What does Jingpo mean, a nation as brave as a lion?

Jingpo nationality is one of the ethnic minorities in China. Existing population 1 19209. Mainly distributed in Luxi City and Ruili City of Dehong Autonomous Prefecture, as well as Longchuan, Yingjiang and lianghe county, with a few scattered in other counties. They are mainly engaged in agriculture, planting rice, corn, dry valleys and other crops. Have their own language and writing.

Jingpo people are famous for their hard work, hospitality and brave national character. They have a well-known idiom: "Be as brave as a lion." They conquered nature with hard-working hands and fought evil forces with long knives. Many times in history, it has stubbornly resisted the invasion of foreign enemies and made great contributions to defending the territory of the motherland.

Most Jingpo people live in mountainous areas with an altitude of1500-2000m. The climate here is mild, with abundant rainfall, fertile land and rich specialties. In addition to planting dry valleys, corn and rice, it is also rich in precious mahogany, nanmu and various bamboos, as well as cash crops such as rubber, tung oil, coffee, tea and citronella, as well as tropical and subtropical fruits such as pineapple, jackfruit, mango and plantain. There are all kinds of rare birds and animals living in the deep mountains and forests. Underground mineral deposits are also rich.

The oral literature of Jingpo nationality is developed, especially the epic Le Bao Zhai Wa, which integrates poetry, song and dance, contains people's understanding of nature and all aspects of human society, is deeply loved by the people of this nationality, and is also a wonderful flower of Chinese folk literature. The origin of Jingpo nationality is related to the ancient frontier strongmen on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. In the Tang Dynasty, their ancestors appeared in China's historical books with the names of "Seeking for the barbarians" and "Gaoligong people". From the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties to the founding of New China, names such as "Chang E", "Sheduo" and "Savage" appeared successively. After the founding of New China, it was recognized as Jingpo by ethnic identification.

The ancestors of Jingpo people are related to the ancient Di and Qiang people. They once lived in the southern mountainous area of the Kangzang Plateau and moved south along the Hengduan Mountains in the 7th-9th century. The eastern scenery is located in the east of Lancang River and Jinsha River. The western part of Jingpo nationality is located from Lancang River to the western part of Myanmar. 15-16th century, due to the war, a large number of easterners moved westward on a large scale; /kloc-After the 6th century, they moved to Dehong area in large numbers, and most of them lived with De 'ang, Achang, Wa and Han nationalities. Now Jingpo branch, Lange branch, Wazhi branch and Laqi branch of Jingpo nationality are originally different tribes of the same nationality.

There are five branches of Jingpo nationality, namely Jingpo, Zawa, Qi Le, Langge (wave velocity) and Bora. People from different branches live together in most areas. Jingpo branch belongs to Jingpo branch of Tibeto-Burman language family of Sino-Tibetan language family, and the languages of Zawa and other four branches are relatively close, belonging to Tibeto-Burman language family. There are two kinds of characters, Jingpo and Zaiwa, which are pinyin characters based on Latin letters. The former was created at the end of 19, and the latter was created at 1957.

prescribe a diet

Jingpo people have three meals a day when they are free and two meals a day when they are busy. The staple food is rice. I like dry rice and bamboo rice. The vegetables planted are mostly melons, beans, vegetables and potatoes. , supplemented by bamboo shoots, cress, wild garlic, etc.

Meat is mostly pork and chicken, and fishing and hunting are carried out in the off-season, such as hunting wild boar, muntjac, goat, bison, pheasant, bird, fish, crab and snail. Jingpo people drink low-alcohol liquor, which is called Shuijiu, and adult men and women prefer shochu.

Jingpo people are very polite when drinking. Acquaintances meet and toast each other. Instead of drinking, they pour the wine back into each other's bottles before drinking. Everyone drinks a glass of wine. After taking a sip, everyone wipes the place where they have drunk with their hands, and then passes it on to others. If there is an old man present, let him drink first.

Typical foods mainly include: grilled fish in bamboo tube, sprinkled skin, braised eel, and stewed bamboo rats in casserole.

