How easy are the Yi compatriots in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture to get along with each other? What are the local culture and customs like?

The Yi compatriots are hospitable, have no evil intentions, and are very simple!

Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture is located in the southern part of Sichuan Province, China, in the northern section of the Hengduan Mountains on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and in the transition zone to the Sichuan Basin, starting from the Dadu River in the north and the Jinsha River in the south. This is the largest inhabited area of ????the Yi ethnic group in China. It is generally referred to as Liangshan Prefecture or Liangshan.

Taboos of the Yi people

The Yi people hate being called "old Yi compatriots" and "barbarians" the most. They consider such calls to be the greatest insult to them. When visiting Yi people's homes, they should sit above or to the right of the Guozhuang (i.e. fire pit), and not below or to the left where things are piled and people sleep. It is forbidden to step on the pot with your feet, and you are not allowed to jump over the pot or the piled firewood. The Yi people generally entertain their guests with wine and meat. If they give you something to eat, you must eat it. Even if you don't know how to drink, drink less to express your gratitude. Otherwise, it will be considered that you look down on them. The food the Yi family gives you can only be eaten there and not taken away. Otherwise, you will be said to be unloyal to others.

Avoid playing around with your head; say dirty words in front of everyone; avoid talking about death or injury when there are patients in the Yi family; avoid saying "kill the New Year pig", but say "grab the New Year pig" or "take the New Year pig" "; avoid using compliments such as "fat", "beautiful" and "heavy" to babies; avoid blowing whistles at night; avoid bringing primate (bear, dog, monkey, cat, etc.) meat into the house or eating it Its meat; regardless of men and women, it is forbidden to cross the fire pond; it is forbidden for women to cross the man; it is forbidden to slaughter goats on weddings and funerals; it is forbidden to use bitter mugwort sticks as chopsticks and to beat people; it is forbidden to burn buckwheat cakes from the guest side; and to burn buckwheat cakes from the Yantang When taking it out, avoid turning it over immediately or piercing it with a stick; avoid eating horses, mules, dogs, monkeys, crows, snakes, and frog meat; avoid leaving meat when you are a guest; avoid serving rice to the host; avoid putting hoes and axes on the Together; avoid carrying a hoe or ax on your shoulder in the house; pregnant women should not comb the bride’s hair or sew the bride’s wedding dress

"Tian Bodhisattva" is also known as "Tiantian Thorn". It refers to the braid of hair on the top of Yi men's heads. The custom is that this is a symbol of one's dignity. There is a "god" inside, which controls the good and bad luck. It is sacred and inviolable, so others are not allowed to touch it at will. For example, if someone touches the "god". I would consider it a bad thing, a sign of disaster, and I would fight against it. Those who violate taboos will also think that they have lost their way. If both parties are of the same level, take the initiative to make amends with a drink. If the person who violates the taboo has a low status, at least pigs, sheep and cows will be killed, and a banquet will be held to apologize; at worst, his arms will be cut off, or even executed. If he is a woman, he will not be allowed to touch the "Heavenly Bodhisattva" of men. If a woman touches the "Tian Bodhisattva", it is a blasphemy and offense to the "Tian Bodhisattva" and will be detrimental to the man throughout his life. In addition to the lady killing a chicken and buying wine to apologize in public, the "Heavenly Bodhisattva" must also be shaved off. Otherwise, you will not be able to ascend to heaven after death. Even when Yi men fight with each other, both sides are strictly prohibited from touching each other's "Heavenly Bodhisattva". Otherwise, the offender's arm will also be cut off.

Religious beliefs

The religion of the Yi people has a strong primitive religious flavor and worships many gods, mainly animistic nature worship and ancestor worship. The most important nature worship is the belief in spirits and ghosts.

① The Yi people are a nation that worships fire. They believe that fire brings light, warmth, cooked food, and protection from wild beasts to humans. The fire pit in the hall of the Yi people plays an extremely important role in people's lives. Precisely because they can't live without the fire pit throughout their lives, they have developed the worship of the fire pit. The Yi people regard fire as a sacred object that can ward off evil spirits and bring good luck and happiness. During festivals, people burn bonfires, play music and sing around the fire, sing and dance, enjoy themselves, and worship fire. Also have fire as a companion. During the cremation, the soul is allowed to return to the birthplace of its ancestors, and the spiritual tablets set by the family for the deceased should be placed on the front wall next to the fire pit.

