What are the customs and traditions of the Qiang people?

The local customs of the Qiang people

The Qiang people now live mainly in Maowen in western Sichuan, with the rest scattered in Wenchuan, Lixian, Heishui, Songpan and other places. They call themselves "Erma", meaning "local people". Today's Qiang people are one of the ancient Qiang people who have been preserved.　　The Qiang do not have their own writing system, but they have their own language, which belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family. The Qiang language belongs to the Tibeto-Burman group of the Sino-Tibetan language family, and is divided into two major dialects, one in the north and the other in the south.　　Nowadays, the Qiangs are mainly engaged in agriculture. Industries have been built up from scratch, such as tanning, paper making, timber, cement and fertilizer. Embroidery, flower picking and weaving are the traditional crafts of the Qiang people.

Taboos of the Qiang people include the following: when a woman gives birth, she hangs a yoke sheet or a back pocket outside the door, avoiding outsiders to enter the house; when there is a sick person in the family, they hang a red note on the door, avoiding outsiders to visit; they can't step across the fire pit or step on the tripod with their feet, and they can't bake shoes, socks and clothes on the tripod; they can't sit on the thresholds and staircases; and they don't put the chopsticks on the bowls horizontally after the meal, and they can't hold the wine cup upside down.

The Qiang wedding ceremony, the groom to accompany the bride back to the bride's home, the bride's home to prepare the "back door wine", friends and relatives to the newlyweds gifts, and speech blessing. Some places in the Qiang folklore also have the custom of "teasing the groom". That is, the bride's family will give the bridegroom with four-foot-long chopsticks at the banquet, but also in the chopsticks at the back of the chopsticks with a few potato chopsticks pendant, the bridegroom to use these chopsticks, across a few oil lamps to clip with diced meat and beans made of vegetables, if the chopsticks because of the long, can not clip the vegetables, or the oil lamp burns with the jaws, we must be punished by the wine, this activity is a festive dinner, but also a kind of entertainment.

Qiang folk mostly two meals a day, that is, after breakfast out of labor, to bring a bun (cornmeal bun), at noon on the ground to eat, known as the "tip". In the afternoon, they go home for dinner. Most of the Qiang staple food can not be separated from the "noodle steaming".　　All year round, they eat sauerkraut made from cabbage and radish leaves, and pickles made from green vegetables.　　Meat is mainly beef, sheep, pig and chicken, and fish and hunting animals are also eaten. Diaspora in the mountainous areas of the Qiang people generally do not often eat fresh pork, are the pig slaughtered and dehairing, cut in half or cut into several large pieces, hanging on the beams of the room smoked and roasted to make "pig fat", the storage time is generally one year.　　The Qiang people generally drink wine known as smack wine, smack wine is made by boiling barley and mixing it with wine, sealing it into an altar and fermenting it for 7-8 days before drinking. During festivals, weddings, funerals, rituals, gatherings, hospitality or labor exchange, in addition to hearty meals, but also must have wine. The wine brewed during the Chongyang Festival is called Chongyang wine, which needs to be stored for more than one year before drinking. Because of the long storage time, Chongyang wine is purple-red in color, mellow and fragrant, and it is an essential wine during the Chongyang Festival. | Typical Food: The Qiang people pay special attention to medicinal cuisine, the more typical medicinal dishes are: mutton with slices of soup; goat return soup; pork with 1-2 two Cortex Eucommia stew. All three of these can tonify the kidneys. Astragalus stewed chicken or astragalus (angelica, ginseng can also be) plus a few two stewed pork can also nourish blood and qi. Cordyceps stewed duck can nourish Yin, tonify the lungs and benefit the kidneys. Festivals The first day of the tenth month of the lunar calendar is the Qiang New Year Festival. The feast is also called "harvest wine". New Year's Day the whole village to the "God's Grove" to return the wish, burning cypress incense in honor of ancestors and the gods, to be made of buckwheat flour filled with a kind of buckwheat dumplings with meat and tofu, and some also made of flour into cows, goats, horses, chickens and other animals in different shapes as offerings. The next day, set up a family dinner, invited the married daughter back to her mother's home. Various festive activities are carried out.

