What are the ethnic customs of the Yi people?

Most Yi villages are located in a beautiful environment with mountains and water. The villagers generally follow the direction of the water and the mountains, choosing to build houses on gentle slopes facing the sun, with the wind at their backs, drawing water, and with convenient transportation.

The Yi houses in the flat areas are generally tiled houses with earth and wood structures. The layout of the houses is mostly three main rooms, which are used as the hall, bedroom and storehouse, and the left and right sides each have two ear rooms as the kitchen and utility room, commonly known as "three rooms and two ears". The main room in the middle of a room is the hall, set up commonly known as "pot Zhuang" pond, above a support pot of iron three feet or three pieces of support pot stone. The fire pit is a place for cooking rice and vegetables, and it is also a place for the whole family to eat around the fire, talk about the day, rest and treat guests.

The most distinctive feature of the Yi traditional houses is the "earth palm house". It is made of blocks of stone for the wall foundation, with billet wall or local sticky and tough red earth rammed wall, wall beams, dyeing with bamboo, tree branches and thatch or straw, above a layer of thin mud, and then paved with fine soil, sprinkled with water and pounded, patted flat, and made into a platform roof. The "earth palm house" is made of local materials, simple and easy to build, warm in winter and cool in summer, comfortable and pleasant. For the Yi people living in the forested areas, their traditional house is the "Pallet House". This is the use of broken logs, cross-stacked for the wall, the roof covered with split boards for the tiles, and then pressed on the stone, commonly known as "tile room".

Dietary practices

Pingba Yi district of the old hundred sex, weekdays to rice, corn wheat, taro and other staples, while the alpine mountainous areas to corn, buckwheat, taro as the staple food. The side dishes are vegetables, beans, fruits and vegetables, and sheep, pigs, chickens and other meat.

On New Year's Day, or guests to the door, the host to kill chickens and slaughter sheep and even pigs to treat guests. At the same time, they do not use a knife to kill animals, kill chickens and ducks with a hand pinch, kill sheep, pigs with a wooden stick and other pounding on the head, so commonly known as "playing animals", or "playing sheep", "playing pigs". Interestingly, before the slaughter, the host should ask the guests to check the livestock, to show the owner of the city will and respect for the guests. When cooking, the host chopped into fist-sized pieces of meat stewed in the pot. Eat fresh and fragrant, very tasty. Because the meat like weight, but also because of the hand to eat, so it is called "weight meat".

Yi people are addicted to wine, men, women, young and old can drink, they drink, often first poured into a large bowl of wine, you drink a mouthful of me, I sip a mouthful of him, we take turns to drink the bowl of wine. The Yi family is known for this way of drinking, which is called "spinning wine".

The Yi people are very hospitable. When they feast, often only the male host accompanies the guest, or let the guest eat first, the hostess waits for the guest to finish eating before eating. So, when you are a guest of the Yi family, you can't eat all the food and wine. At the same time, after the meal when you leave, the guests should give some gifts or leave some money, to show appreciation.

Costumes

The Yi are a smart, intelligent people who dress up with their dexterous hands, and with the many branches of the Yi, the costumes of different places are unique. As a result, among all the ethnic groups in China, the Yi costumes are very colorful.

In the Xiaoliangshan area by the Jinsha River, the Yi men and women dress in a simple style. Men generally leave a three-inch square piece of hair on the top of the forehead, which the Yi people call "Zi'er", and regard it as the god of heaven who can master the bad luck and good fortune. It is sacrosanct, no one may not touch, otherwise, it is the greatest insult to him, and will be disaster. Thus, the Han Chinese honored as "heavenly Bodhisattva". They also use three or four meters long black cloth wrapped around the head, and will be rolled into a long spine at the end of the head of the thick and thin thumbs, the Yi language called "sub post". Because it is high in front of the left side of the forehead, looks handsome, the Han Chinese called "hero bun". Men also wear a string of red and yellow ear beads on the left ear, beads and then decorated with red silk thread. They generally wear a black narrow-sleeved, lace-encrusted right-over-right short cloth coat, underneath a wide pleated, rather like a skirt pants, outside and then draped in a lower end of the fringe decorated with a long tassel piqi. The Yi people called the felt "Chalwa", with black woven with wool. It has many uses: wind and sand, sunny days, rainy days to avoid water, at night with it a body can be wrapped as a bedding, so people's hearts are ready, indispensable from year to year.

