The Li People of Hainan

The Li originated from a group of the ancient "Hundred Yue", who came to settle on Hainan Island one after another from the two Guangdong provinces as early as the Qin and Han dynasties. The name "Li" began to be used at the end of the Tang Dynasty and has been used ever since.

The Li have their own language, which belongs to the Zhuang-Dong group of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and they have no written language.

The religion of the Li is based on ancestor worship, mixed with nature worship, and traces of totem worship remain in some areas.

The boat-shaped house, named for its resemblance to an inverted boat, is the traditional housing of the Li. The Li call it "Bulong Tinggan", meaning "bamboo-framed house". There are three types of "Blong Tingan": auxiliary, elevated and transitional. Its *** same characteristics are thatched roof, wooden or bamboo beams, woven bamboo plaster walls, bamboo walls or coconut leaf walls; inside the house set up a fire stove, hanging above the stove bamboo rafts, for drying food, roof side skylight. There are no intervals or beds in the "Bulong Tinggan", and the occupants generally sleep on the ground on mats next to the stove. Nowadays, this kind of house is not very common in the Li area, and most of the rooms have been replaced by gold roofs, and the Li people near the towns have been living in tiled houses.

Li clothing is made of cotton and linen. Li people mostly wear lapeled collarless tops, and women wear lapeled sleeveless open-chested tops with tube skirts embroidered with various designs. Li brocade is the most famous textile handicrafts of the Li people, known for its technical sophistication and fine, colorful and rich in features, and has a high artistic and aesthetic value.

Chewing betel nut is a hobby of the Li people, and betel nut is an indispensable delicacy for hospitality and marriage. It is said that betel nut can help digestion, drive away tapeworms, lower blood pressure, and stimulate the mind and stomach.

Betel nut is said to help digestion, drive away tapeworms, lower blood pressure and stimulate the stomach.

Betel nut is also said to help digestion, drive away tapeworms, lower blood pressure and stimulate the stomach. Dance, squatting on each side of four people, each person holding the end of the bamboo pole with both hands, according to the rhythm of Zhanghe knocking, dancers with the bamboo pole Zhanghe, two feet constantly jumping up and down, making a variety of wonderful movements, the dance is quite enthusiastic, fascinating.

"March 3" is a traditional festival of the Li people. On the day of the festival, all villages will hold ancestor worship ceremonies, young men and women dressed up to gather together, each in the form of a song to invite the person of interest outside of the tribe, and then a pair of lovers dispersed to the jungle in the bamboo or the mountains by the river to tell each other their feelings. At night, bonfires are lit and people play games to their heart's content. At dawn, men and women in love say goodbye, send each other love tokens, and promised to meet on the next year's "March 3rd".

Festivals

The Li people, in the course of their historical development, have formed their own festivals, which are an integral part of the customs of the Li people, and also a facet of their social, cultural and psychological state.

The festivals of the Li people are closely related to the Li's own calendar. Before the liberation of the Li people's festivals, in the neighboring Han areas and the Li and Han mixed areas, most of them used the lunar calendar, and the festivals were the same as those of the Han people. For example, the Spring Festival, the Ching Ming Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, the Ghost Festival, "Mid-Autumn Festival, Chung Yeung Festival, Winter Solstice, New Year's Eve and so on. For the Li people, the grandest and most common festivals are the Spring Festival and March 3rd.

"Spring Festival"

"Spring Festival" is usually celebrated from the first day of the first month to the fifteenth day of the first month in the Li ethnic area. At that time, every family cleans the courtyard, repairs the "boat-shaped house", puts up red couplets, washes clothes and utensils, pounds rice and wraps zongzi, and puts red paper on the door of the house, the wickerwork, and the horns of the oxen, etc., to show good luck. Adults for children to prepare firecrackers, buy fireworks, men, women and children all put on new clothes, clean, joyful, a festive scene. Early in the morning on the first day of the Lunar New Year to pay homage to each other, meet outside to congratulate each other "congratulations, congratulations, a good harvest every year, year after year of happiness". Children are very happy, jumping and jumping, they scramble to the adults to congratulate the New Year, get candy, cakes, dumplings and the New Year's Eve coins. Adults drink wine and sing songs all day and all night. Some are still in accordance with traditional habits, from the first day of the year, men hunting collectively, the whole village **** with the enjoyment of the hunt.

"March 3"

The third day of the third month of the lunar calendar is the most solemn and lively traditional festival of the Li people, who honor their ancestors and heroes through the tradition of "March 3".