Praying for a good harvest of the mountain festival is a village village rituals, in addition to married women are not allowed to participate, the whole village should bring wine, meat and buns to go to the meeting. The head of the meeting is appointed by each household of the village in turn. At that time, the head of the meeting to prepare a black ram, a red rooster, 1 altar smack wine, 3 pounds of pork, 1 bucket of barley, 13 pounds of flour made of large steamed buns and incense and wax, firecrackers, paper money, etc., according to the provisions of the set up, by the "Xu" (sorcerer) to preside over the rituals, praying to the God of the sky and the God of the mountains to bless the whole village of the people of the life of the year and the slaughter of goats and boiled, together with other food to be divided into The goat is slaughtered and boiled, and then distributed, together with other foodstuffs, to each household, which used to be called "scattering molecules". At the end of the day, everyone sits down on the ground and tastes each other's sacrificial food.

Excellent architectural skills

The Qiang architecture is best known for its towers, stone houses, rope bridges, trestles and weirs.　　Qiang language towers called "Qiongcang". As early as 2000 years ago, "the Han Book - Southwest Barbarians biography" has: Ran (left horse right dragon) people, "according to the mountains to live in the stop, base stone for the house, high to more than ten feet" record. Watchtower built in the village next to the housing, the height of 10 to 30 meters, used to protect the enemy and storage of food and firewood. Watchtower has a four-cornered, hexagonal, octagonal several forms. Some up to thirteen or fourteen layers. Building materials are stone chips and yellow clay. Wall base 1.35 meters deep, made of stone chips. The inner side of the stone wall is perpendicular to the ground, and the outer side is slightly tilted inward from the bottom up. It was constructed without drawing, hanging lines, or post supports, and was built with great skill and experience. Building solid and reliable, durable. 1988 in Beichuan County, Sichuan Province, Qiang Township, Water Village, found in an ancient castle ruins of the Ming Dynasty, "Yongping Fort", after hundreds of years of wind and rain is still well-preserved.

