Tujia people’s New Year customs

The Chinese New Year is an important and ancient festival of the Tujia people. In the course of thousands of years of historical development, some relatively fixed and unique customs and habits have been formed and passed down from generation to generation. Although this kind of New Year celebration is brought forward one day and is called the New Year celebration, the custom formed during the long historical development process has been preserved to this day. Its rich and colorful content and long duration have made it famous in the world. It is also rare among large families of the Chinese nation. The main New Year customs of the Tujia people are as follows: After the New Year pig is killed and the glutinous rice glutinous rice is made, the next thing to do is to beat the cake. Baba is a food that the Tujia people must prepare during the New Year. When making cakes, it is usually done by several families from the neighborhood or by brothers, sisters-in-law and close relatives. Men, women, old and young all join the fight, and there is an orderly division of labor. Some are responsible for steaming rice cakes, and some are responsible for lighting fires. There are those who are responsible for beating the cakes, and there are those who are responsible for making the cakes. The people who beat the cakes are usually a few strong people in the family. Women are mainly responsible for making the cakes. There are more people who beat the cakes and women who make the cakes. Other procedures Usually only one person is needed to complete it.

The main types of cakes made by Tujia people are glutinous rice cakes, sorghum cakes and millet cakes. The method is to wash the glutinous rice, sorghum and millet separately at night, soak them overnight, filter them out the next morning, steam them separately with a steamer, and then put them in a T-shaped steamer. You beat the glutinous rice, sorghum, and millet back and forth with the mallet until the grains of glutinous rice, sorghum, and millet are gone and they stick together into a ball of glutinous rice. The man who makes the cake picks it up with a mallet, and the woman who makes the cake stretches out her hand to pick it up. Catch them and put them together on the clean square table. The daughter-in-law, who is skillful with her hands, twists the glutinous rice balls into small spherical balls of suitable size and distributes them to other people who are making rice cakes. The person who makes the cake puts these small spherical balls under a special wooden board and presses them evenly into a round cake. There are generally three sizes. Ordinary cakes that are often used for food are about two inches in diameter and about one centimeter thick. The larger ones are about one foot in diameter, and the largest ones require about three to five kilograms or even more than ten kilograms of glutinous rice. This kind of cake is generally used on festive occasions such as weddings. When the cakes are about to be finished, the women who are ingenious and best at making cakes will make several big cakes. This kind of cake is called "polong cake", which not only symbolizes "a good harvest" but also shows the generosity of the Tujia people. , and there is also a legend about the origin of this kind of cake. It is said that the ancestors of the Tujia people with the surname Tian originally had nine brothers and one sister. After the sister got married, she got another son-in-law. Due to their strong power, the emperor was worried that they would dominate and influence the court. Because of their dominant position, they sent officers and soldiers to try to kill them all. When the officers and soldiers came, it was the 28th of the twelfth lunar month. When they were beating cakes, seeing the menacing officers and soldiers, the brothers hurriedly divided the cakes in the trough into several lumps. Use the dustpan to carry it up the mountain. After the officers and soldiers left, several brothers returned home with the hardened and difficult-to-separate cakes. When eating, they could only cut them into small pieces with a knife and burn them or fry them. Later, these nine brothers each lived in the same place and gave birth to offspring. They have not forgotten the sufferings of that year. In order to commemorate the events of that year, they made several such large cakes for sharing during the New Year. This habit was also adopted by them. Later generations inherited it and gradually became a custom. Later, this kind of cake was usually kept until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, and some even were kept until the Qingming Festival to eat.

After the cakes are made, they are placed in a stack of five on the chopping board to cool. After dry cooling, they are placed in a clean utensil at home for seven or eight days, and then soaked in mountain spring water for ten and a half months. Change the water once.