Nowadays, the scale of the commemoration is getting bigger and bigger, with thousands or even tens of thousands of people. The content of the event is colorful, and the subject matter of the songs is wide-ranging. In addition to love songs, there are also songs about agricultural affairs, mythological stories, toasts, and songs about the present and the past. In addition to the singing of songs, there are also programs such as the "firewood dance", swinging, clay gun shooting, archery and wrestling.

"Blessing" and "Cow Moon"

Li compatriots in the Heimu area also have other special festivals with ethnic characteristics. For example, in March and July every year, after rice-planting and in October, during the "month of the cow", they hold a collective ceremony of "inviting blessings". At that time, men, women and children gather at the home of the "Mu Tou" and collectively dance the "Blessing Dance", "Lijia Le", etc., beating gongs and drums all night long. On the day of "Cow Day", the cattle owners have to give the cattle to drink a kind of "cow soul stone" soaked wine, to show their wishes for the cattle, and for the plowing cattle to repair the cattle pen, it is forbidden to kill the cattle.

Li families, like Han Chinese, are small, patrilineal families. However, the small family in the Hmu region had a distinctive feature in that it did not become a fully independent production unit until liberation. Its economic role was mainly to take part in the production and distribution of the Hop Mu, to operate handicrafts and sideline industries, to cultivate mountain fences and small gardens, and to deal with the relationship between private property and its own debts.

The marriage system is monogamous. Generally arranged by the parents, betrothed from childhood; aunts and cousins do not marry, the same clan does not marry. It has become customary for the family to "match the family". The bride price was often several cows and a lot of money.

"Putting on the squatters"

The custom of "putting on the squatters" is widespread in the Li ethnic area. Every village has one to several "squatters", known in Li as "boulong boudoirs", where daughters go to live when they grow up. All men of different blood groups can go to "Bulong" to find lovers, blowing and singing, and confessing their love, which reflects the freedom of socialization of unmarried young men and women of the Li ethnic group; on the other hand, however, there are abnormal male-female relationships mixed in with the activity of "putting in the squatters". At the same time, married men and women are also involved in the activity of "putting on a hut", which has a great impact on production, on family harmony and on health. Li region after marriage "not fall husband's family" custom is quite common, out-of-wedlock children are generally not discriminated against, divorce and widow remarriage is relatively free.

The Li people live in a congregation with the same surname. The houses in which they live are mostly "boat-shaped houses" in the Hemanu area, and the houses in the general area are all in the shape of a golden character.

Title and Surname

The title and surname of the relatives of the Li people are very characteristic. The Li people address each other according to their religious relationships, for example, the children of an uncle, no matter how young they are, and the children of an uncle, no matter how old they are, must address the children of the uncle as brother or sister. Therefore, in Li society, you will often hear an older person call a one- or two-year-old brother or sister. When calling someone socially, you can only call them by their first name, not by their family name together with their first name.

The Li people of the Fu surname in Dongfang County were originally five blood groups, each with a surname, and each blood group was divided into a big male, a middle male, and a tail male, called the five surnames and fifteen males. Five surnames can intermarry, and fifteen males can not intermarry within, after a number of generations and can be married in cycles. The same Lai Surname Group, which is divided into several Han surnames in different areas, cannot intermarry although the Han surnames are different.

Clothing

In terms of clothing, women wear buns on the back of their heads, bone hairpins, embroidered headscarves, unbuttoned, open to the chest, and in some places, "Guanshou-style" tops with skirts underneath. Most of the women love to wear earrings, collars, bracelets, and some of them keep the habit of tattooing and tattooing. Men knot mane, some knotted in front of the forehead, some knotted in the back of the head, wrapped around the head, shirt collarless to the chest placket.

Funeral

Funeral ceremonies vary from place to place, Hap Mu area in the event of a death will be fired to report the funeral, the whole village or the whole mine people come to offer condolences, three days do not eat staple food, do not do heavy labor. Generally use a wooden coffin, non-stop coffin, buried on the same day, do not build a tomb mound. If the deceased is a man, buried in the village public **** cemetery, married women from other villages, must be carried back to his mother's family by the mother's family to take care of the funeral, and buried in his father's side of the public **** cemetery. Other areas have superstitious feng shui, stopping coffins, playing fasting, and choosing a place to build a tomb.

Working hard and thrifty, respect for the elderly and love for the young is a virtue of the working people of the Li people, regardless of the elderly and children are always looking for their own ability to do, there are very few idle days. The Li people are hospitable to visiting guests, all warmly treated with cigarettes and wine.