②The Yi people also have a religious belief in worshiping the black tiger, and regard the black tiger as their totem and ancestor. The Yi people's concept of worshiping the black tiger has also expanded into the custom of advocating the color black. They believe that the souls of their ancestors like the color black, so after building a new house, they must smoke it black with fireworks before moving in. Cremation customs: The Yi people's burial methods are novel and diverse, including tree burial, pottery burial, rock burial, cremation, coffin burial and other different burial styles. Cremation and coffin burial are especially common

Food customs

The Yi people are the most populous among the ethnic minorities in southwest China and are distributed in several provinces in southwest China. The Yi people in Yunnan account for 2/3. Due to the geographical environment and extremely rich resources they live in, the agriculture-based Yi people mostly grow corn, potatoes, barley, wheat and buckwheat. Vegetables are also abundant. The Yi people living in mountainous and semi-mountainous areas like to raise sheep, especially the Yi people in Xiaoliangshan who raise the most sheep. Mutton is its main food source, and there are some special customs when eating sheep: sheep liver and stomach are first used to offer sacrifices to ancestors, and then burned or eaten raw; sheep brains are given to the elderly; women in their childbearing period are not allowed to eat them. Rams; shepherds cannot eat sheep tails; sheep blood is mixed with shredded radish and pickled to make pickles, steamed on rice and eaten, which tastes particularly delicious. The Yi people also have some specialties when eating chicken. Generally, it is stewed and cooked in a clay pot without cutting with a knife. After cooking, tear the chicken into strips with your hands and dip it in chili and pepper sauce. The chicken head is eaten by the elderly, and the hexagram (the shape of the chicken head) is required. The Yi people like to drink. There are two types of wine: sweet and spicy. In the past, they were brewed at home. Sweet wine is made from glutinous rice, and spicy wine is made from sorghum or corn. There is a tradition that "it would be disrespectful to have guests at home without drinking wine".

During the New Year and festivals, the Yi people slaughter cattle and sheep, slaughter pigs and chickens, but they rarely use animals unless entertaining guests. The Yi people have a custom of killing New Year pigs, keeping half for themselves and giving the other half to their father-in-law and mother-in-law. New Year pigs are mostly used for pickling, hanging and drying in the shade to become bacon or ham. During the Chinese New Year, people also eat glutinous rice cakes and glutinous rice cakes, and drink tantan wine, soaked wine, and wine tea. During the Torch Festival on June 24 of the lunar calendar, every household slaughters sheep and chickens and cooks new buckwheat rice. Mix it with mutton and sprinkle it around to express sacrifice and pray for good crops and no disaster or disease. At night, torches are lit, singing and dancing are performed to drive away insects, snakes and pests. The Yi people in Guangxi have a custom of "tasting new things" during the Bake Festival on the first day of September, that is, eating new rice. These are festive food customs. The Yi people have a set of social etiquette and food customs. The Yi family is very hospitable, and all guests who come to their home are treated with wine first. The size of the banquet may be large or small, with oxen as the big gift, followed by sheep, pigs, and chickens. When hunting animals, the animals should be brought to the guests to show respect. Cattle and sheep are used to treat guests without knives. They are crushed or beaten to death with hands, so they are called animal beatings. The technique is very agile, and the skin of the animal is often skinned before it is dead. There is a certain customary order in the seating order during banquets. Generally, guests sit around the Guozhuang on the floor. The guests usually sit at the top of the Guozhuang, which is called "Xiaerguo" in Yi. The helpers, women, relatives and friends sit at the bottom of Guozhuang, which is called "Xia Jiguo" by the Yi people. When there are many guests, move to the right. The order of drinking wine is based on the Yi proverb: "Plowing the land is from bottom to top, and serving wine is from top to bottom." Take your seat first and then leave your seat. "Wine is for the elderly and meat is for the young." After serving wine to the distinguished guests, the elderly or elders should be served first and then the young. Everyone has a share. In rural areas, regardless of weddings or funerals, there is a custom of "six in the morning and eight in the evening". That is, six bowls of food in the morning, such as water tofu, braised pork, twice-cooked pork, cabbage vermicelli, pig blood and peanuts. In the evening, there are eight bowls of dishes, such as yellow strips, braised pork, crepe sauce (fried pork skin), Qianzhang pork, cold white meat, braised sausages, peanuts, etc. Those who can afford it will also have a bowl of stewed chicken. The Yi people are good at cooking techniques such as roasting, frying, boiling, and mixing. They like salty, fragrant, spicy, and numb tastes, and are especially famous for making milk cakes. The daily drinks of the Yi people include wine and tea, and they treat guests with wine. There is a saying among the people that "Han people value tea, and Yi people value wine." The habit of drinking tea is more common among the elderly, mainly roasted tea. The Yi people only pour half a cup of tea each time and drink it slowly.

