Can the Qiang eat pork?

The Qiang now live mainly in Maowen in western Sichuan, with the rest scattered in Wenchuan, Lixian, Heishui and Songpan. The population is 198,252 (the fourth population census in 1990). The Qiang call themselves "Erma", meaning "natives". Their origin can be traced back to the Zuoqiang people more than three thousand years ago. As early as three thousand years ago, there were records of the Qiang people in the oracle bones of the Yin Dynasty, and they were mainly active in the northwestern part of China and the central plains. Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, the Ran and (Ma+Long) tribes of the ancient Qiang people lived in the area of present-day northwest Sichuan. During the Tang Dynasty, part of the Qiangs assimilated into the Tibetans and the other part into the Han Chinese. Today's Qiang people are one of the ancient Qiang people who have been preserved.

The Qiang do not have their own script, but have their own language. The Qiang language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman group of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and is divided into two major dialects, North and South.

The mountainous areas where the Qiang live are home to the world's rare pandas, flying foxes and golden monkeys. This ancient ethnic group is now mainly engaged in agriculture. Industry has been built up from scratch, including tanning, paper making, timber, cement and fertilizer. Embroidery, flower picking and weaving are the traditional crafts of the Qiang people.

In 1955 and 1956, Maowen County completed the democratic reform through peaceful consultation and abolished the feudal land ownership system. on July 7, 1958, the Maowen Qiang Autonomous County was established.

Taboos of the Qiang people include: hanging a yoke sheet or a back pocket outside the door when a woman is in labor, avoiding outsiders from entering the house, hanging a red paper strip on the door when there is a sick person in the house, avoiding outsiders from visiting the house; not being able to step across the fire pit or step on the tripod with their feet, or bake shoes, socks and clothes on the tripod; not being able to sit on the thresholds and staircases; not placing chopsticks horizontally over a bowl after a meal, or holding the wine glass upside down.

Daily food customs Qiang folk mostly two meals a day, that is, after breakfast to go out to work, to bring a bun (cornmeal bun), at noon on the ground to eat, known as the "tip". Work in the afternoon to go home and eat dinner. Most of the staple food can not be separated from the noodle steam. Often eaten face steam steam is placed in the steamer corn flour into granular, can be eaten as rice, sometimes the washed rice mixed into the corn flour, or corn flour mixed into the rice steam, known as the "gold wrapped in silver" or "silver wrapped in gold". Using wheat flour and corn flour to make buns and baking them on the fire is also one of the main daily foods of the Qiang people. Many areas of the Qiang people also like to eat cornmeal and push the bean flower even (rice + Cha) slurry fermentation, steamed into a bean bubble bun, or will be made of young corn grated water poi buns. Wheat flour with sliced meat cooked called "braised noodles"; boiling water with cornstarch cooked into a paste called "noodle soup", continue to add cornstarch to thicken to the degree that chopsticks can be flicked up, known as "churning dough", are often eaten as staple food. These are commonly eaten staple foods. When eating dumplings, you should eat sauerkraut soup made of cabbage and round root (turnip) soaked in sauerkraut, which can be appetizing. Commonly used corn, wheat, beans first fried, and then ground into fried noodles, usually eaten while traveling or grazing. When eating potatoes, the Qiang folk like to boil the whole potato, then peeled, then pounded into mud, made into patties, called taro patties, fried in oil or deep-fried, mixed with honey to eat. Also available taro patties sliced with sauerkraut, sliced meat to eat in soup.

