Ancient Cultural Tradition of Miao Nationality in Huayuan, China

There are many folk festivals and customs of Miao nationality, which are very active. There are Miao folk festivals and customs almost every month. This is the ancestors of Miao nationality without writing, conveying the history and culture of Miao nationality with rich folk carriers. During the one-year study in Dachengguo College, Miao people in different areas have festivals and folk activities directly related to Shennong, such as Autumn Festival and Xiangwu Festival, also called Xiangwu Conference.

1. Catch the Mid-Autumn Festival

Legend has it that in ancient times (another legend of Shennong's myth of getting grain seeds), Shennong, the ancestor of Miao nationality, sent a man and a woman to the East to get grain seeds and teach Miao people to plant them so that people could eat grain. Therefore, the Miao people in Malichang, Huayuan County, Hunan Province, and Aizhai, Jishou City, celebrate the Autumn Festival every year before beginning of autumn, and ask a man and a woman sent by Shennong to pick up the autumn husband and wife, in memory of Shennong's kindness. Because before the arrival of beginning of autumn in the lunar calendar, rice fields and dry land crops were maturing, and thanks to the protection of Shennong, the harvest was a foregone conclusion. Therefore, as a mobilization meeting, Miao people from all directions went to the autumn rally in succession to hold duets, encouragement, swings and other entertainment activities in memory of Shennong's ancestors and Qiu Gong and Qiu Po. Later, the love legend of heroes and beautiful women was inserted into the autumn festival, making it a mass entertainment festival with the significance of praying for the bumper harvest of Shennong and praising free love. In recent years, as many as 70,000 to 80,000 people attended the autumn festival in Malichang, Huayuan County. It can be seen that Miao people worship Shennong to take grain seeds.

2. Aromatherapy Dance Festival

Miao people not only worship Shennong before the autumn harvest, but also hold festivals to worship Shennong after the autumn harvest. Miaoren Valley is called Tiao Township. Xiangwu Festival is usually held in October of the lunar calendar after autumn. There are many counties and cities in Hunan, such as Luxi, Jishou, Guzhang, Yuanling and Chenxi, where the Dance Festival is popular. Whenever festivals come, they are presided over by Miao priests. Generally, festivals last one day and one night. In addition to offering sacrifices to the God of Grains and Shennong, there is also a fragrant dance. The local Miao people call it Du Xiong, and Du Miao means ups and downs and bears. On this day, Miao priests will hold Miao dances for young people to sacrifice to the God of Grains and Shennong. Around the autumn harvest in October, there are festivals and dances dedicated to worship Shennong, which are not available to other ethnic groups.

3. The cultural symbolic significance of Miao buffalo horn and silver ornaments.

Obviously, the silver crown of buffalo horn worn by Miao women in southeastern Guizhou and Miao people in western Hunan and northeastern Guizhou hangs the buffalo horn high on the central pillar on the left side of the fire pit to pray for blessings, which is the expression and symbol of Niu Geng's rice-growing cultural symbol with the motif of "human head" and the product of Niu Geng's rice-growing economy in the early days of Miao ancestors. This cultural symbol shows the early Miao ancestors' memory, induction, abstraction and accumulation of the symbolic history of "cultivating rice fields with buffaloes". This kind of high-hanging buffalo horn and buffalo horn silver ornaments decorated on the top of the head have the figurative significance of symbolizing "human cow's head". In a sense, it is the national micro of Miao nationality in that era. Miao people in western Hunan and northeastern Guizhou put buffaloes on pillars to pray, and they are proud of buffalo horns. Miao people in Qiandongnan Prefecture are wearing the wide silver ornaments of cattle cellar, which are beautiful and noble. This worship of buffalo horn and buffalo horn silver ornaments is a portrayal of the meaning of "Yan Shen Nong, Niu tou" contained in historical documents. Shennong is the "head of cattle" and Chiyou is the "head of cattle's hoof", which shows that they all belong to the leaders of rice-growing tribes in Niu Geng in different periods. "Niutou" and "Niuti" mean that Niutou Shennong is the first and Niuti Chiyou is the second. According to historical legends, they are the kings of rice culture in Niu Geng and have made pioneering contributions to the history of the Chinese nation. The cultural symbols of "human cow's head" and "human cow's hoof" are concrete and have their specific humanistic connotations, but they are not "half man and half cow" races. According to the Chinese writing meanings of "human cow's head" and "human cow's hoof", pedestrians in history drew the myth of "one person has a buffalo's head" and another myth of "one person has a pair of buffalo's hoofs", making it a myth of "half man and half cow". In fact, this is an explanation of attachment and misunderstanding, not the original works of "human cow's head" and "human cow's hoof" Painting one historical ancestor as a cow's head and the other as a pair of buffalo's hooves is obviously based on the farming and animal husbandry culture in the dry land of the Central Plains to explain the rice culture in Niu Geng, a southern water town. There is a space-time distance between the interpreter and the explained object, and the original meaning of "human cow's head" cannot be clearly expressed. The accurate explanation of "human cow head" is the buffalo horn silver ornaments on the heads of Miao women in southeastern Guizhou, which can be said to be the original figuration of "human cow head". It is not difficult to know that buffalo horn was originally a concrete symbol of both worship and decoration, but it weakened its worship connotation, aggravated its decoration and aesthetic image, and finally formed buffalo horn silver ornaments. In fact, "human hoof" is also a cultural concrete and material symbol. Before liberation, there was a kind of "buffalo leather shoes" for the poor to use in winter, that is, when peeling buffalo hide, two pieces of cowhide with the same width were cut out according to the pre-calculated size and wrapped on two wooden posts cut in advance. The cowhide is dried and shaped, and the wooden post is taken away to form a sewing without needle and thread. This kind of "buffalo leather shoes" worn on snowy days is probably the most primitive "leather shoes". In ancient times, the water towns in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River were rich in buffaloes, while some Miao people in western Hunan moved from Jinghu and Juwu water towns. The primitive "buffalo leather shoes" worn by the ancestors of Miao people in water towns were considered as "human hoofs" by the ancestors of the northern dryland farming and animal husbandry ecological circle, which was also an appropriate description, and there was no derogatory meaning in it. Miao people are descendants of Chiyou, so Chiyou's "human hoof" probably originated from this.