The Yi people are addicted to alcohol, and all men, women and children can drink. When they drink, they often pour the wine into a big bowl first. You take a sip and pass it to me. I take a sip and pass it to him. Everyone takes turns drinking. This bowl of wine. Therefore, this way of drinking in Yi people is called "Zhuan Zhuan Jiu".

The Yi people are warm and hospitable. When they entertain guests, often only the male host will accompany the guests, or let the guests eat first, and the hostess will wait until the guests have finished eating. Therefore, when visiting the Yi family, you must not eat all the food and wine. At the same time, when leaving after the meal, the guests should give some gifts or leave some money to show their gratitude.

"Girl's Room"

Marriage and love between Yi men and women: "Girl's Room" is a unique custom of the Yi people in Chuxiong. When a girl reaches the age of 16, her parents will build a small thatched house for her and let her spend the night alone there. Young men who are over 20 years old can climb up to the thatched house of their beloved girl at night to fall in love. They played together, exchanged tunes, and expressed their love for each other. This is true even if there are several young men and women at the same time, everyone is not restricted. Once love matures, both men and women can get married as long as they obtain the consent of their parents. Parents generally will not interfere with the choices of their children. The wedding of the Yi people in Xiaoliangshan, Yunnan is quite unique. When getting married, the man must prepare a horse and carry gifts such as wine, cloth, meat, and noodles to welcome the bride. The girls in the bride's village can use all their skills to splash water on the guests who are welcoming the bride, to catch them and make fun of them. All bridegrooms must be men. When the bride arrives at the groom's door, she cannot enter until the sun goes down. Before entering the door, a person holds a wooden bowl containing mutton, meat and wine, and circles it around the bride's head to show that she will live a prosperous life after marriage. Then the bride was carried into the house by her cousins.

"Dancing"

The Yi people's singing and dancing accompanies their meals: "Dancing" means serving food while dancing. It is a unique form of serving food and the highest etiquette for guests of the Yi people in Wuliang Mountain and Ailao Mountain in Yunnan. It is a long-standing traditional food culture that perfectly combines dance, music and acrobatics. When banquets are held, square tables are usually placed along two edges, with guests sitting in three directions, leaving a channel for "dance dancing" in the middle. Three big gongs kicked off the "vegetable dance": gongs, reeds, three-stringed instruments, muffled flutes, leaves and other folk music were played in unison; amidst the shouts of "woo wa lee - thiothie" from the girls and boys, only the people holding the trays were seen. The Yi man clasped his hands and his steps were high and low, fast and slow. Another man came in with a vegetable plate (***24 bowls) on his head and both arms. They performed a simple and honest folk music concerto together, with funny faces on their faces, and they danced back and forth with easy, graceful, smooth and coherent dance steps, one after another. The two partners, who are holding towels, are full of weird shapes, escorting him by moving forward, backward, left, and right like colorful butterflies playing with flowers. A pair of waiters have to serve four tables, and their partner arranges 32 bowls of food into a Bagua array, with each bowl of food like a "chess piece." It has its own position and is placed on the table one by one according to the ancient rules without any chaos. The patrilineal small family system is prevalent among the Yi people in various places, and young children often live with their parents. Women have lower status. The inheritance is divided equally among the disciples, and the property is generally owned by close relatives. In the history of the Yi people, it was popular to name father and son together, and this custom continued among the Yi people in Liangshan until the founding of the People's Republic of China.

Monogamy is the basic marriage system of the Yi people. A higher bride price is required to marry a daughter-in-law. Cross-cousin marriage is more popular, and house transfer is practiced after the husband's death. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, some Yi areas in Yunnan still maintained the public housing system, and the Yi people in Liangshan maintained strict hierarchical endogamy. Historically, the Yi people mostly practiced cremation. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China, residents in Liangshan and Yunnan along the Jinsha River still practiced this burial custom. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties, other areas have gradually changed to upper burial.

Marriage Customs

The Yi people are monogamous. There are many unique customs and habits of our own nation.

