Where is Basha?

In Congjiang County, Qiandongnan Prefecture, Guizhou Province.

Basha is a Miao village 7.5 kilometers away from Congjiang County, located on the top of the mountain and beside the old National Highway 321. The most peculiar and easily visible sight of the village is that the men all have buns and wear simple Tongyue clothing sewn with self-woven homespun cloth, which is known as the "Qin Dynasty hair style and Han fashion". The hair is tied in a bun on the top of the head, and the surrounding hair is shaved. What is even more amazing is that the barber in the village shaves the heads of all the men in the village with a scythe used to cut grass and harvest crops. The author saw him performing this stunt for tourists on the reed field with his own eyes. If you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, it would be hard to believe and imagine how you could use such a big thing with a blade and handle at a 90-degree angle to dance on people's heads, and be so skilled that you can leave wherever you want and never shave it. The hair on the neck and behind the ears was completely shaved, leaving no trace of stubble. Basha men never shave the hair on their heads throughout their lives, and it is certainly impossible for women to cut off all their hair. The main reason for this is the ancient and simple ecological concept of tree worship of the Basha people. According to legend, the ancestors of the Basha people were rescued and fully accepted by the vast, sun-shielding virgin forest in which they later lived when they were escaping from being hunted. Since then, the Basha people have lived in the woods for a long time. The Basha people's life is inseparable from trees. Trees give them houses and fire, protect them from wind and rain, protect their crops, and forests provide them with prey. Where there are trees, there is water in the valleys. Therefore, they have cherished and worshiped trees for generations. And they also found in life that the tree will grow better after being pruned, but if all the branches around and above the head are cut off, the tree will die. If a person accidentally breaks his legs, feet, or arms, he can still survive, but if he loses his head, he will definitely die. The hair on the top of the head is equivalent to the leaves on the top of the tree. If all the leaves on the top of the tree fall off, it means that the tree is dying. Therefore, the bun on the top of the head must be kept for life and must not be damaged. In addition, all men in Basha wear muskets. When welcoming distinguished guests or important celebrations, more than a dozen men line up with guns to welcome them, and fire cannons and guns, which is also very strange and spectacular. Among them, the so-called iron cannon is a cylindrical cast iron filled with gunpowder and with a fuze hole. It is about 8 cm long and 3 cm in diameter. Basha's funeral custom of not making a coffin during life and leaving no grave head or tombstone after death, as well as the custom of planting eighteen trees and the tree of life, are both very rare and are manifestations of their simple ecological concepts and tree worship.

The funeral customs of Basha Miao Village in Congjiang County are magical and reflect the villagers’ simple ecological values. When I arrived at Basha, I couldn't see the longevity materials of the old people in the village. I couldn't see the graves often seen in other villages in the hills and woods around the village. Looking around, I saw towering old trees and dense forests. It turns out that since ancient times, the Basha people have started from the practical need to protect trees and forests and the ecological concept that humans are just a part of nature with the same status as grass, trees, birds and beasts. After a person is born, he will plant a forest at home as his tree of life, and wait for him to grow up. When they get married at the age of 18, the boy will cut down part of it to build a stilted building and get married, while the girl will use all of it as a dowry, which is called "Eighteen Trees". When everyone is alive, no matter how old they are, whether they are rich or poor, they will not buy a coffin. After he died, he would dig deep beside the tree of life, use the tree of life to make a coffin, bury the body deeply in the ground, and plant new saplings instead of leaving a grave mound. If the deceased died prematurely or abnormally, he must be cremated and buried deeply. No grave head or tombstone should be left, but a tree should still be planted on top of it. Therefore, the Basha people worship their ancestors at home or under a big tree. When there is a disaster, they also go to the big tree to pray for the protection of their ancestors and to eliminate disasters and diseases.