The Origin and Significance of Qiang Tower

The architecture of Qiang nationality is very distinctive. Because the Qiang people live in the upper reaches of the Minjiang River on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, there are many mountains and steep terrain here. Qiang villages are generally built halfway up the mountain, so the Qiang people are called "ethnic groups in the clouds".

Strolling through Minshan Mountain, you can see the unique Qiang Pagoda and stone houses from time to time. Qiang architecture is famous for its watchtowers, stone houses and cable houses.

Qiang people call the watchtower "Qionglong". Diaolou has a long history. As early as more than 2,000 years ago, it was recorded in the Biography of Southwest Yi in the later Han Dynasty that the Qiang people "lived on the mountain, built with stones as houses, and were more than ten feet high".

Diaolou is a building used by Qiang people to defend against enemies and store grain, grass and firewood, which is usually built next to cottages. The height of the watchtower is between 10 and 30 meters, and it has four corners, six corners and eight corners, and some of them are as high as thirteen or four floors. The building materials of the watchtower are stone chips and yellow mud, and the wall base is 1.35 meters deep, made of stone chips. The inside of the stone wall is vertical to the ground, and the outside is slightly inclined from bottom to top.

The construction of the watchtower is amazing. Artisans don't draw pictures, hang lines and support columns, but rely on superb skills and experience. After the tower is completed, it is stable and durable.

Although the watchtowers in the Qiang area can still be seen now, they are much less than before, and some watchtowers have been built in many places, mostly for viewing. In some well-preserved primitive cottages, there are still watchtowers in use, which are generally used as part of Qiang people's houses to store food.

As early as 2000 years ago, it was recorded in the book Biography of Southwestern Foreigners in the Later Han Dynasty that Qiang people "lived by mountains and built houses with stones, more than ten feet high". Since the Tang Dynasty, the Qiang people migrated to the northwest for various reasons and went to Tibet and Qinghai, so now the Qiang people's watchtowers are also called Tibetan watchtowers. The watchtowers are mostly built next to village houses, with a height of 10 to 30 meters, which are used to guard against the enemy and store grain, grass and firewood. The watchtower has four corners, six corners and eight corners. Some are as high as thirteen or fourteen stories. Building materials are stone chips and yellow mud. The foundation depth of the wall is135m, and it is made of stone chips. The inside of the stone wall is vertical to the ground, and the outside is slightly inclined from bottom to top. During the construction, there is no need for drawing, stringing and column support, and it is all based on superb technology and experience. This building is strong and durable. 1988, Yongan Village, Qiang Township, Beichuan County, Sichuan Province, discovered the ruins of the ancient castle of Amin Dynasty "Yongpingbao". After hundreds of years of vicissitudes, it is still well preserved.

Today's Qiang people are a branch of the ancient Qiang people, calling themselves Ermayina. He called it "Qiang" because it painted sheep, and Teng "herded in Xirong" (Historical Records. Biography of Xiqiao).

Qiang people are divided into "pre-ancient Qiang", also known as "East Qiang" (the Yanhuang nationality before the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period) and "Post-ancient Qiang", also known as Xiqiang (the "Okoyi" nationality of Xiqiang after the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period).

* * * The same feature is that sheep are sacrificed, and the sacrificial picture is high.

After the ancient Qiang was unified by Qin, it merged with the eastern tribes, forming the embryonic form of the Han nationality and all ethnic groups (Jane Bozan's History of Pre-Qin).

Since the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, the post-ancient Qiang people have flooded in from the northwest and developed into today's Han, Yi, Bai, Yi, Na, Yi, Pu, Mi, Yi and Yi nationalities. (A Brief History of Qiang Nationality) The so-called "Qiang Nationality" post-liberation, liberation is only one of the ancient western Qiang ministries. Today's Qiang people, as well as the descendants of the ancient Qiang people, have experienced many wars, struggles, migrations and vicissitudes, and finally settled in today's place. Today, this ancient Xiqiang tribe "Qiang" called itself "Zi, La and Zu" before entering the Minjiang River and Fujiang River basins where it lives today (ten years after Zhuang Xueben's The Journey to the West). After the "Qiang War", they were able to settle in Aba Prefecture, Sichuan Province, and later called themselves "Ermayina people".

Traditional natural stone houses and tall towers (building tall towers is a unique traditional skill of the Qiang people. It is usually made of natural stone, but it is very strong.