The cakes made by the Tujia people are easy to store, not easy to deteriorate, and easy to eat. In the lives of the Tujia people, cakes have an unusual significance. Spring is the busy season for farming. There is a saying that "if you miss it for a while, it will miss you for a whole season". Time is of the essence at this time. Baba is put to good use in this season. Roasting or frying is simple and practical. It's so delicious that you can even take it into the mountains, get some dry firewood, and light a fire to burn the cakes. When guests come to the house, after doing some home cooking around the fire pit, they can quickly use the boiling water in the pot on the three legs of the fire pit to cook it with sweet wine and cakes to entertain the guests, pour a full bowl for the guests, and also He politely said that he would drink a bowl of boiling water to satisfy his thirst. Baba is also useful when paying New Year greetings. In the Tujia area, there is a folk proverb of "Baba comes forward to pay New Year greetings". The implication is that Baba is a must-have item for Tujia people to visit relatives. Especially when the Tujia people celebrate their son's engagement in the New Year, a pair of daddies as big as the bright moon, symbolizing reunion, are indispensable. Spring Festival couplets have a long history in our country. As early as before the Qin Dynasty, during the Chinese New Year, there was a custom of hanging peach charms on the left and right sides of the door. Taofu are two wooden boards made of peach wood, with the names of the legendary gods "Shen Na" and "Yu Lei" written on them respectively, to drive away ghosts and suppress evil spirits. It was not until the Five Dynasties that people began to inscribe couplets on peach boards to replace the names of the great ghost-conquering gods. According to historical records, Meng Chang, the lord of the Later Shu Dynasty, inscribed on his bedroom door on New Year's Eve in 964 AD, "New Year Na Yuqing, Festival No. Changchun", which is the earliest Spring Festival couplet in my country.

After the Song Dynasty, it has become very common for folk to hang Spring Festival couplets during the New Year. Wang Anshi wrote in his poem "Yuan Ri" that "thousands of households are as bright as the sun, always replacing old talismans with new ones." It is a true portrayal of the grand occasion of hanging Spring Festival couplets at that time. Since the appearance of Spring Festival couplets is closely related to the peach charms originally hung, the ancients also called the Spring Festival couplets "Peach charms".

After Zhu Yuanzhang made Jinling his capital in the Ming Dynasty, he ordered ministers, officials and ordinary people to write a couplet on their door before New Year's Eve for his enjoyment when he went out in casual clothes. For this reason, literati regarded writing Spring Festival couplets as an elegant thing at that time, and writing Spring Festival couplets became a social fashion at that time. In the Qing Dynasty, during the Qianlong, Jiaqing, and Daoguang dynasties, couplets were as prosperous as the rhymed poetry in the prosperous Tang Dynasty, and many well-known famous couplets appeared.

In some places, Spring Festival couplets are called door pairs, spring posts, couplets, antithetical couplets, etc. Tujia people call them postal couplets, which are described in neat, dual, concise and exquisite words. It is a unique cultural form in the Tujia area to express the good wishes of the Tujia people based on the background of the times. Every Chinese New Year, every household from villages to cities in Tujia areas selects a red Spring Festival couplet and sticks it on the door to add a festive atmosphere to the festival. There are many types of Spring Festival couplets, which can be divided into door cores, frame pairs, horizontal drapes, spring strips, squares, etc. according to the place where they are used. "Door center" is affixed to the upper center of the door panel; "frame pair" is affixed to the left and right door frames; "Hengpi" is affixed to the crossbar of the lintel; "spring strips" are affixed to the corresponding places according to different contents; "Doufang" is also called "door leaf", which is square and diamond-shaped, and is often attached to furniture and screen walls. The word "door god" was first seen in the "Book of Rites·Mourning Clothes", Zheng Xuan notes: "Shicai is also the door god of etiquette." However, there are different opinions about who the door god refers to. But there are two common opinions: one is that the door god refers to "Shen Na" and "Yu Lei". It is said that during the time of the Yellow Emperor, Shen Na and Yu Lei were inspecting hundreds of ghosts at the foot of Dusu Mountain. When they encountered harmful ghosts, they tied them up with ropes and threw them to tigers. Therefore, people carved the shapes of Shen Na and Yu Lei out of peach wood and hung them on the door. superior. The second is that the door gods refer to Qin Shubao and Yuchi Gong. Once, Li Shimin, Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, was in a bad mood. He often heard bricks and tiles being thrown outside his bedroom, and the sound of ghosts calling, which made him unable to sleep. He told the officials about this, and Qin Shubao said: "In my life, I killed enemies like cutting melons, and collected corpses like gathering ants. Are I still afraid of ghosts?" So he and Yuchi Gong stood guard outside the palace gate. So far it has been quiet as before. Later, in order to save the two generals from the hard work, Li Shimin painted full-length portraits of the two generals, holding whips and maces, and posted them on the left and right doors. The evil spirits disappeared from then on. Their actions are effective, so the people also respect them as door gods.