Taboos

There are many taboos during some festivals of the Li people, which belong to superstitious concepts. However, they have some connection with production and life. For example, it is forbidden to speak foul language and unlucky words during the Spring Festival; it is forbidden to wash and sweep the floor on the first day of the Lunar New Year, saying that they are afraid that the money of the whole family will be washed away and swept away. The Li people in the area of the Hop Mu system are forbidden to work in the fields from the first to the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, and on the days of the cow, the bug and the chicken, the mu people can't go down to the fields to cultivate the fields for fear that the seedlings will be attacked by the birds and the beasts. The first day of the Lunar New Year is ready to go hunting in the mountains, also avoid sweeping the ground, or hunting beasts. Chopping mountain fences must choose auspicious days such as Dragon Day, Horse Day, Rabbit Day, etc. Meanwhile, the mu head cannot sleep during the daytime, otherwise the crops will not be able to withstand the wind and rain. In the Cow Festival on March 8, it is forbidden to kill cows, and they should be given a kind of wine dipped in cow soul stone to ensure a good harvest in the coming year. People are not allowed to cross the stove, step on it with their feet or cut it with knives, etc. If they do so, it is said that the "God of the Stove" will become angry and cause illness in the family.

Language

Language and writing

The Li have their own language, which belongs to the Li branch of the Zhuang-Dong language family of the Sino-Tibetan language family, with dialectal differences in different areas. The development of the Li language has been greatly influenced by the Chinese language, as the Li have had close ties with the Han Chinese throughout history. In areas where various ethnic groups live in mixed communities, the Li people can generally speak Chinese (Hainan dialect), and have absorbed many Chinese words in the Li language. Today the Li have their own script, a Li script based on the Latin alphabet.

Residential Characteristics

The Li people chose small plains in the valleys, river terraces or flat stream slopes as addresses for their villages. The principles of land selection are: close to cultivated land, close to rivers and streams; the terrain should be high, with a certain slope; the place should be "clean", i.e., there should be fewer beasts, and it should not be too close to the main transportation routes. Its geological surface layer is mostly sandy clay layer, the following is mostly sandy gravel layer, soil quality are generally good, bearing capacity can meet the building requirements.

The villages of the Li ethnic group are mostly surrounded by tall broad-leaved forests and shrubs. Therefore, you can't see any residential houses outside the village, and the subtropical village scenery is the same scenic feature as that of the Li compatriots' residence ****.

"Boat-shaped house"

The boat-shaped house is the traditional housing of the Li people, which is the "dry bar" left over from the ancient times. In the Han "pyramid" shaped house has not yet been introduced to the Li area, boat-shaped house was the main form of housing for the Li people on Hainan Island. Due to this kind of house is more inclined to half-overhead or horizontal low overhead shape, so it can also be called dry rail construction of derivative types, is rich in national and local characteristics of the Li traditional housing type.

The boat-shaped house is characterized by a longitudinal rectangular plan, and the whole house consists of two parts: the front porch and the living room. The whole roof *** such as boat-shaped, bamboo and wood frame, rattan bundling, thatched roof, to the ground, the house is not compartmentalized, open the door to the head, the door on the eaves of the extension, the eaves for the rest, the place to put things, generally do not have a window, it is said that the window will be "evil spirits" into the house, haunted by people and animals, causing disease. Therefore, the whole room is dark and poorly ventilated. In short, the boat-shaped house has the wind and rain, warm in winter and cool in summer, but also slightly can take into account the advantages of ventilation. At present, the boat-shaped house is still popular in Baisha, Changjiang, Dongfang, Ledong, Baoting, Qiongzhong and other counties in some areas.

Pyramid thatched roof

It is not the original Li, but the Li people learned from the Han. Its advantages are labor-saving and material-saving, good ventilation and lighting, easy drainage, etc. It is characterized by the rectangular shape of the whole house, the roof with a golden roof instead of a round-arched boat-shaped roof, the eaves are high, the main door is at the front of the house, and there are many kinds of huts such as single-room, double-room, triple-room, quadruple-room, and courtyard-type.

The jinja house consists of a front porch, a living room (also called an overhall or a living room), a bedroom and a kitchen, with a foyer after the entrance and bedrooms and kitchens on both sides of the overhall. The living room is the largest, usually about 15 square meters, the bedroom is about 10 square meters, the kitchen is about 8 square meters, the living room is the center of life and living, in the middle of the back wall, there is a shrine or shrine shelf, worship ancestors. Inside the bedroom, there is a wooden or bamboo bed and some other items, etc. The kitchen is equipped with a stove, water tank, cooking utensils, baking racks, etc. The kitchen is also equipped with a kitchen with a stove, water tank, cooking utensils, baking racks, etc.

