Tujia Wine Culture

Smack Wine is a unique drinking practice commonly practiced in the ethnic minority areas in the south of China, involving the Zhuang, Tujia, Miao, Buyi, Qiang, Tibetan, Gaoshan and Yi ethnic groups, etc., and is popular in areas such as the two provinces of Guangdong, the two lakes, Sichuan, Yunnan, Guizhou and Taiwan, etc. The culture of smack wine has a rich expression and a long historical origin. Tujia smack wine has a rich expression, a long history, deep cultural connotations, as the crystallization of the material civilization of the Tujia people and the spiritual civilization of the externalization, is an important carrier of national culture.

First, the expression of smack wine smack wine, that is, glutinous rice or corn, sorghum, wheat and other brewed sweet wine, installed in the altar storage for a year or several years, and then cool or hot water brewing to bamboo suck, used to entertain guests at banquets, or in the labor to dispel fatigue.

The Tujia region's 'many Fangzhi have records of smacking wine, which provide rich historical materials for us to recognize its manifestation. The Guangxu "Changle County Records" Volume 16 recorded in detail the situation of the Tujia to smack wine hospitality: "Tujia have pro-bin banquets, to eat smack wine wipe altar as a tribute. The smack wine wiping altar, said the former guests to pole suck wine, wipe the pole with a towel, please other guests also. Wine to glutinous rice brewed, sealed in the altar.

The guest is taken to place in the center of the Hall Wing, Wo to boil to make full, with a thin bamboo through the section for the pole, inserted through the bottom of the altar ...... each altar set up a table, the table place and the two sides, then set up the art of one, and do not set up to sit. Guests arrive in order to sit. Around the end, the master called the eldest woman to open the altar to clean up the guests. Woman out, solemn, then take a bowl of boiling soup, on the side of the altar on the pole a suction, injection of water in the altar, not apologize for not overflowing is said to be just right. Each guest sucks one bowl of water, and the master injects one bowl of water. The former guests sucked to go to the table, then lifted a stick, and the latter guests came, and each other did not think that they had apologized. Where suck apologize for overflow are punished again suck, so the wine is thin but also more drunk ...... "Tongzhi" Enshi County "is a description of the folk smack wine situation:" commonly qu sins and miscellaneous grains in the altar for a long time into the wine, drinking altar open to the boiling broth, placed in a bamboo tube which, said 'smack Huang'; first to a person sucking 'smack Huang', said 'open altar'; then each other round suck. The first suck when the flavor is very thick, often add boiling broth, the taste is also gradually fade ...... "Tongzhi" Xianfeng County Records "in:" custom to the beginning of winter, boiled sorghum brewing urn, the following summer, filling with hot water, inserted in the mouth of the urn bamboo tube, the guest to the sub-smoking said smacking wine ".

They can be seen.

It can be seen that the Tujia smack wine and folk smack wine two basic forms, the former is mainly the Secretary of State or the big family in the banquet guests, the latter is mainly folk people in the labor to dispel fatigue or at home to entertain the guests, the production process is basically the same, drinking etiquette has a clear difference.

The history of smack wine Tujia smack wine has a very long history, as late as in the Tang Dynasty has been formed, prevalent in the period of the Tujia, and still have a legacy in the folk.

Some poems and folklore about smacking wine provide valuable information for us to study the history of smacking wine. As early as during the Yuanhe period of Emperor Xianzong of the Tang Dynasty, Bai Juyi passed through the Three Gorges when he was appointed as the assassin of Zhongzhou, and wrote a poem describing the scene of the Tujia smack wine banquet entitled "Ba's Spring Banquet": "The center of the county of Wuxia, the city of Baxing the wind on all sides. The barbarians sing and the Ba women dance in a squatting manner. Lavender spreads the seats, and rattan branches are injected into the wine bottles. This shows that the Tujia smack wine has been formed in the Tang Dynasty at the latest, and it is a legacy of the ancient Ba people's drinking custom, which can be traced back even further. From the relevant documents, although the Tujia brewing has a very long history, dating back to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, but smack wine and smack wine in Shu has a close relationship.

Fangyu Shengli> notes, "Idle banana leaf title poetry, boredom to take the vine branch to lead the wine to taste," said: "Shu more mountains, a variety of corn for the wine. People also drink corn wine. Real estate vine branches, more than ten feet long, as big as a finger, hollow can be sucked, called the cited vine. Bending its end in the spirits, note as a sundial funnel, this Yi custom, the native effect of the ear". In history, Sichuan and Bashu living next to each other, cultural exchanges are very frequent, coupled with the later Tujia area and the Han areas of Sichuan also have close contact, so the Tujia smack wine from ancient Shu brewing method is more credible. It is also known from folklore that Tujia smack wine was formed in the Ming Dynasty when Tujia soldiers went to the southeast coast to fight against Japanese wars. According to the legend, the Tujia people to make their own sons and daughters of the soldiers on time to the Southeast Japan front, will be placed in the wine altar next to the road, inserted inside the bamboo tube, every soldier smack a mouth, step by step, and thus passed into the custom.