Dress

Jingpo men like to wear white or black double-breasted t-shirts, with lace patterns and colored small velvet beads on the Baotou cloth, and often wear broadsword and tube handkerchief when going out. Women wear black double-breasted, black and red woven skirts and leggings. When a woman dresses up, there are many silver bubbles and pieces on her front, back and shoulders, seven silver collars or a string of silver chains or bells are hung around her neck, a tremella tube longer than her fingers is worn on her ears, and one or two coarse carved silver bracelets are worn on her hands. The more silverware a woman wears, the more capable and rich she is. Some women also like to weave rattan rings with rattan, paint them with red paint and black paint, and wrap them around their waist, thinking that the more rattan rings, the more beautiful they are. Jingpo people like chewing tobacco, reed seeds, betel nuts and drinking. When acquaintances meet, they take out bamboo tubes and pour a glass of wine.

religion

I believe in animism, and believe that the spirits of all things in nature can act on people and give them good or bad luck. There are three kinds of ghosts worshipped, namely, ghosts from heaven, ghosts from the earth and ghosts from home. Sun ghost is the biggest in the sky; On the ground, ghosts are the biggest; The biggest ghost in China is the "wooden generation" ghost. Whenever sowing, harvesting, weddings, fights, etc. Yes, the wizard was invited to offer sacrifices to ghosts. The biggest festival "Mu Nao" is to worship the ghost of "Mu Dai". Catholicism was introduced once, but it did not spread.

custom

Jingpo people used to attach the most importance to the concept of ghosts. They think that ghosts are good or bad, some can benefit people, while others cause trouble, so the custom of offering sacrifices to ghosts prevails.

Family members have their own words.

Among Jingpo people, quite a few families are made up of people from different branches. There is a traditional habit that what language is used by family members, father and children use the language of the paternal branch, and mother uses the language of the maternal branch. Although both husband and wife can master each other's language well, they still speak their own words and never give up the right to use their own language. Children talk to their fathers, or between brothers and sisters, in the language of their fathers. If a child talks to his mother, he should use the language of his mother's branch instead. If grandma is from another branch, the younger generation will have to talk to him in the language of grandma's branch.

When young men and women from different branches fall in love, men often take the initiative to show their love in the language of female branches. Once they get married, they will resume using their own language. In school, what language do most students in any branch use, but students in the same branch talk to each other and use the language of their own branch.

In the past, Jingpo people used objects to convey information. For example, sending a piece of meat with hair indicates major events such as declaration of war, triumph and bad news. The young man fell in love with a girl, so he wrapped roots, matches, peppers and garlic in leaves and gave them to her. The leaves show that he has a lot to say, the roots show that he misses him, the matches show that he has made up his mind, the peppers love him passionately, and the garlic hopes to agree. If the girl has the heart, she will return the original. If she adds charcoal, she will refuse. This quaint endorsement of things is only seen on some special occasions now.

The ancient rules of string girls getting married

Until the early 1950s, the young people of Jingpo nationality all passed the "Zawa language", which is called "string women" in Chinese. The so-called "getting rid of everything" usually refers to the social activities of young men and women, while unmarried people choose a good couple as a way of love.

According to the traditional custom, the Spring Festival every year is a good time to "relieve boredom". Young men and women in our village or other villages invite each other, take fish and wine, go to Shan Ye for dinner, indulge themselves, or sing or dance, and secretly send them to miss them. Usually, whenever night falls, groups of young men and women will go to the bamboo forest next to the village, sing softly and test each other. They may come to the "public house" to play the flute, sing together and listen to legends and stories. Some young people will take this opportunity to whisper their hearts. It's late at night, and both men and women sleep here. However, anyone strictly abides by the traditional rules and absolutely forbids deviant behavior. There are many such activities. After we get to know each other, we will give each other gifts: girls give skillfully woven flower ribbons, handkerchiefs embroidered with velvet flowers, and boys give small bamboo tubes (paper fans, oral strings, etc.). ), weaving shuttles and "dry" earrings. When a man and a woman are in mature love, they tell the young men and women in charge of social activities to invite the old people and friends to the "public house" for a wedding banquet. After this ceremony, it shows that their love relationship has been recognized by the public, that is to say, they can move freely outside the "public house" from now on.

Jingpo men and women who seek marriage must abide by aunts, people with the same surname and people who think they belong to the same clan. It is limited to the marriage between different surnames who have established the marriage relationship between father-in-law and uncle (called "Muyu" and "Aunt" in Jingpo language respectively). If there is a violation, people will call it a pig or a dog, regardless of branch, age or generation.

