housewives can knead steamed buns, which can generally be made into various ordinary shapes. Because they are all homemade, although the level is different, it does not affect eating. Over time, some housewives practice makes perfect, and the kneading level of steamed buns can also be continuously improved. Because of this kind of folk activities that every household has to carry out, a large number of skilled craftsmen have made buns and passed them down from generation to generation. Whenever there is a wedding in urban and rural areas, kneading buns will become an inevitable activity. Moreover, these steamed buns will be displayed in front of the public and will therefore be evaluated. This kind of spontaneous mass selection, which does not select the champion, has undoubtedly become the driving force to promote the kneading of steamed bread and the folk comment to promote the continuous improvement of dough modeling level. Therefore, Jiangzhou has always been famous for making steamed buns, which has become a traditional folk handicraft with a good reputation. In a word, dough sculpture, as a plastic art with strong folk vitality, has been growing and rooted in people's lives and has become a manifestation of folk customs. As an art form or food culture, it has its own unique system. Among them, modeling consciousness and method, primitive religious consciousness and evolution, humanistic thought and development all have profound connotations that need to be developed urgently.

The raw material of kneading noodles is steamed glutinous rice noodles, mixed with honey and very bright mineral pigments, and made into red, lake blue, orange and green noodles respectively. In operation, a small bamboo stick is used as a frame and a corner piece is used as a plastic knife to create various figures, such as the old fisherman, the Monkey King and Lin Daiyu. It can be bought as toys for children or as decorations at home. It is a folk art with international reputation. The formation of every folk festival has its specific meaning, cultural orientation and expression. Herding sheep, offering sacrifices to ancestors and giving gifts to relatives and friends on July 15 is a major feature of Shanxi folk customs. Traditionally, July 15 is called "Ghost Festival", which originated from the Buddhist legend that Mulian, a disciple of Buddha Sakyamuni, failed to do good deeds before his death, and his soul fell into the hungry ghost road after his death. The food mouth turned into a fire, and she endured all the hardships and looked at the Buddha. The Buddha told her to hold the Orchid Festival on July 15th and buy all kinds of fruits, relying on the kindness of all Buddhists and monks to turn her soul over. This theory, combined with the Taoist saying that "local officials are exempt from sin" in China, has deeply influenced people's lives, thus forming the custom of steaming sheep to worship their ancestors on July 15 every year. In fact, the original intention of ancestor worship on July 15 is "Ghost Festival". This religious festival has developed to the point where there are no ghosts at all, and it has become a festival. A few days before the festival, three smart women from the countryside got together to make fine white flour. During their parents' short conversation, they twisted, cut, pressed, tied and picked beans. All creatures jumped out of their hands: rabbits, tigers, sheep, fish, lions, pigs, chickens and puppies. When the dishes are cooked and steamed in a hurry, they are all fat, tender, flexible and charming, and then painted and dressed neatly, which becomes the best gift for friends and relatives. The custom in northern Shanxi sends boys as sheep and sheep as auspicious penis. It is a way to conform to the order of yin and yang to send women as fish and fish as yin. The goat in the north of Shanxi is rich and full in shape and powerful in connotation. The contrast between the points and lines on its body makes it very Han and Wei style, which is related to the local historical culture and geographical environment. The animal steamed buns in the south of Shanxi are exquisite in shape, gloomy in expression and strong in color. The so-called face sheep is actually an agent. In fact, birds and beasts have everything, as well as the zodiac combination, in which two sons play peaches and five sons compete. Dingxiang's "noodle sheep" is famous at home and abroad for its plump and beautiful shape. The shape is as big as three to five pounds of white flour and as small as three to five inches, depending on the gift recipient. In modeling style, the characteristics of randomness are accurately grasped. In the simple overall modeling, points and lines are pressed out with combs, awls and other objects, or delicate patterns are made with surfaces, which forms a strong strength contrast, much like the use of carved lines in stone carvings in Korea and Huo Qubing. Grasp the appropriate limits in the production skills, make a shape but not enough, leaving the natural hair and steam on the surface to complete the work, so as to give full play to the characteristics of the surface, reflect the texture of the surface, natural, simple and kind, and make people fondle it. In particular, there is a kind of modeling called "unclear", in which several chubby dolls are intertwined to play, so that you can't tell whose arm is whose leg, and only see a group of exquisite modeling and exquisite creativity, which is amazing.