Because the time to eat fresh vegetables is only a few months, the year-round consumption of cabbage, turnip leaves soaked sauerkraut, as well as pickles made of green vegetables. Meat is mainly beef, sheep, pig and chicken, and fish and hunting animals are also eaten. Diaspora in the mountainous areas of the Qiang people generally do not often eat fresh pork, are the pig slaughtered and dehairing, cut in half or cut into several large pieces, hanging on the beams of the room smoked and roasted to make "pig fat", storage time is generally one year, when eating one is boiled with vegetables, cooked and then fished out of the pig fat, cut into rectangular slices of large pieces into a bowl can be eaten; the second is to cut the raw pickled pig fat into The second is to cut the raw pickled pig fat into small pieces and stir-fry it together with vegetables, the function is to replace oil with pig fat, and add some peppercorns and chili peppers to enhance the flavor. When slaughtering the New Year pig, the Qiang people like to fill the pig blood into the pig intestines, which is called blood sausage after cooking. Blood sausage is also a kind of delicacy when the guests eat wine. Some will also be pig's blood and buckwheat and made together into blood buns to eat. The Qiang people also often put fresh pork in the belly of a newly slaughtered pig with salt, pepper, etc. Tied, air-dried, made into a "flesh belly" for a long time.

The Qiang people generally drink wine called smack wine, the Qiang language in Mao County, called "day Maixi", meaning Qiang people wine. The method of making smack wine is to use barley to cook and mix with wine curd, seal it into the altar, and drink it after 7-8 days of fermentation. The Qiang people drink smacking wine, without wine, but the wine altar will be open, with a thin bamboo pipe smacking, smacking drink to the eldest and youngest order, take turns smacking drink, and constantly injected into the cool boiled water, until the taste until the pale.

The Qiang daily stove is very characteristic, often in the fire on the support of an iron three feet, cooking will be placed on top of the iron pot to heat, or baked food, sophisticated iron three feet but also in the top of the inlaid silver jewelry.

Festivals, rituals and festivals food customs every festival, wedding, funeral, rituals, gatherings, hospitality or labor, in addition to the meal, but also the necessary wine. As a Qiang proverbs: "no wine is difficult to sing, there are many wine songs, no wine is not a seat, no song is difficult to treat guests. Marriage to eat "do wine", feast guests to eat "drink wine", Chongyang Festival brewed wine called Chongyang wine, need to be stored for more than a year before drinking, Chongyang wine because of the long storage time, the wine was purple-red, wine mellow flavor, is essential during the Chongyang Festival of fine wines. Another kind of drink known as steamed wine is made by steaming cornmeal and mixing it with alcohol, which is similar to the Han Chinese mash and has the aroma of wine as well as the ability to top rice. Regardless of the annual festival or hospitality, the Qiang people all take "nine" as auspicious, so the banquet should be set up nine bowls, the same dishes with the Sichuan cuisine. Stewed whole chicken, it is customary to use bamboo sticks to support the head of the chicken, so that it is raised. The head of the chicken to entertain the guests (such as uncle, etc.).

The first day of the tenth month of the lunar calendar is the Qiang New Year Festival. The feast is also called "harvest wine". New Year's Day, the whole village to the "God Woods" to return the wish, burning cypress incense in honor of the ancestors and the gods, to be made of buckwheat flour filled with a kind of buckwheat dumplings with tofu and meat, and some also made of flour into cows, goats, horses, chickens and other animals in different shapes as offerings. The next day, set up a family dinner, invited the married daughter back to her mother's home. Various festivals are held. Praying for a good harvest of the mountain will be a village village rituals, in addition to married women are not allowed to participate, the whole village should bring wine, meat and buns to go to the meeting. The head of the meeting is rotated among all households in the village. At the meeting, the first to prepare a black ram, a red rooster, 1 altar smack wine, 3 pounds of pork, 1 bucket of barley, 13 pounds of flour made of large steamed buns and incense and wax, firecrackers, paper money, etc., according to the regulations set up by the "Xu" (sorcerer) to preside over the sacrifice, praying to the God of Heaven and the God of the mountains to bless the whole village of the people of the life of the year and the goat slaughtered and boiled, together with other food to be divided into The goat is slaughtered and boiled, and then distributed to each household together with other foodstuffs, which is called "scattering molecules". At the end of the day, everyone sits down on the ground and tastes their sacrificial food with each other.