Sabre, pottery jar and wine culture: making characteristic pottery jar, especially corrugated ear jar, is a specialty of Qiang nationality, especially Qiang nationality. Almost every man of Jie, Fang, Qian, Qiang and other nationalities has a knife. This is related to their frequent wars and their convenient use in life, such as cutting meat and firewood. "Miscellaneous wine" is a grain wine made of highland barley or wheat, which is drunk collectively; "Drunkenness" is a major feature of the Qiang people. Qiang people, regardless of gender, are proud of being drunk and often get drunk at parties.

Ethnic group and ethnic dance: Salang dance, a circle dance with ethnic interest, is homophonic with Zangguo Village. Men, women and children, Qiang people and all ethnic groups like to dance in circles together. This dance forms a circle, which means that all villagers are United and respectful, and that God and the collective are harmonious and happy. Qiang nationality and national culture pay attention to "yin and yang", and sometimes men and women are divided into circles when dancing. Sometimes a man and a woman dance hand in hand.

Marriage has special etiquette, customs: more etiquette, covering your head. Legend has it that the hijab was handed down from Qiang people to Han people.

The traditional costumes of Qiang nationality include fine linen robes for men and women, blue, sheepskin waistcoat, Baotou handkerchief, belt and leggings. Qiang women have a long-standing reputation for embroidery.

Qiang people's houses are flat-topped houses made of stone chips, which are square, mostly with three floors, each of which is more than 3 meters high. The bottom of the roof platform is a wooden board or slate, which extends out of the wall to form an eaves. Wood or slate is densely covered with branches or bamboo branches, and then covered with loess and chicken manure for compaction, with a thickness of about 0.35 meters. There are holes and slots for water diversion, so it is warm in winter and cool in summer. The roof platform is the place where children and the elderly thresh, bask in the grain, do needlework and play games. Some buildings have arcades to facilitate communication.

The mountains in Qiang area are high and dangerous. In order to facilitate transportation, Qiang people created ropes more than 400 years ago. There are cave doors on both sides of the river. A stone foundation or a large wooden pillar is erected in the door, and bamboo ropes with arm thickness are hung on the pillar, ranging from several to 10. Wooden boards are laid on bamboo ropes, and bamboo rope handrails higher than "surface" 1 m are set on both sides.

There are two kinds of plank roads: wooden stacks and stone stacks. Wooden stacks are built in dense forests, paved with wood and mixed with earth and stone; Put a stone pile on the cliff, make a hole in the blue rock, and insert wood for "cutting".

Qiang folk masons often go out to work during the slack season. The world-famous Dujiangyan project in guanxian, Sichuan has a history of more than 200O years, and it is still benefiting the people, including the sweat and wisdom of the ancient people.

Chunhou's ancient heritage, long history and long-term closed living environment have preserved many simple and heavy ancient heritages in the spiritual culture of Qiang people.

The architecture of Qiang nationality is very distinctive. Because the Qiang people live in the upper reaches of the Minjiang River on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, there are many mountains and steep terrain here. Qiang villages are generally built halfway up the mountain, so the Qiang people are called "ethnic groups in the clouds".

Strolling through Minshan Mountain, you can see the unique Qiang Pagoda and stone houses from time to time. Qiang architecture is famous for its watchtowers, stone houses and cable houses.

Diaolou is a building used by Qiang people to defend against enemies and store grain, grass and firewood, which is usually built next to cottages. The height of the watchtower is between 10 and 30 meters, and it has four corners, six corners and eight corners, and some of them are as high as thirteen or four floors. The building materials of the watchtower are stone chips and yellow mud, and the wall base is 1.35 meters deep, made of stone chips. The inside of the stone wall is vertical to the ground, and the outside is slightly inclined from bottom to top.

The construction of the watchtower is amazing. Artisans don't draw pictures, hang lines and support columns, but rely on superb skills and experience. After the tower is completed, it is stable and durable. Yongpingbao, the ruins of an ancient castle in the Ming Dynasty, was discovered in Shui 'an Village, Qiang Township, Beichuan County in 1 9 8 8. It has survived for hundreds of years and is still well preserved.

According to different locations, watchtowers have different functions. * * * can be divided into four types: home watchtower, village watchtower, sniper watchtower and beacon tower. In Feng Qiang Village, family blockhouses are the most common. Most of them are built in front of and behind houses, which are closely connected with houses. Once the war breaks out, they can play the role of a fortress. In ancient times, Feng Qiang Village had such an established habit. If a boy is born, a watchtower will be built and an iron will be buried under the watchtower's foundation. Every year when a boy grows up, he has to build another watchtower and take out the buried iron for forging. It was not until the child was eighteen that the watchtower was capped. At my child's coming-of-age ceremony, I gave him the iron forged into a sharp steel knife for eighteen years. At that time, if anyone didn't have a home, his son couldn't even marry a daughter-in-law. It can be seen that the Qiang people's custom of building blockhouses has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The stronghold is usually the command stronghold of the stronghold leader (also used for ancestor worship). Blockade bunkers are generally built at the strategic pass of the stockade, which plays the role of "one bunker should be closed and ten thousand people should not open it". Beacon towers are mostly in high places, which are used to transmit signals between villages and can also be used for combat.