The portraits of Tujia’s door gods are Qin Shubao and Yuchi Gong, and there are also portraits of Shen Na or other mighty gods. There is also a reason for the Tujia people's custom of sticking to their door gods. It is said that in ancient times, the area where the Tujia people lived was in constant war. At that time, the Tujia people were old and young, and many people died in wars and starvation. Tujia people call these dead people "tragic dead ghosts". During the Chinese New Year, these "tragic dead ghosts" will come from all directions and break into people's homes to enjoy the incense and money offered by the Tujia people. As long as they enter these homes, there will be disasters in the home, which will not only endanger the whole family, but also make the crops and livestock less prosperous in the coming year. Later, it was said that those houses with portraits of the door gods on their doors would not suffer from bad disasters and unfavorable things. This spread throughout the Tujia areas, and sticking the door gods on their doors became a New Year custom of the Tujia people. The Tujia people celebrate the New Year, which is about the joy of family reunion. Before the New Year, relatives who are thousands of miles away have to rush home. The whole family, old and young, gathers at the same table to have a meal. This is called a reunion dinner. The reunion dinner is the most important ritual for Tujia people during the New Year. In order to seize the opportunity to celebrate the New Year and have a good reunion dinner, Tujia people often carefully prepare the reunion dinner one to two days in advance. Tujia people celebrate the Small New Year and the New Year. The Small New Year is celebrated one day earlier than the New Year. In some places, the Small New Year is celebrated on the 23rd of the twelfth lunar month. During the Small New Year, the New Year's dinner is simple and there are no requirements. The year is high. The off-year celebrations usually start at noon. During the New Year celebrations, there are differences depending on the surname. Some are in the morning and some are at noon. Regardless of whether it is in the morning or at noon, the New Year's Eve meal will be served early in order to compete for the New Year. It is said that , the earlier a family eats the New Year's meal during the Chinese New Year, the more likely it will be good luck and good fortune in the coming year. On both the small New Year's and the New Year's Day, people will set off firecrackers for the sake of good luck and good luck in the coming year.

After the New Year’s dinner is done, you should take incense paper, candles, meat, cakes, tofu and other New Year’s meals to worship the Eight Gods, and then go to the Earth Hall to worship the Earth God and the Water Well God. After waiting for various protective gods, they finally return to the main room to pay respect to their ancestors. The Tujia people not only worship their ancient ancestors who played a major role in history and had great military exploits in legends as clan gods and offer sacrifices for thousands of years, but they also worship the ancestors of their respective families, especially those who are closely related by blood. The elders are worshiped as household gods all year round, and the incense never goes out. Each main room of the house has a family altar, which is called the family altar. On the New Year's Day, the family tablets, incense burners, and wax stands that have been enshrined on the shrine all year round should be taken down and placed on the big table under the shrine. The men of the whole family, led by the senior elder, burn incense and candles and kowtow in front of the family tablet. The first is to invite families from all generations to have a family reunion dinner with their descendants and live a happy and lively New Year; the second is to pray that the family will bless their descendants to have abundant crops, prosperous livestock, abundant financial resources, and family happiness in the coming year. It was not until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month that the family tablets were first enshrined on the shrine.

After putting various New Year’s dishes on the table, each person has to put a piece of meat on the rice in his bowl, insert chopsticks on the rice, and the whole family stands around the table. The elders burn paper money under the table, scatter three glasses of wine on the ground, and respectfully invite the ancestors to the table for dinner. Then, they set off firecrackers to celebrate the New Year. Whoever's firecrackers go off the earliest at this time will be snatched. Here’s to a good harvest next year.

After everyone has paid respects, everyone should sit down to eat according to their seniority and the size of the seats. Generally, the person in charge must give up the seat to the oldest and oldest person during the New Year meal. The younger generation will sit down after the elders have sat down. One after another they sat down. Children under the age of twelve are not allowed to eat the food used in sacrifices. It is said that eating it will cause poor memory and forget things, so separate meals must be served to the children. Normally, adults will criticize children for their leftovers, but during the family reunion dinner, the more leftovers in the children's bowls, the better, which means a good harvest in the coming year.