Engagement and Marriage

Generally, after a young man and a woman get engaged, the man invites someone to talk to the woman’s parents about their marriage. He only needs to bring a bottle of wine with him, and as long as the woman’s parents accept the wine, then the marriage is complete. Agree. Then the man goes to the woman's house to formally get engaged, usually bringing two to three feet of cloth, and both the cloth and the money are given to the woman. After three months, the man has to buy three pieces of green or blue cloth, a piece of meat, and a bottle of wine to go to the woman's house. These things are given to the woman's parents, which are called "little gifts." The man asked Bimo to choose a date, and the chosen date must be discussed with the woman's parents. This time I went to buy some wedding supplies for the woman, which is called "pressing the eight characters". The woman's parents prepare a dowry for their child. When the man asks for a hand in marriage, he must prepare a set of clothes for the woman to wear, including buns, shoes, needlework, etc., and the bride's groomsmen will carry them to the woman's home. These things are not brought out until the woman's parents invite a singer to drink the "wedding song" in the evening. If the singer makes a mistake in singing, the marrying relative will take out the wrong thing and circle it three times in front of the singer's eyes, put it in his bag with a smile, and neither give it to the bride nor return it to the groom. The marrying relative will keep it for himself. If the singer sings exactly what he wants. When the bride-to-be couldn't get it out, the singer hit the bride-to-be on the head three times with a dustpan, which made the guests burst into laughter. The married woman and the female singer continue to sing duet. The female singer wants to sing the married woman to defeat, and the married man obediently puts the basket on his back in the middle of the main room. Then, when the female singer sang about pants, she took out her pants, and when she sang about clothes, she took out her peasant coat. 2. Welcome Ceremony The Yi people are very hospitable and enthusiastically encourage guests to drink. Whenever a Yi family is a guest, the host will take out the wine, toast to each other, sit on the floor, talk heart-to-heart, and drink wine saying: "There is no impassable road on the earth, there is no water that cannot flow in the river, and the Yi family has no wrong drink." Drink. Drink to your heart's content!" No more persuasion until the guest is drunk. During every New Year and festival, girls (girls and women) of the Yi family would stand on the roadside in front of their homes with a jar of wine and a few brocade bamboo or wheat straws. All passers-by will advise you to drink alcohol from the can with a pole before letting you walk. People say: "A glass of wine is not as sweet as the Yi family's wine, nor is it good as the Yi people's heart!"

Clothes

The Yi people's clothing has many types and colors, and is the symbol of the Yi people's traditional culture and aesthetic consciousness. concrete embodiment. In the long process of historical development, the Yi people living in different regions have created and formed different clothing customs, which occupy an important position in the material folk customs of the Yi people. According to the regional and branch expressions of Yi costume folk customs, Yi costumes can be divided into six types: Liangshan, Wumengshan, Honghe, Southeast Yunnan, West Yunnan, and Chuxiong. Each type can be divided into several styles. Here are some of them.

Liangshan type

It is mainly popular in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture and adjacent counties in Sichuan, as well as in the Jinsha River Basin of Yunnan Province. Due to the specific natural geographical environment and the social form of slavery at a specific historical stage caused by the isolation of the large and small Liangshan Mountains, its clothing is simple and unique, and it relatively completely maintains the cultural characteristics of traditional clothing. Men's and women's tops in Liangshan are all right-folded jackets. Men, women, old and young all wear cerva, felt, leggings and felt socks. Men's hair style is the traditional "Tian Bodhisattva", that is, they have a long lock of hair in a bun on the top of their head. Most of them have a long black or dark blue scarf wrapped around their heads, often wrapped into a pointed cone shape and inserted diagonally in front of their forehead, which is called " "Hero's Knot", with honey wax beads, white earrings and other accessories on the left ear. They wear long trousers, which can be divided into large, medium and small trousers due to different languages ??and regions. The most distinctive ornament is the "Tuta", which is worn cross-body on the body. It is woven into a belt with thin beef tendons. The surface is inlaid with white clam slices. Women wear skirts and headscarves, and after giving birth, they wear hats or handkerchiefs. Wear silver, coral, jade, shell and other earrings on both ears, pay attention to the neck decoration, and wear a silver collar. Wearing a pleated long skirt, the adult skirt is divided into three sections, the upper section is the waist, the middle section is tubular, and the lower section is multi-pleated. Usually, a triangular purse is hung around the waist. The surface of the bag is decorated with various patterns, and the lower end is decorated with five-color ribbons for holding items. In addition, they wear mouth strings, syringes and decorated tusks on their chests, which are believed to ward off evil spirits. The traditional clothing materials are mainly self-woven and self-dyed wool and linen fabrics, and they like to use colors such as black, red, and yellow. The other patterns are its traditional patterns, which are divided into three styles: Yinuo, Shengcha and Sodi.

Cockscomb Hat

The Cockscomb Hat is made of hard cloth cut into the shape of a cockscomb, and then embroidered with more than 1,200 large and small silver bubbles. When worn on the head, it looks like a "Oh!" "The crowing rooster. The cockscomb hat is a symbol of good luck and happiness for Yi girls. Therefore, every year during the "Ni Liang" festival, Yi girls in the Honghe area embroider one or two cockscomb hats. Wearing a cockscomb hat on the head means that the rooster will always accompany the girl. The large and small silver bubbles on the hat represent the stars and the moon, which will always be bright and happy.