Yi women's clothing in the Liangshan Mountains is quite elegant. Young and middle-aged women, for example. They cover their heads with an embroidered square cloth handkerchief, and the front of the handkerchief is folded into a tile, covering their foreheads and then wrapped in woolen threads and hair braids. Both ears are generally wearing silver earrings, earrings, collar decorated with a silver row of flowers. They wear embroidered right-breasted tops that are wide and short, reaching only to the abdomen. The lower body is black, yellow, blue, white colors of cloth around the patchwork into a pleated skirt, skirt length and the ground, long and graceful, walking is swaying around, graceful me. When they go out, they often wear a black to "Chalwa".

The costumes of Yi men in other areas of Chuxiong are different from those of Liangshan Yi people. They generally use black cloth to wrap their heads, but do not keep a "heavenly bodhisattva", do not tie a "hero's bun", and do not wear ear beads on their ears. They usually wear blue or black lapel narrow-sleeved blouse, clothing Yamen and abdomen, lapel on the two rows of cloth buttons, chic and interesting. Some of them are also decorated with flowers along the right pocket. The pants are fat and short to facilitate work in the mountains and fields. Their festival dress is colorful. For example, during the Torch Festival, many young men wear white hats, hats decorated with red and green pom-poms on the brim, the top of the hat inserted into the beautiful color of the pheasant tail. It is said that this is their concept of animal worship in the headdress remains.

The most beautiful are the costumes of the girls and young women. Although they do not wear colorful skirts but blue cloth pants, their right-over-right blouses are mostly embroidered with various flowers, clouds or geometric patterns, and their waistbands are also decorated with beautiful lace. They pay special attention to their headdress. Some village women wear hats, or like a horse tassel flower, or shaped like a brocade chicken, and wear a fish-shaped hat, cocked hat, can be called "blossom".

Marriage customs

Yi marriage is peculiar and interesting, the most interesting is, held a "skirt ceremony" of the young girl, can be in the "playground" in the relationship with the sweethearts, as well as matchmakers and wine betrothal, so that the bride is starving, friends and relatives. The traditional wedding customs such as matchmaking and betrothal with wine, starving the bride, crying all night, pouring water on the bridegroom, robbing the bride on her back, and fighting in the cave are all part of the traditional wedding customs.

(A) the girl for the skirt ceremony: Yi girls into adulthood (generally more than 15 years old), according to custom to hold a grand "skirt ceremony". Skirt ceremony, the girl to let her sisters to her original single braid into a double braid, disk on top of the head. Also wear the original two ears of the white pendant piece or wear ear old line pulled off, replaced with red agate-like coral beads or silver glittering earrings, to show good luck. Finally, the girl took off the original red and white color skirt, replaced with embroidered lace blouse and black, blue, yellow, white and other colorful pleated floor-length skirt. After changing into the new dresses, the girls can go to the "playground" to dance and sing, participate in social activities, and start looking for their sweethearts.

(2) the back of the bride: in accordance with the Yi family rules, the bride out of the cabinet, feet shall not land on the ground, otherwise there will be a heir to the risk of non-fan, to be received by the bride's young man to the back of the bride, and help her on the horse. Marriage on the way back there are all kinds of rules: if the mountains and narrow roads can not ride a horse, by the young man to take turns carrying the bride and walking; wading across the river, but also by the back of the river, the bride's embroidered shoes can not be stained with water.

(3) fighting in the bridal chamber: "According to Yi customs, the night of the bridal chamber, if the bride does not fight back, will be ridiculed: "This is a woman who will not fight back!" It is said that the children they give birth to later will not be recognized by their ancestors and will not be able to enter the "netherworld" after death! Therefore, when the guests leave the banquet, the couple in the bridal chamber, there is still a lot of fighting and wrestling. They wrestled, tore clothes and scratched their faces, and the thumping sound that came out of the cave was heard by all the neighbors.

Religion

①The Yi are a people who worship fire, believing that fire brings light, warmth, cooked food, and freedom from the attacks of wild animals. The fire pit in the halls of the Yi people plays an extremely important role in people's lives, and it is precisely because they can't leave the fire pit throughout their lives that the worship of the fire pit has arisen. The Yi people regard fire as a sacred thing that drives away evil spirits and brings good luck and happiness. During festivals, people burn bonfires, play the qin and sing around the fire, dance and enjoy themselves, and worship the fire, which also makes them leave the people with fire as their companion. In cremation let the soul return to the place of origin of the ancestors, while the family set up the spirit tablet for the deceased, it is to be placed on the front wall next to the fire pit.

②The Yi people also have a religious belief in the worship of the black tiger, and regard the black tiger as the totem and ancestor of the tribe. Yi people on the black tiger worship concept also expanded to the black reverence for the custom that ancestral souls like black, so build a good new house, the house with smoke and fire to black before moving in to live. Cremation: The Yi burial method is new and varied, with tree burials, pottery burials, rock burials, cremation burials, coffin burials and other different burial styles. Especially cremation and coffin burial is common.