The time for eating New Year's dinner is generally longer than usual, and you cannot wipe the table or wash the dishes immediately after the meal. Legend has it that in ancient times, the Tujia people had to often fight with foreigners, causing no peace all year round. One year, when the Tujia people were busy preparing for the New Year's dinner, a child came to the Tujia village. No one paid attention to the child's arrival. Later, , only then did I know that this child was here to "explore the water" (gather information). Because of the negligence of the Tujia people, the situation in the village was messed up by the child. The Tujia people had just finished their reunion dinner, and before they had time to wash the dishes and wipe the table, the enemy launched a fierce attack on the Tujia village. The young and middle-aged people had to immediately join the battle, while the elderly and children fled to the caves in the back mountains. Hidden. After the enemy troops were driven back, everyone came back to wipe the table and wash the dishes. In order to learn lessons, later generations have kept this habit, and it has been passed down from generation to generation and has become a custom of the Tujia people during the New Year.

The New Year’s Eve dinner hosted by the Tujia people must be steamed with a steamer. The lower layer of the steamer is usually steamed with rice, and the upper layer is placed with lumps of meat wrapped in millet or rice noodles, and covered with the steamer lid. Put it on the stove and steam it over fire. On the day of the reunion dinner, there are a lot of rice steamers, and it usually takes until the fifteenth day of the first lunar month to wash the rice steamers. There is also a kind of combination dish that needs to be cooked in the meals, which is to cook shredded pork, shredded radish, cabbage, kelp, vermicelli, pork offal, etc. together. This kind of dish is called "Hecai", which is both a "combination dish" and a "combination dish". The homophony of "" also means to congratulate the Tujia ancestors for winning battles on the New Year's Day in ancient times. Everyone must eat a few bites of this "celebration dish" to bring happiness to the whole family and everything will go well. If you don't eat it, your parents will say you are ignorant, but parents will not get angry and curse people on this day. It is said that they are afraid of offending their ancestors. , Secondly, both scolding and being scolded have a sense of ominousness. There is also a story about the Tujia people’s rice steamer. When the Tujia nationality officers and soldiers were about to celebrate the New Year, they were recruited by the imperial court to fight against the Japanese. They had to gather one day in advance to celebrate the New Year. Due to the large number of people, the meat could not be cut into pieces. They had to chop the meat into pieces with axes and kitchen knives, and then cut them into pieces. Wrap some millet around the meat and steam it on the top of the steamer until it is cooked. As for the other vegetables, there is no time to fry them separately, so we have to cook all the vegetables together and eat them. Later, this method was passed down from generation to generation and gradually became a custom of preparing vegetables during the Tujia people’s New Year. Staying up late on New Year's Eve is one of the most important New Year customs of the Tujia people. Staying up late on New Year's Eve is the custom of not sleeping on the last night of the twelfth lunar month of the old year (or staying up late on the 29th) to welcome the arrival of the new year. It is also called staying up late on New Year's Eve, and is commonly known as "staying up late". On New Year's Eve, people wait for the rooster to crow at night and immediately light firecrackers. There is an interesting story circulating among the people about the origin of this custom:

It is said that in ancient times, there was a kind of people who lived in the deep mountains and dense forests. The ferocious monster named "Nian" in the novel has a ferocious appearance and a ferocious nature. It specializes in eating birds, beasts, and scale insects. It changes its taste every day, ranging from kowtowing insects to large living people, making people talk about "Nian". Discoloration. Later, people gradually understood that the "year" means that every three hundred and sixty-five days, on the 30th night of the twelfth lunar month, they rush to the places where people gather to have a taste of fresh food. They also appear after dark. When the rooster crows and dawn breaks, they return to the mountains and forests. Got hit. For this reason, people regarded this terrible night as a gateway and called it the "New Year's Eve". Later, the Tujia people came up with a whole set of ways to celebrate the New Year: every 30th night of the twelfth lunar month, every household would have dinner in advance, Turn off the fire and clean the stove, fasten all the chicken pens and cattle pens, seal the front and back doors of the house, offer sacrifices to the ancestors, and pray for the blessings of the ancestors' gods. No one dares to sleep, but they sit together and chat to strengthen their courage, and wait for the "New Year" "When it comes, use firecrackers and the like to scare it away to gain prosperity and good fortune in the coming year. Later, the custom of staying up late on New Year's Eve to stay up late and grab the new year gradually formed.

