Folk customs of Cuanxia village

First, lighting sticks and Artemisia capillaris

The ancient village made a fire with a sickle, and after the Republic of China, it used matches. At that time, matches were usually called "foreign lanterns". When using sickles or foreign lanterns to make a fire, poker was also commonly used. The striking stick, also called the extinguishing stick, is made of a commonly known "rubbing stick". Lingswab is a deciduous shrub with pipa-shaped leaves, yellow flowers and prickly branches. Wood fiber is thin and flammable, so people cut it back and cut off its branches. Light the wood with a lighting stick when lighting. When lighting a lamp, use ignition match to put it into the furnace for guidance, and then light it, which is convenient and matches-saving. When you go out at night, you can also use lighting sticks to illuminate the road. Since the advent of lighters, flashlights and electric lights, no one has used sickles, "foreign lanterns" and even fewer light sticks.

Speaking of chrysanthemum morifolium, there are so many uses. Now people may not think that in the past, ordinary people could hardly live without it. Artemisia scoparia is a deciduous shrub with long-handled palmately divided leaves and small purple-blue flowers. It doesn't care about fertile soil. It germinates in spring, blooms in summer and bears seeds in autumn, year after year, on mountains, hillsides and ditches.

Artemisia capillaris has a strong vitality. In the first year, it can grow to three or four feet tall, called Huang Jing. It is a good material for weaving baskets, baskets, cages, baskets and grain storage, and can be used to connect rafters in series when building houses. The leaves are wrapped into small balls, which can be used to smoke mosquitoes after drying, and the taste is fragrant. The twigs and leaves of chrysanthemum morifolium are soaked in puddles and covered with soil, which can produce good fertilizer. The seeds of Artemisia capillaris can be used as animal feed and fertilizer after frying. The well head is also a coal mine production material. Don't enter the well head after neutral to pit wood and fork wood in coal mine roadway. The use of Jinghua is the most valuable. After the summer solstice every year, Jinghua honey is the biggest and best honey source, and the annual income of beekeepers depends on the quality of Jinghua honey period.

Artemisia selengensis is planted on the graves of every household in Ganxia Village. When people are buried after death, they should plant a wormwood and plant it on the grave. This is because chrysanthemum is very easy to survive, and more importantly, it is homophonic and "pure and good", which I hope will be useful to future generations. Although there are "good sons" planted on the graves, there are still "black sheep". There always seems to be a gap between good wishes and reality.

Second, the north does not dig, and the south does not cut wood.

Cuanxia village faces south and is built on a gentle slope. Behind the village is Laolongtou Mountain. The mountain behind the faucet hangs like a dragon's neck for more than ten meters, and it is fifty or sixty meters long. Later, the mountain gradually rose to form the Dragon Ridge, and the terraces on both sides of the Dragon Ridge were like Long Lin, except the dragon neck from the dragon head to the Dragon Ridge was all loess. There is an unwritten rule in Ganxia Village that the production and life of people who don't dig (refer to dragons) in the north can't be separated from loess. Loess is used to build houses and walls, to build stoves on kang, and to add appropriate amount of loess to pulverized coal. The villagers had to go to Xigang, two miles away, to carry loess. After the Cultural Revolution, people "broke superstition and emancipated their minds", and all loess was used to dig the dragon's neck. In a few years, the dragon's neck was dug with potholes and holes.

In the early 1980s, a foreign cattle dealer wanted to buy cattle in Baiyutai Village. When you first came here, you asked me for directions. I brought him a way out of enthusiasm, but when I passed the dragon's neck, he suddenly stopped and said, "Tell your village cadres not to allow villagers to dig here, or you will be in trouble." A hundred miles away, a newcomer here can say such a thing, which shows that the rules of the older generation are not unreasonable.

The south slope beam opposite Cuanxia Village stands in front of the village like a big screen. There are cypress trees, the sun, the moon, the stars and the hot air in summer on the top of the mountain, which has become the historical witness of the ancient village from small to large and from weak to strong. The hillside is covered with dense trees and shrubs, including ox plows, barbells, mud beds, mostly ox hooves and beards, which are lush, fragrant and full of green leaves. It is a household name that we don't chop wood in the south. For hundreds of years, the mountain forest on this mountain has been giving orders, mediating the gas field, caring for hardworking villagers and being cared for. Dashan and the villagers love each other and spend time together. Nowadays, the whole society is paying attention to ecology and protecting the environment. How can the ancestors of Cuanxia Village say that they have no foresight?

Third, tremble with water.

