Main Customs of Gelao

1. Diet:

In terms of diet, corn (in mountainous areas) and rice (in Pingba area) are the main staple food, followed by various kinds of beans, wheat, buckwheat and potatoes, and they are fond of eating hot and sour food and glutinous rice cake, etc. Among the side dishes of the Gelao, glutinous rice cake is the precious food. Gelao side dishes, to glutinous rice patties as a precious food, the annual festival to play poi "ancestor sacrifice", festive hospitality, Duanyang send in-laws, the sun dedication of new friends and relatives, this custom has been preserved to this day.

2. Dress:

The clothing culture of Gelao people is unique due to the time. During the Qing Dynasty and before, the costumes were mostly made of home woven linen dyed in blue and green colors. After the Republic of China, the cultural exchanges of various ethnic groups, learning from each other, complementing each other's strengths and weaknesses, and aesthetics with the development of society and gradually changed, no matter men and women, young and old, clothing gradually with the local Han Chinese.

Nowadays, people's daily clothes are becoming more and more diversified and personalized, with a variety of styles. The texture has developed from simple cotton and polyester card to wool, linen yarn and polyester silk, etc. The Gelao people in the countryside also wear many clothes in one season, and only in various festivals and celebrations will they wear their own ethnic costumes on purpose.

3. Marriage:

Before the founding of New China, Gelao clans did not intermarry with each other, and practiced the system of intra-clan marriages, but they were not allowed to marry in the same clan, and it was customary to marry in the aunt's or aunt's table. Young men and women were usually married at the age of 14 or 15, and there were even "backstrap kisses" and "fingernail marriages".

Gelao wedding ceremony program, a variety of forms, most of the areas to maintain a "male not pro welcome" and the bride walk, as well as during the wedding period of the newlyweds do not have a room and other traditional customs. After the founding of New China, with the Gelao and Han, Buyi, Yi, Miao and other ethnic groups living in a long-term mixed, inter-ethnic marriages, through free love to the relevant government agencies to register the marriage of young people is increasing.

Expanded Information

Literary Arts of the Gelao People:

1. Gelao folklore consists of legends, poems and proverbs. Most of the folk stories are about the birth of heaven and earth, the origin of the Gelao people as well as the intelligence, kindness and diligence of the heroes and laborers, such as "Making Heaven and Earth", "A Yang Brother and Sister Making Human Smoke", "The Bamboo King", "The Brave Girl", and "Deaf Brother and Blind Brother Stealing a Sheep", and so on.

2, copper drum, horn, flute, gourd sheng is the history of Gelao commonly used musical instruments, bubble wood tube is Gelao unique musical instruments, with a length of more than two feet of bubble wood poke core, made into a tube, chiseled two holes, the upper end of the inserted bamboo suona tube, blowing when the sound "woo woo woo woo," Gelao people therefore call it The Gelao people therefore call it "woo-woo".

3. The dances of the Gelao people include the "Top Weng Luo", the "Toast Dance", the "Wine Dance", the "Amoy Basin Dance", the "Stomping Dance", and the "Stomping on the Coat Dance".

China.gov.cn-Gelao