Etiquette custom

Face-dressing plays an important role in the custom of New Year, and plays an irreplaceable role in all the ceremonies to show the meaning of life. The full moon was the first grand ceremony when people came to this world, and the dough sculptures at that time were also quite exquisite. In Huoxian area, grandma wants to make a straight food called "Kun Kun", which contains fine Chinese zodiac animals. If a child belongs to something, just click a red dot on the animal sign. This red dot is called "Diannao". A beautiful dragon and phoenix or tiger head is placed in the middle of "completed", which is called dragon and phoenix becoming auspicious or tiger exorcising evil spirits. Give it to children, to relatives and friends who come to visit and celebrate, in order to avoid disaster. People in northern Shanxi often make flower steamed buns called "peaches", which are shaped like breasts and have red nipples. The steamed stuffed bun is decorated with various flowers and auspicious patterns. Peach was originally an exorcism in ancient customs, meaning "escape" and avoiding disaster. It is a metaphor of maternal characteristics in rural folk customs to make it breast-shaped to show maturity. When a child is one year old, he should also make a similar big flower bun or the zodiac. Modeling is clumsy or clever, elegant or vulgar, which varies from place to place. The custom of wedding has always been a very grand life ceremony. As the saying goes, "it is better to get into a primary school than to get married." This is a custom in northern Shanxi. The bride and groom each eat a pair of "happy fish and lucky rabbits" on the morning of the party. A pair of face rabbits connected by red lines are placed at the top of the cave door to symbolize the Phnom Penh of the jade rabbit. In fact, the original intention of rabbit is tiger, and it is the protector of Han folk towns and houses to exorcise evil spirits. Wedding dough modeling must mention the "court food" in Xinzhou, Dingxiang, Yuanping and Daixian. Generally, three or five kilograms of white flour should be made into a pair. Most of the models are jade rabbits carrying peaches and goldfish carrying pomegranates. The above shapes are carefully carved with the Chinese zodiac, vivid and interesting, colorful, lively, line and surface, dot and block, plastic and painting, clumsy and clever. It is a custom for the younger generation to celebrate their birthdays for people in their 60s. Congratulations on steaming beautiful big birthday peaches, wishing the old people a long and healthy life and expressing filial piety. Religious teachings tell people that when everyone rushes through the road of life that they can perceive, the human soul will be immortal and sublimated to another world. Therefore, people make all kinds of funeral procedures extraordinarily grand and complicated. This is a kind of praise and affirmation of the meaning of life. The main pasta products in this activity are divided into "big products" and "small products" according to the distance. The big offerings made by direct descendants are also called steamed bread. The round ones are decorated with bright and simple petals and inserted with jujube flowers, which originated from the ancient custom of three sacrifices, while other relatives and friends worship small offerings similar to snake plates. In the area around Hongdao in Dingxiang, there are a series of dough figurines such as drama figures, gods and local officials. , will be molded and then decorated with colored paper. The difference is that the colors used in the description of the five senses are strange, and the eyes are not the finishing touch. Obviously, there is a difference in aesthetic structure between the sense of proportion and the enjoyment of human beings, which makes people feel a cold sadness in richness. Face-dressing people generally appear in life ceremonies in the form of food, but they are endowed with cultural and religious significance, which makes them have compound value, thus becoming a material that can not be ignored in the study of Han folk culture.

Noodles are actually steamed bread, which is made of glutinous rice flour and flour after coloring. Mainly used in wedding gifts, funeral offerings, but also for birthdays, gifts to relatives and friends, prayers and so on. Farmers put all kinds of steamed dough sculptures in front of the gods, including pig's head dough sculptures commonly known as "Dagong", flower molds, flower molds, ritual molds and steamed toys. The tools for making dough buns are simple: white flour, scissors, kitchen knife, comb, red dates, peppers and so on. As long as you master the technique of kneading dough and knead it according to the style, a vivid dough mold image will stand out. China's traditional food culture has a long history. According to the literature, noodles were recorded in the Han Dynasty, and Liang Lumeng in the Song Dynasty recorded that noodles were used in Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and wedding celebrations. In Shaanxi and Hebei, dough figurines are also called "dough figurines" and "Nianmo", and this ancient custom should run through the whole festival. From the 30th to 15th of the first month, happy scenes of exchanging gifts and steamed buns can be seen everywhere in the countryside. In the eastern part of Guanzhong, Shaanxi Province, almost everyone is an expert at making models of ritual vessels, especially older women.