In the past, every family in Cuanxia Village had a shell and water. With hemp rope as weft and wicker as warp, it is woven into a barrel shape, and the bottom is hemispherical, which is called "old shell", which is large and small and is used to hold rice. Cuanxia village is far from the earth, so it is common to eat in the fields at noon. In the morning, you should carry a small shell of rice and a glass of water on your back. Shuidulu is a kind of pottery with a small mouth and a big belly. The water is cold, but it won't turn sour even if it is hot. At noon, under the shade of trees, several people gathered together to chew shells, coarse porcelain bowls filled with small rice, eating old pickles, chewing spring seeds, chatting about the autumn harvest and the agricultural climate, judging this year and counting next year. Drink cold water after dinner, smoke a pack of cigarettes, then go to sleep and take a day off. Unfortunately, this shot is gone.

Four. Almond oil and apricot skin vinegar

Apricot trees, deciduous trees, bloom in spring, white or pink, and the fruit is called Xinger. The kernel is called almond, and the kernel is called almond. Sweet almonds can be eaten directly, while bitter almonds are poisonous. They can be used as medicine or boiled in oil.

There is a vast Shan Ye under Kuanduo Gorge. There are many apricot trees, and dozens of apricot stones can be collected every year. In the past, after harvesting almonds, every household had to cook with almond oil. Sun-dried almonds are crushed with a roller and boiled with water. When the water boils, stir with leather (a piece of wood with a wide end and a narrow end). Apricot oil floats slowly and is filled with a spoon. There is something mushy in the oil, called apricot skin sauce, which is eaten with salt. Pour the oil separated from apricot skin sauce into a vessel, which is an excellent choice for cooking or mixing cold dishes. The soup in the pot is called apricot soup. After removing impurities (broken apricot kernel residue), put it in a pot, scoop it back and forth with a ladle, and remove the bitter taste, so as to make apricot soup porridge. Add water to apricot soup, boil it, add corn grits, and add some beans and melons to make apricot soup porridge, which is especially delicious. Whoever makes apricot soup porridge will not eat it himself. He always invites relatives, friends and neighbors to enjoy delicious food.

Almond oil is woody oil, which needs to be preserved when it is used, but women in rich families often comb their hair with almond oil to make their hair bright and fragrant, which is much stronger than the hair oil that women use now.

Xinger's flesh is called apricot skin, and some apricot skins are bitter, which is of little use value. Some apricot skins are sweet and can be used as vinegar. Wash apricot skin and put it in a pot for fermentation. Filter out impurities with drawer cloth and drink clean soup as vinegar, which is sweet and sour.

Verbs (abbreviation for verb) cedar oil and plant ash.

There is a custom of cooking cypress oil in the history of Cuanxia Village. Cedar is an evergreen tree, including Platycladus orientalis, Sabina vulgaris and Arhat cypress. Its wood is hard and dense, and its trunk can be used for buildings and coffins. It is called cypress board or cypress vertical door, and small pieces of material can be made into wooden barrels or wooden boxes. Leftover scraps, or dug roots, are used to cook cedar oil.

Cut cypress leftovers or planed cypress roots used for building and manufacturing utensils into wood chips, put them into an iron pot with holes at the bottom, connect a utensil under the holes at the bottom of the pot, light cypress fragments, cover them with ash (plant ash), and asphalt seeps into the utensils under the pot at high temperature, and can them for later use or sale. Seed dressing with cedar oil can kill pests and diseases in the soil and improve soil fertility, which is definitely a pollution-free pesticide. After goat scabies, it is very effective to apply tar.

Plant ash is called "Little Ash" by the people in Cuanxia village, which is the ash left after burning firewood and straw. Decades ago, people often used plant ash in their production and life. In agriculture, plant ash mixed with human excrement is a good fertilizer, and young crops will produce pests. Spraying with plant ash mixed with water is quite troublesome. When women wash clothes, plant ash soaks in the water, which has strong detergency. Later, with soap and washing powder, no one used plant ash. Even if someone does this, it is only to make some elderly people affordable.

Beans are difficult to store. People often mix mung beans, adzuki beans and Jiang Dou into a large number of plant ash and store them in the same storage tank. When using them, plant ash is screened out and the beans are washed and eaten, so that the beans can be preserved for decades or even longer.

It's only been more than ten years since women used sanitary napkins during menstruation. Before sanitary napkins, they used toilet paper. Before there was toilet paper, women used plant ash during menstruation. At that time, people did not engage in family planning. It is normal for a family to have four or five women, so it is very difficult for so many women to use paper during menstruation. Women often put screened plant ash into long bags as sanitary products. It's incredible to think about it now. Come to think of it, plant ash is really strong in adsorption, and it is sanitary and environmentally friendly.

It is said that plant ash can also ward off evil spirits. When the dead in the village attend the funeral, they scatter plant ash at the door along the way to prevent ghosts from disturbing them. But now no one spilled plant ash at the funeral, and nothing happened. It seems that this statement is indeed a feudal superstition.