Customs and Characteristics of the Miao People

Religious Practices of the Miao People

The Miao used to believe in the spirit of all things, worship nature, and worship their ancestors. The "Gouzang Festival" is the biggest festival of the Miao folk. The first is a small festival of seven years, thirteen years of a large festival. In the lunar calendar from October to November of the Bhai day, when to kill a bullock cattle, jumping Lusheng dance, sacrificing ancestors. Food time to invite friends and relatives *** get together, in order to enhance the relationship, family harmony.

The main beliefs of the Miao people are nature worship, totem worship, ancestor worship and other primitive forms of religion, the Miao traditional society superstitious ghosts and gods, prevalent witchcraft. There are also some Hmong who believe in Christianity and Catholicism. The main Hmong believers in Buddhism and Taoism are the eastern dialect Hmong, known in Hmong as "Baddeibzhal" (Baddei Zhou).

Since modern times, with the Western missionaries deep into China's interior missionary, in the Yunnan-Guizhou-Chuan junction area, Guizhou Kaili, Hunan Yuanling and other areas of the Hmong people converted to Christianity, a few Hmong in southeastern Yunnan believe in Catholicism. Especially in the northeast of Yunnan and northwest of Guizhou, the Christian faith was once strong and influential. Foreign missions or missionaries opened many primary and secondary schools, medical institutions, and even implemented some economic development projects in the Miao areas, which played an indelible role in the progress of the Miao society and the improvement of their political status. Famous pastors include Dang Juren of Anshun, Bakri, Zhang Daohui and Wang Shude, the first two of whom died in the Hmong area.

The Hmong abroad, there are a few Hmong in Vietnam and Laos who believe in Catholicism. Hmong in the United States, France and other Western countries also believe in Christianity, Catholicism. The Hmong in Laos and Thailand are also influenced by Buddhist culture. Nevertheless, traditional ancestor worship and the concept of the soul are still largely preserved in their societies.

Hmong National Festivals

The Hmong are a people rich in ancient civilization and rituals, and their annual festivals are unique and distinctive. The traditional festivals of the Miao people are divided into the following categories according to their functions: 1) agricultural festivals; 2) material exchange festivals; 3) festivals for men and women to socialize, fall in love, and choose their spouses; 4) sacrificial festivals; and 5) commemorative and celebratory festivals. Chronologically, a year is divided into twelve months, and each month has more than one festival day. In the moving month (Rat or Zi month), 1-15 days (the first Zi day to the second C day) is the festival of playing the New Year, in which the first Zi day is the festival of heavenly age, and Hmong people don't go out (far away from home); the first ugly day is the festival of earthly age, and during the period between the first ugly day and the second ugly day (2-14 days), people visit their relatives, congratulate each other on the new year, sing songs to men and women and play with dragon lanterns, lions, etc.; the second C day is the festival of the earthly age. The second Yin day (15th) is the year of the tail (burning dragon lanterns). The first ugly day of the partial month (ox month or ugly month) is the Social Day, also known as the Dragon Head Festival, in which the Miao people offer sacrifices to the God of the Land, catching dragons, and Anlong (dyeing rong in Miao). the first c day of January (tiger month or c month) is the festival of material exchanges and socializing between men and women (known as the March 3 Street Festival in Chinese). the first unday of February (rabbit month or month) is the festival of the King of the Ox (known as the 8th day of the 4th lunar month in Chinese), and the festival of socializing between men and women is Cherry Club and Buddha's Birthday. the first e day and second c day of March (dragon month or month) is the Festival of the Dragon King (known as the 8th day of the 4th lunar month in Chinese). The first e day and the second c day of March (Dragon month or Cinnabar month) are the Little Dragon Boat Festival and the Big Dragon Boat Festival respectively, of which the Little Dragon Boat Festival was later called the Qu Yuan Festival and the Song Master's Festival in honor of the patriotic poet Qu Yuan (芈姓). the first s day of April (Snake month or Sibuti month) is the Dragon Bucking Festival (known as the June 6 Festival in Han Chinese, June Fields), and the Festival of Eating the New Year (the ripening of the barley). the first zi day of May (Horse month or Woo month) is the Festival of the Little New Year (known as the Seven Sisters in Miao language, i.e., the Seven Stars of the Big Dipper). June (sheep month or not) the second c day for the duck festival, the second e day for the autumn festival. July (monkey month or shen month) the first shen day for the wine festival (glutinous rice harvest brewing sweet wine, rice wine). august (chicken month or you month) for the festival of rituals (the main vertebrae cattle, eating pigs, jumping incense, return Nuo wish, Anlong and other ancestor rituals and souls activities). september (dog month or huxiu month) hunting festival, the day of the sacrifice of the three gods of the meishan, start hunting. october (dog month or xu month), hunting festival, the festival of the three gods of meishan, the beginning of hunting. october (the month or hxu month), the festival of the three gods of meishan, the day of the festival of the three god, the beginning of the hunting. October (pig month or Ohio month) d, noon for eating pig soup festival (kill the pig), Zaoshen Festival (Zaoshen Festival), New Year's Eve (Lunar New Year's Eve, the Han Chinese said that the Hmong people October New Year's Eve). In addition, the Miao people due to different branches and regional cultural differences, but also has the local branch of the unique characteristics of some of the festivals, such as Huashan Festival.