The main building materials for the watchtower in Feng Qiang Village are stone, mud, wood and hemp. They cut wheat straw, highland barley straw and hemp straw into inches with a knife, and then mixed them with yellow mud in proportion to make them paste, so that the selected stones can be bonded layer by layer. Its pyramid-shaped modeling structure determines that it is as stable as Mount Tai, coupled with exquisite craftsmanship and strong corrosion-resistant materials, it is known as "the tower will not fall down in a hundred years". Even in the era of cold weapons, it is difficult to hurt its bones and muscles with artillery. It usually takes at least two to three years to build a military tower.

The door of each tower is located a few meters above the ground, and there is a wooden ladder in front of it for people to go up and down; Once the wooden ladder is removed, it is more difficult for the attacker to enter the watchtower than to ascend to heaven. Diaosi is very short, and adults have to bend over to get in and out. The door panel is solid and thick, and there are also many mechanical latches (wooden locks). The bunker has several floors, and each floor has a bunker window (used to throw boulders at the enemy in close combat) and a gun hole. Commanding, long-range, close-up, the enemy is in the light, I am in the dark, and I can attack and defend freely.

Bowa loess bunker group is located on Bowa Mountain in Cook Township, Weizhou Town, Wenchuan County. It is the main form of Tibetan and Qiang traditional military defense bunkers in the western Sichuan Plateau, and is known as "the last yellow land bunker group in China". Founded in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, it is a key cultural relic protection unit in Aba Prefecture. According to the data, there are two main types of Tibetan and Qiang bunkers in the western Sichuan Plateau: one is stone bunkers made of stones, which are mostly distributed in agricultural counties in Aba and Ganzi prefectures; The other is the yellow mud bunker rammed with mud, which is mainly distributed in Wenchuan County of Aba Prefecture, Xiangcheng County of Ganzi Prefecture, Xinlong County of Liangshan Prefecture and Muli County, among which the yellow mud bunker in the four corners of Xiangcheng County is the most majestic, reaching more than 30 meters. Most of the yellow earth bunkers scattered in the two States in history have been submerged in the dust of history or replaced by stone bunkers. Surprisingly, however, the Bowa loess bunker group has survived all kinds of disasters intact. Because the bunker group is made of yellow mud and is light purple, it is also called copper bunker group.

Bowa Loess Pagoda stands tall on the top of Bowa Mountain. The Bowa loess bunker group consists of five loess bunkers, which are distributed within the range of 200 meters from east to west and 0/50 meters from north to south/kloc-0. The bunker is a quadrangular yellow earth bunker with a rectangular body plane, a bottom length of 4.5 meters, a width of 1.64 meters and a wall thickness of 0.74 meters. The whole bunker is slightly divided up and down, and the built-in wooden shelves are layered. A small T-shaped window is opened in the middle of the four walls of each floor for observation or shooting. A wooden bucket arch building is set at the top to shelter from the wind and rain, and a door is opened at the bottom, which is higher. There is no decoration on the outside of the tower, and every side is as straight as a chisel. The heights of the five loess towers range from18m to 20m. Bowa loess bunkers are horns of each other, forming a complete defense system, which is mainly used to defend against invasion and robbery in wartime. Once something happens, nearby residents, women, children and children can all go in to hide. Usually, we use earthen bunkers to store grain and grass.

Bowa loess pile reflects the aesthetic tendency of the Qiang people in Ermayina to pursue deep, warm, simple and profound feelings. The ancients said: "The mountain is not high, but the fairy is not famous." The fairies in Bowa Mountain are the towering yellow bunker group, which can show the indomitable national personality of the Qiang people in Ermayina and dance with the mountain.

The ancient stone wall of Yongpingbao in Beichuan collapsed in many places, and the gate was cracked and deformed. Maoxian Yingpanshan Neolithic cultural site, Xerox village site, Cook plank road, Qingpu Menhe dam site, sarcophagus burial, shadowless tower, etc. It was destroyed. In addition, Beichuan Qiang Museum and Qiang Folk Museum collapsed, and a large number of Qiang cultural relics and archives were buried or seriously damaged, which had a great impact on the inheritance of Qiang culture.