Additionally, the Li people also live in brick houses, similar to the mainland's row-house type of family quarters.

Three stone stoves

Li region's stoves - three stone stoves (also known as the character stoves, horseshoe-shaped stoves) is located indoors, the main reason is: Li people in the past backwardness of the economy and culture, life is difficult, and had to build a fire in the winter indoor warmth; the Li region, more mosquitoes and malaria, indoor smoky role of the role of mosquitoes to avoid the disease; and take care of the fire needs. Li people's homes, no matter from which point of view, all belong to the same system, the same source of flow, but there are some differences, each dialect area has its own characteristics.

Scientific knowledge

The Li people on Hainan Island in the process of long-term development, both in production and life, have accumulated a considerable wealth of experience and knowledge. In agricultural production, the Li people have mastered all kinds of knowledge about crop growth, soil identification, choice of arable land and farming arrangements. For example, in the case of rice, more than twenty varieties can be distinguished from each other, and different adaptable lands and planting periods can be selected according to their growth characteristics. In the practice of production, the Li people also continue to accumulate a lot of knowledge based on local animal activities and natural phenomena change the law of predicting the weather.

The Li people are good at hunting, and they can choose the right time to take hunting methods such as encircling, tracking, ambushing, digging traps, nailing bamboo tips, ambushing guns, hanging bombs, attacking with fire, and releasing poison, etc. according to the living habits of different beasts, which has a very good effect.

Women are good at spinning and weaving, and the spinning of kapok is particularly ingenious. Pedal spinning machines utilized spinning wheels and drive belts. Li women were able to utilize wild plant dyes on cloth. The yarn was dyed in various colors such as green, black, yellow, yellow, red, etc. In addition to this there were some areas that created the technically complex Val dyeing method. On the light yarn, various patterns are tied with fine threads, and after dyeing, when the fine threads are removed, the white patterns are revealed, and then the colored weft threads are woven in to complete the fabrics with delicate patterns. These are the results of the Li people's good understanding of the plant world and the techniques of weaving and dyeing after a long period of observation and practice.

The Li people mastered pottery-making technology a long time ago, and were able to make earthenware pots, jars, wine bottles, bowls, vases, pots and so on. The Li people close to the Han areas were also able to burn kilns like those of the Han people to make various kinds of pottery with smooth colors and beautiful patterns. These ceramics are loved by the neighboring peoples, and foreign merchants also buy them in large quantities from the Li area and transport them to the mainland for sale.

The Li people also have a profound knowledge of medicine. Many herbal doctors know more than a hundred kinds of herbal properties, and can use hot compresses, baked sweats, fire moxibustion and other treatments according to different conditions, and there are many effective medicines for poisonous snakes and mad dog bites. The Li people have accumulated rich medical knowledge in the process of treating diseases and saving people's lives, and have become the best in subduing the "miasma and plague", thus Li medicine has become a part of the treasure house of Chinese herbal medicine. The basic method of treating illnesses in Li medicine is similar to that of Chinese medicine, which is divided into the contents of looking, smelling, questioning and cutting.

In the Li people also retained a more primitive calendar, generally similar to the Han region of the "twelve branches of the earth" to calculate the sun and the moon, to twelve days for a cycle, the daily animal as a title, such as chicken day, dog day, pig day, cow day, insect day ...... etc.

Most of the Li people have used the Han Chinese weights and measures, but the valley mu area has been using their own calculation methods. For example: rice to bunch as the smallest unit, six bunches for a save, six save for a pair, two pairs for a law, two law for a thumb. The acreage of a field is the unit of saving, and the number of acres planted is said to be the number of saves planted. Buy and sell cattle, the length of the horn or the length of the body to calculate its size, not weight. The concept of number was weak, and the abacus was seldom used. To calculate complex figures, they often use straw or firewood as entities.

Oral Literature

Since the Li people do not have their own written language, what has been handed down to them is mainly oral literature, which includes a variety of genres such as ancient myths, tales and legends, songs, proverbs and riddles. Many of these folk literatures are distinctly popular and rich in the flavor of life. Through the artistic typicality of literature, they portray the local conditions of the Li people, record the deeds of the working people in conquering nature, and glorify the ideal heroes and heroines of the people.

The Story of the Flood and the Gourd Melon are the most widely circulated myths and legends, which reflect the life and struggle of the ancient Li people, especially the episode of the "marriage of brother and sister", which reflects some remnants of the primitive marriage system. The story of "Hercules" is very similar to the Han Chinese myth of "Houyi". In many legendary stories, such as "Tengu" and "Yogashira", animals such as dogs and birds often appear as positive images of goodness and beauty. Reflecting class love and hatred, there are "Five Sisters and the South Snake" and "Bamboo Treasure Tubes", etc.; criticizing parents' arranged marriages, there are "The Story of the Young Girl and the Little Dragon" and "Bravely Playing Drags", etc., all of which have been widely circulated and are very popular.