The so-called father-in-law and uncle are in-laws expressed according to the concept of paternal relatives. Its specific meaning is that the aunt's son has the right and must marry the uncle's daughter, but the uncle's son is never allowed to marry the aunt's daughter, which means "blood does not flow back." This is a one-way cousin marriage. But in real life, if a family has several daughters, it may have several grandfathers, several sons and several husbands. Therefore, there is a folk proverb: "Not limited to one wife, not limited to one woman."

When love matures, firstly, the man's parents invite Le Jiao (the matchmaker of the man's stockade) to contact Tong Qiang (the matchmaker of the woman's stockade), propose marriage to the woman's parents, and send gifts such as gongs, silks, eggs and wine. If you accept the gift, you agree. The second step is to send more gifts and discuss the wedding date. The third step is to choose an auspicious day to get married. At that time, the woman asked Tong Qiang, uncle and relatives and friends in the village to accompany her to get married.

Most weddings of Jingpo people were completed in one day, but the dramatic scenes left an unforgettable impression. On the wedding day, the groom takes the bride price, accompanied by married young men and women who have rich wedding experience and can best resist laughing. They will also bring more than a dozen rice tubes made of cooked glutinous rice (each one is enough for ten people), and several vegetable bags wrapped in banana leaves (the number is equal to that of the female guests notified in advance), which contain cooked meat, vegetables and traditional "washing vegetables". When I arrived at the bride's house, I paid a bride price, cut the rice tube, and divided a ball of rice and a vegetable bag according to the head. After dinner, the woman will be carried out by her relatives with two sets of prepared true and false gifts. First, give the making tools such as "knife" and "gun" made of banana tree to the recipient-the groom's two companions. The subject took it carefully and should hang the "knife" and "gun" intact on his shoulder. It is not easy to pick up these fake gifts, because the owner cut down the banana trees and connected them with bamboo sticks. If he can't take it off and hang it on his back intact, he will be punished-spend money to buy a real one. Therefore, on this occasion, everyone always boos and laughs; The more people make you laugh, the more restrained the recipient is from laughing. After receiving the gift, the recipient tries to keep his body balanced, step by step, and takes off the fake gift when no one can see it in the corner. At this point, they said "Thank God" with relief and returned to the groom's house with the wedding procession.

In some places, when the wedding procession is about to return to the village, it must cross three "roadblocks". In advance, the children in the stockade picked up branches, bamboo poles, old fences and so on. , set up three roadblocks, division of labor to guard. When the lively wedding procession came to the first roadblock, it was stopped by a group of girls waiting here. A middle-aged woman walked out of the team, solemnly poured out the water and wine in the bamboo tube for the little girl to drink, and gave some small gifts. They didn't take the wine or ask for a gift, but just shouted "no bride!" " "While pestering, the bridesmaids surrounded the bride and crossed the roadblock from the other end. The second roadblock was guarded by a group of boys. The same toast is invalid. At this time, "Leg" and "Tong Qiang" pretended to stumble forward to talk. When the children saw that these two "drunkards" had set an example, they could not help but take two steps back. Just then, people crashed through the barricade. The defender of the third roadblock is a three-or four-year-old doll. When they hugged the bride's legs and feet, the bride and bridesmaids happily picked them up and crossed the roadblock. According to folklore, this "roadblock" was set up out of the bride's good wish to have a son after marriage.

When the bride comes to the groom's house, there will be a ceremony. On the way from the yard to Zhu Lou's new home, dig a small pit every one foot, bury a thatch more than one person in each place, and put a piece of wood (or a new board or ladder) about two meters long in the middle of the grass. Some people also planted a pair of banana trees and two sugarcane trees at both ends of the grassland. They say banana trees symbolize auspiciousness, sugarcane symbolizes sweetness, and thatch symbolizes prosperity. As soon as the bride arrives, let the wizard recite a spell and offer sacrifices to "ghosts at home" in order to kill chickens, pigs, cows and sheep and sprinkle their blood on the thatch. After that, the bride walked upstairs along the wood (ladder) and entered the new house. This set of ceremonies is called "crossing the grass shed". It is an indispensable and most important wedding ceremony for Jingpo people.