On the night of New Year’s Eve, the Tujia people will burn a big firewood in the fire pit. This big firewood is called the “year firewood”. The bigger the firewood, the better, because the firewood is better. The bigger the burn, the more likely it is that the pigs will grow and grow stronger in the coming year, and the days will be more prosperous. On this night, every household in the Tujia village is brightly lit inside and outside the hall. Men, women, old and young stay up all night and sit by the fire pit with their families, which is called "Watching Thirty Nights". During the vigil, the Tujia people will lively talk about the year, plans for the coming year, past events of the Tujia people, present ancient and modern history, tell various anecdotes, and the whole family will laugh and laugh. When the rooster crows, firecrackers will be set off. If the firecrackers of any house go off at the moment of the rooster's crow, the house will be prosperous and have good luck in the coming year. This is the second thing Tujia people do after the reunion dinner. If you don't win over someone else's family during the New Year's Eve dinner, you will hold firecrackers seriously during the 30th night and squat at the gate to watch the rooster crow; when the rooster crows, you will immediately The firecrackers were set off, and then every household in the village was filled with firecrackers. As soon as the rooster crows and the firecrackers go off, the Tujia people's villages burst into joy, vying to be the first to go out and pay New Year greetings to the Bodhisattva of the Earth, to be the first to carry water, to be the first to grind grinding mills, and to pound mills. There is a festive scene of laughter, laughter, and steaming everywhere. When the east turns white, the Tujia people will "travel" and use firecrackers to welcome the new year.

After the firecrackers went off, the Tujia mountainous countryside was filled with the atmosphere of welcoming the New Year. Wearing festive costumes, we go from door to door to congratulate each other and compose a happy Tujia New Year. New Year greetings are the most important traditional custom of Tujia people. It is a way for Tujia people to bid farewell to the old year, welcome the new year, and express their best wishes to each other. On the first day of the first lunar month, adults urge their children to get up early, put on their most beautiful clothes, and dress up neatly in order to pay New Year greetings. New Year greetings usually start at home. After children get up, they should first pay New Year greetings to their elders, wishing them good health, longevity and all the best. After the elders accept the New Year greetings from their children, they should give the "New Year's money" prepared in advance to the children. Especially the children after household division must first pay New Year's greetings to their parents-in-law, uncles, uncles and other elders. After the elders receive New Year's greetings, they must give the children "New Year's money". Or prepared peanuts, candies, melon seeds and other fruits. Then the children went to other families in the Tujia village to pay homage to each other. On the way to pay New Year greetings, the children formed small groups. A group of people went to pay their respects, and even those who usually had grievances would greet each other with smiles on the New Year's day. Before children go to pay New Year greetings, their parents usually tell them that they will instruct boys to go to the front and girls to go to the back.

When adults meet each other when they go out, they should also congratulate each other on the New Year with a smile on their faces, and say auspicious New Year greetings to each other such as "Congratulations on getting rich," "Blessed seasons," and "Going well." At home, everyone will first say "Wish you a happy New Year", and then say other auspicious words. The host will take out the things prepared at home and give them to the New Year greeters.

The most formal way to pay New Year greetings is for young couples to go to their parents-in-law’s homes to pay New Year greetings on the first day of the first lunar month. The woman carries a cage with flowers on her back, and the man carries a basket full of cakes, glutinous rice dumplings and waxed pig legs. After the son-in-law kowtows to his parents-in-law to pay New Year greetings, he stays at his parents-in-law's house and cannot go out to pay New Year greetings on the second day of the first lunar month. It is said that It’s not a good day to go out to pay New Year greetings. After paying New Year's greetings, you can generally only go home on the fourth day of the first lunar month. Those who sit at the parents-in-law's house for a long time are not allowed to go home on the eighth day of the first lunar month. Among the Tujia people, there is a saying of "seven don't go out and eight don't return".

If you take your children to visit relatives during the first month of the year, you need to bring some things to the relatives when you enter the house. When you return home after playing at a relative's house for a few days, the relatives will send some money to the children. And say some auspicious words such as wishing the children healthy growth.