Religion

The Li people have not formed a complete religious system, but the feudal superstitions are very heavy, popular ancestor worship and nature worship, and ancestor worship is the main. This is due to the ignorance of the people in ancient times when productivity was extremely low and the influence of Buddhist and Taoist concepts. The religious beliefs of the Li people are varied and permeate all aspects of social life, and are of a primitive religious type.

The Li people used to believe that there were two different worlds, the yin and the yang, and that if one did good deeds in the yang world, one would be able to return to one's ancestors in the yin world and live in peace; and that if one did not have a good nature and did harm to heaven and the earth, one would not be tolerated by one's ancestors and would be punished by all kinds of drudgery after one's death.

The Li people were strangers to Buddhism and Taoism, but the Buddhist moral concept of reincarnation has y influenced people's ideology. For example, it is believed that people's misfortunes are predestined; that they have sinned in their past lives and will suffer in their future lives; and that they can only enjoy happiness in their next lives if they work hard in this life and build up a wide range of moral virtues, and so on.

The Li villages generally have a village stove god, which is one of the primitive gods worshipped by the people in the villages. It is said that the god of the village stove was once a hero who defended the security of the village.

Perhaps because of too much superstition about ghosts and gods, before the liberation of the Li people in their daily lives in the ghosts of very frequent activities, such as marriage, funeral, exorcism of evil spirits, home, get a son to return the wish, young children to take the name, etc., have to ask the Taoist priests to read the scriptures and do the deed.

In the Li and Han mixed areas or close to the Han area of the Li funeral customs in particular superstitious yin and yang feng shui, which is related to their nature worship. Sorcery is the main superstitious activity of the Li people, among which there are all kinds of divination, including cup divination, chicken bone divination, egg divination these are quite local characteristics of divination. Chicken divination, egg divination, killing livestock for ghosts, in the disaster avoidance and purification, mountain hunting and mountain cutting, all with, which reflects the plague of Hainan Island, the ecological environment and the traditional history of the Li people's nomadic farming, fishing and hunting life.

Li shamans called "ghost male", witch called "mother mother", they are responsible for communicating between the two worlds, as an intermediary to convey the will of the ghosts and gods, but not out of production. Magic weapons and offerings, mostly with bamboo and grass, sunflower palm leaf rain hat, chicken feathers, rice, betel nut, glutinous rice wine and so on. Quite a local color of Hainan Island.

In the neighboring Han area, due to the influence of Taoism, there are a few people believe that "Huaguang", "five thunder", "Xuan Tian God" and so on. Christianity has also been introduced to the Li ethnic area, and a few people believe in "God", worship on Sundays, and recite the "Bible" when their family members are sick. But where Taoism and Christianity have had an impact, ancestor worship and nature worship remain.

In the old days, those absurd superstitions put a heavy spiritual yoke on the spiritual world of the Li people. In those days, the following types of superstitious activities were practiced in the Li area:

One was the sacrifice of "mountain ghosts". Many of the Li people still believe that the birds and animals in the mountains and forests are under the jurisdiction of the "mountain ghosts", and that the only way to catch prey is to get the consent of the "Oba", the chief authorized by the "mountain ghosts", so that they can be caught. The only way to catch them is with the consent of the leader of the "mountain ghosts" - "Oba".

The second sacrifice is the "earth ghost". In the past, the Li people believed that a good crop harvest was the gift of the "earth mother" and sacrificed to the earth mother to express their expectations and gratitude. In other areas of the Harmonized Mu System, sacrifices to the "ghosts of the earth" were prevalent.

Three sacrifices are made to the "Leigong Ghost". The Li people, who are mainly agricultural people, believe that celestial phenomena such as clouds, wind and thunder have "spirituality", and the most frightening of them are the ghosts of the Thunder God, the wind ghost and the sun ghost.

The fourth sacrifice "stove ghost". People have a kind of reverence and worship for fire, and worry that if they offend the "stove god", they will be punished.

Fifth, the "ancestor ghosts". This is a manifestation of ancestor worship, and the Li believe that ancestor ghosts are more frightening than other ghosts.

The Li people also have totem worship, in terms of animals to snakes, cows, birds, etc. as the main object; in terms of plants to rice, cottonwood, plantain, gourd claw, etc. as the main object.