The Qiang dwellings are flat-roofed houses made of stone, square in shape, mostly 3-story, with a height of more than 3 meters per story. The bottom of the roof platform is a wooden board or stone board, which extends out of the wall into the eaves. Planks or slabs on the dense cover tree or bamboo branches, and then covered with loess and chicken manure tamping, about 0.35 meters thick, there is a stream channel to draw water, no leakage of rain and snow, warm in winter and cool in summer. The roof platform is a place for threshing, sunning grain, doing needlework and playing games for children and the elderly. Some of the buildings are built with over-street buildings to facilitate transportation.　　The Qiang area is characterized by high mountains and dangerous water, so in order to facilitate transportation, the Qiang people created the rope bridge more than 1400 years ago. Both sides of the stone masonry cave door, the door to set up a stone base or a large wooden column, base and column bolted to the arm as thick as a bamboo rope, less than a few, more than a few 10. Bamboo rope on the wooden boards, set up on both sides of the bridge more than 1 meter above the surface of the bamboo rope handrail.　　There are two kinds of stacks: wooden stacks and stone stacks. Wooden stacks built in the dense forest, paved wood for the road, mixed with soil and stone; stone stacks in the cliffs, edge of the rock chiseled holes, inserted wood for the bridge.　　Qiang folk stonemasons often go out to work in their spare time. The world-famous Dujiangyan Project in Sichuan Province has a history of more than 2,000 years and is still benefiting the people, in which the blood, sweat and wisdom of the ancient Qiang people have been condensed. Simple and Thick Ancient Legacy The long history and long-term closed living environment have preserved a lot of simple and thick ancient legacies in the spiritual culture of the Qiang people. The two earliest forms of literature produced in ancient China are ancient poetry and ancient myths. These two forms of literature still have a great influence on the Qiang people and many excellent works have been handed down. Most of the Qiang men, women and children know how to sing folk songs, with lyrics of four or seven syllables, similar to the four- and seven-syllable poems in Chinese. In terms of content, there are bitter songs, mountain songs, love songs, wine songs, celebration songs and funeral songs. Famous Qiang myths include "The Opening of Heaven and Earth", "The Formation of Ravines and Dams", "The Creation of Humanity", "Doanzhu and Muzizhu", etc. The stories of sister and brother marrying and the shooting down of the 8 suns reflect the life of the Qiang people in the primitive society. The Qiang flute is the most famous musical instrument among the Qiang people. The most famous Qiang flute is the Qiang flute. Xu Shen of the Eastern Han Dynasty said in his Shuo Wen Jie Zi (Explaining the Characters in Chinese) that the Qiang flute had three holes. Ma Rong's "Flute Fugue" said: "The Qiang flute is the first of its kind in the recent times". The Tang Dynasty "Miscellaneous Records of the House of Music" said: "The flute, Qiang music also." Song Dynasty Chen (Zuozhi Yang right) "music book" recorded: "Qiang flute five holes". This shows its long history. In recent times, the Qiang flute is popular in the Qiang area of Sichuan, with a body made of bamboo or bone. The bamboo is oil bamboo from the upper reaches of the Minjiang River, cut into a square shape; the bone is the leg bone of a sheep or a bird. The present Qiang flute is 17 centimeters long and 1 centimeter in diameter, with a single reed, double pipes, vertical blowing, six voices, and many solo performances. The sound is bright and soft, mournful, melodious and lyrical, and the shepherds often play it in the mountains for their own amusement. Ancient Qiang flute is both a musical instrument, but also a whip, because there is "blowing whip" said.

The main folk dances are "Jumping Shalang" (Qiang Pot Dance), "Jumping Armor" (also known as "Armor Dance"), "Jumping Skin Drum", "Lanxi", and "Lanxi". (also known as the Armor Dance), "Jumping Armor" (also known as the "Armor Dance"), "Jumping Skin Drum", and "Lan Gan Shou". The "Jumping Armor" is an ancient traditional ritual and customary dance, which used to be danced at the funerals of generals who had meritorious military service. Dozens of dancers clad in raw cowhide armor, wearing leather helmets with pheasant plumes and wheat poles, with brass bells on their shoulders and weapons in their hands (mostly long knives), dancing in pairs, roaring to the heavens, majestic. The brave and unyielding character of the Qiangs is expressed to the fullest extent, and the ancient folk customs of the Qiangs are reproduced in a simple and rough manner. Drinking Smack Wine The Qiang people have a long history of making wine. One of the reasons is that one of the ancient Qiang people was engaged in agriculture first. The second reason is that "Yu was born in the Western Qiang", and the saint of wine making in China, Yidi, was a minister of Yu, and Dukang is a descendant of Yu. All Qiang men have a large amount of alcohol, so although they like to drink a lot, they seldom get drunk and cause trouble. The unique way of drinking is to drink smack wine. The wine is brewed from barley, barley and corn, sealed in an altar, and when drinking, it is unsealed, filled with boiling water, inserted into a bamboo pipe, and the people take turns sucking it, so it is called "smacking wine". The people take turns sucking on it, which is called "smack wine". They add water while drinking until it becomes bland in flavor. Smack wine is a kind of low-degree mash wine. Drinking first by the presence of the oldest speak four words and eight rhyming auspicious words, as a "toast", and then according to the age of the youngest in turn smack. The peers drink smack wine together, can each insert a long bamboo tube in the altar, drink at the same time.

The Qiang people also have "Chrysanthemum Wine" and "Yumai Steam Wine". Children and women often drink sweet wine with honey.