Traditional Culture Encyclopedia - Traditional customs - Existing and disappearing villages: White Tea Ancient Village and Ocha Ancient Village.

Existing and disappearing villages: White Tea Ancient Village and Ocha Ancient Village.

I have always been interested in Xinle Rock, the most beautiful place in Hainan Island written by German Stub 90 years ago. Later, I learned that Xinleyan had been submerged when Daguangba Reservoir was built, so I planned to visit Baicha and Aocha villages around Daguangba Reservoir.

white tea

Before I came, my friend always suggested that there was no need to go to Russia, where the boathouse had disappeared. I asked him if he was sure. He said he wasn't sure. He heard about it. I think I'd better go and have a look. The first stop is to go to Ocha village.

I remember Rucha earlier than white tea. About ten years ago, there were some pictures and words about the movie Rucha in the circle of friends, which was probably my first impression of owning a boathouse. I remember the boathouse in Ocha village and the people who lived there. Not long from now, maybe it won't disappear. I thought so before I went.

"Russian check" movie poster

Follow the navigation to Ocha Village, Bian Jiang Township, Dongfang City. After passing through the new village, I can't find the old village. Duan, who is also a day student, said that there was no such cement road when he came last time, but he saw a lot of boathouses not far after crossing the new village in his memory. I asked a passing villager to feed the chicken. She said that the place where we stood was the old village, and the boathouse was gone. So I walked around and saw some abandoned boathouses in the bushes.

The building materials of Li boathouse are wood, bamboo, red and white rattan, thatch, grass mud and so on, which can not be preserved for a long time. After the villagers in Ocha village moved to the new village, the boathouse in the old village collapsed in a short time. Walking into several collapsed houses, you can see damaged walls made of straw mud, roofs made of bamboo and thatch falling inside the houses, and some houseboats still have some daily necessities left. Close your eyes and you can feel the life scene here. It is understood that the boathouse must be inhabited all the year round and often make a fire to cook, so as to keep the air in the house dry and the thatch will not rot.

In the 1990s, Hainan Province implemented the thatched cottage renovation project. By the end of 20 10, all the ethnic minority compatriots in the province had "visited each other" and bid farewell to the history of living in thatched cottages. At present, only Chubao Village in Wuzhishan City and Baicha Village in Bian Jiang Township of Dongfang City are listed as provincial-level cultural relics protection units, which can preserve their ancient original appearance. Because it was not listed as a provincial cultural relics protection unit, the boathouse in Oha Village gradually disappeared.

After bidding farewell to Ocha village, I came to Baicha village a few kilometers away.

Baicha Village is the most intact Li boathouse natural village in Hainan. It has the reputation of "the last ancient village of the Li nationality" and "living fossil" of the traditional folk houses of China ethnic minorities, with more than 80 thatched houses. In 2008, the boathouse in this village was listed in the national intangible cultural heritage protection list, and it is the third batch of provincial-level cultural relics protection units in Hainan Province, and it is a "traditional ancient village in China". In 2009, there were 7/kloc-0 households with more than 350 people living in the old village of Baicha, and now the whole village has moved to the new village of Baicha. After the villagers moved out, no one lived in the boat house. The government hired the inheritor of the boathouse to guide the repair and new construction, and arranged several villagers to do daily fire prevention and some simple management work in the village. After that, various traditional boathouses will be built to show people the evolution of boathouses.

As a tourist, I walked and patted outside the White Tea Village, feeling the beautiful scenery and the customs of the ancient village. White tea village is surrounded by mountains and waters. At first, it felt like other Li villages, such as Yazhen Village and Hongshui Village. Perhaps the early ancestors of Li found a landform suitable for survival along the current before they settled down. Thousands of years ago, Li compatriots lived in various parts of Hainan Island. Later, the outside world began to establish a sphere of influence and suppressed the Li compatriots, so that the Li compatriots recorded in ancient books only lived in the surrounding areas of Wuzhishan. Li nationality has no writing, and history can only be passed down from generation to generation. Now if you want to know the source of the boathouse, you can only rely on some legends fabricated by modern people. However, I think the boathouse of the Li nationality should be a common architectural form of all ethnic groups in southern China in ancient times. However, in the process of expanding the territory since the Qin Dynasty, other places have merged with other buildings, and the form of boathouse is no longer retained.

As "the last ancient village of Li nationality", Baicha Village has all the architectural elements of a traditional Li nationality village. In addition to all kinds of family houses, I also saw "Lombardo" mentioned in the book here. Walking to the field outside the village, I saw the boathouse swaying under the protection of coconut trees. Perhaps it is the lack of a peripheral fence in Baicha Village, which was used for village defense in ancient times. I envy many friends who came here a few years ago. What I saw was a village filled with smoke and fireworks, but what I saw was a quiet landscape painting.

Several "unconventional" boathouses caught my attention. There are wooden boards and tenon-mortise roof beams, which are a bit like traditional houses in Hainan. I think this should be the process of the integration of Li boathouses and Hainan folk houses. If it develops further, it may be in the form of Chubao Village (written in another article about Chubao Village). If it develops further, it will be close to the modern residential model.

In addition to the traditional appearance, the boathouse in Baicha Village is almost empty, without any furniture and daily necessities. The villagers of white tea are all Li people in Mobil dialect, and there is only Fu surname in the village. I opened the ethnography of Hainan Island, and through the houses of Mobil dialect recorded by Stub, I roughly imagined the living atmosphere of Baicha Village:

The houses in Mobil look like toasters, but many of them are tortoise shells. The eaves wall is only about 1 m high, and it is made of wooden sticks and sand-mixed clay. Side walls are often made of bamboo poles of the same material as eaves walls. The beam is supported by simple wooden columns, and the roof is built on the beam and eaves. The roof is often built on the side column parallel to the middle column. The side columns are connected with the central column through longitudinal beams or cross beams. On some beams, stacks made of wooden sticks or bamboo poles are used to form a space under the roof for storing grain and various tools. The roof structure, which almost hangs to the ground on the eaves wall, is made of wooden sticks or bamboo poles into a right-angled cross, covered with thick straw rows, and the slightly larger house forms a special tortoise shell shape. This is to unfold the straw raft into a dome shape, and then radially arrange trusses under the straw bundle to lengthen the front and rear roofs to form a tortoise shell shape. Part of the left and right space of the protruding part of the roof is used as a pigsty, and most of them are short bamboo platforms made of bamboo poles, with doors on the front and rear side walls. The house is divided into two parts: a big room in front and a small room with a bed in the back. Furniture is all simple things. The "bed rest" is a bamboo platform 30 cm above the ground, covered with cushions. Tables, benches and chairs are very simple things, all made of square boards. The height of the chair is only 30 cm. When sitting, you should have a very simple wooden platform with a height of 20 cm. This wooden platform is used as a pillow when sleeping. The stove is made of three stones with a Chinese iron pot on it. Cages or other gadgets are usually hung on the truss of the roof. Generally speaking, rooms are only lit by fire.

In almost every article about Li villages, the author will quote Stubo's prediction: "Many ancient things are disappearing unconsciously. The active south has surpassed the conservative north, and Hainan Island is about to approach a huge and rapid civilization movement. These things must be written down today, so as not to be completely lost, and they can still be seen as they are, because this is the last time. " Talking about Stub's remarks 90 years ago, I left the old village of Baicha, which still exists, and the old village of Aocha, which has disappeared.