Happy "Song of Eyes and Brain"

The eyes and brains are Jingpo, and the leaders are in Wa. People usually write "eye-brain longitudinal songs" together, which means "everyone dances" This is one of the biggest and most grand festivals of Jingpo people. Historically, every time Jingpo people go out to war, triumph, harvest, weddings and funerals, and welcome guests, they have to hold festive activities of "keeping their eyes open and gathering their brains". There are various legends about its origin. A popular legend is that in ancient times, Jingpo people lived a happy life in peace and contentment. Then there appeared a demon king who lived by eating children. One day, because it didn't feed the children, it called for rain and flooded the countryside. A man named Pan Lei led the villagers to move south and rebuild their homes on both sides of the Melikai River and the Enmeikai River. When the demon king found out, he chased him here and ate Ray Pan's son. Pan Lei is determined to lead the public to fight it to the end. The sun god was deeply moved and made a treasure knife for him. The devil was finally killed. People sang and danced to celebrate the victory. Since then, in order to commemorate their ancestors' brilliant achievements in exorcism, Jingpo people hold song and dance parties every festival, and call them "eyes and brains".

The main activity time of the eyes and brain is usually three days. At that time, men, women and children, dressed in costumes, crowded into the eye-brain square and danced day and night. In the center of the square, there are four eye-brain columns about 20 meters high, on which are painted various color patterns such as bracken, broadsword and regular triangle, symbolizing auspiciousness, happiness, unity and courage. On the left side of the column is a square platform for suona and other musicians. A 2-meter-long leather drum and one or more gongs with a diameter exceeding 1 meter are suspended in front of the column. There is a bamboo fence with two doors open around the square to prevent "wild ghosts" and livestock from breaking in. At the beginning of the festival, salutes roared, gongs and drums roared, and people happily toasted each other and exchanged gifts. Two venerable old people, dressed in robes, wearing headdresses decorated with peacock, pheasant feathers and wild boar teeth, and holding bright long knives, led everyone to dance according to the pattern marked on the headdress. After two laps, the team was divided into two parts. One part was led by the team leader to continue dancing along the established pattern, and the other part was led by a higher level person to dance more freely. At the end of the third day, the dancers danced with all kinds of bouquets, and the person in charge of cooking picked up the spatula and wine tube to join in the dance. The joyful and warm atmosphere reached its climax.

Singing and dancing in memory of the dead

Every time gunfire comes from the stockade, the neighbors will know that someone has died, and identify the gender of the deceased according to the single and double numbers (women's singles and men's doubles) of the gunfire. Neighbors and relatives heard the news and brought food, vegetables, livestock and other condolences to help arrange the funeral.

The young man died and there was no special ceremony. If an old man with children and grandchildren dies, in order to show admiration and memory, people from our village and neighboring villages come to dance with the relatives of the deceased (Jingpo people call it "Winter Collapse" and Zawa people call it "Hiccup Benge"), and the dance lasts all night. The more days you dance, the more glorious your master will be. There are two places to dance on this occasion, one is outdoor and the other is indoor. The dancers outside the house roared like the tide, and their movements were rough and powerful, to show that it would not harm people to drive away monsters. The dancers in the room danced around the body with deep and medium-speed singing and gong rhythm. There are more than 30 dance words, ranging from pure witchcraft dance to farming, hunting and fighting. Their songs are full of joy instead of sadness. The main content is why some people die, recall the behavior of the deceased before his death, educate future generations how to be a man, how to work hard, and thank the deceased for their upbringing.

People who die of natural causes will be buried. After a few months or a year or two of burial, the funeral home will hold a ceremony to send the souls of the deceased, that is, to send the souls of the deceased back to their hometown in the north along the route of Jingpo ancestors moving south. If you give your soul to the old man, you have to jump "Hiccup Benguer" ("Crash Winter") until the grave is repaired. When building a grave, the most important thing is to build a cone-shaped thatched shed with a height of more than 3 meters on the top of the grave, and insert a woodcarving portrait at the top, with colorful paintings of charcoal, red soil and pig blood on it. The patterns are sun, moon, mountain, water, wild animals, livestock, swords and guns, farm tools and crops. To show the sex, age and main activities of the deceased. Bamboo poles should be inserted around the grave. If there are several, it means there are several children. This tomb is made of stone. After the tomb is built, there will be no memorial service and other activities.

Before the founding of New China, it was costly to hold funerals and delay labor, which had a great impact on people's production and life. With the development of socialist spiritual civilization construction, various funeral ceremonies are gradually simplified, and there is a trend of bringing forth the old and bringing forth the new.

Every early autumn, there will be a grand "respect for the elderly conference". Young people fired guns and set off firecrackers, scrambling to invite old people to visit the bamboo building. At dusk, people collectively danced the "Respect for the Elderly Dance" in the joyful sound of wooden drums.