Miao specialties

Sticky rice is one of the staple foods of the Miao people, which occupies an important position in the life of the Miao people, and is a favorite food for men, women, children and the elderly, and it is believed that the sticky rice is not hungry, tastes bland, and is not as fragrant as sticky rice, and can be eaten without food, and it is extremely convenient to eat without chopsticks, and to eat it with a pinch of the hand. The gifts for visiting friends and relatives and the staple food for various festivals (Sisters' Day) are mostly made of glutinous rice. There are cauldron steam gorgeous white glutinous rice, dyed into colorful flower glutinous rice, pillow-shaped and triangular zongzi, glutinous rice poi, as well as brewing, long-distance travel or uphill to do the work, more than a bamboo box of glutinous rice storage to take with you to eat. When a new daughter-in-law meets her aunt and a son-in-law meets his father-in-law, the above gifts made of glutinous rice are essential. Therefore, the proportion of glutinous rice used is very large. When the Miao people in the county cook sticky rice, they generally use wooden cauldron to steam and tripod cans to cook and smother it. Mostly by the rice put water, not filtered rice soup, the masses called "by the soup rice", the Miao language said "sue Ong He", eaten neither tasteless, but also nutritious. Glutinous rice is first soaked in cold water after swelling, filtered and placed on the wooden steamer, then placed in a wooden pot and eat. Sticky rice or glutinous rice is often pounded once and eaten for a day, year-round. It is believed that now pounded and boiled, eaten to feed the people, put the rice for a long time is old rice, eaten not to feed the people. Grain processing tools are stone pestle, water mill two kinds of tools, is used very early, every household must have. Water mill (known as water mill) rice milling is only three hundreds of years of history, is rumored to be the introduction of foreigners. Walled near the water each walled village has a frame or several frames of water milling, only in the busy season to use, drought is still mainly rely on the stone pestle pounding rice. Processing method, the roasting cage drying or sun-dried rice into the stone mortar, with a foot on the back end of the pestle, so that the pounding rod up and down, using the force of the fall to pounding, pounding good that is sifted to remove the chaff and get the net rice.

Miao costumes

Costume characteristics of the Miao in Qiandongnan no less than 200 kinds of costumes, is the most varied in China and the world's best preserved Miao costume region, known as the "Museum of Miao costumes". The Miao costumes, in general, maintain the traditional craft techniques of weaving, embroidery, picking and dyeing of Chinese folklore, and often, while applying one of the main craft techniques, they are interspersed with other craft techniques, either picking with embroidery, dyeing with embroidery, or weaving and embroidery, which makes these costume patterns colorful, overflowing with color and light, and shows distinctive characteristics of national art.

From the content point of view, most of the costume patterns are taken from various kinds of living objects in daily life, which play an important role in expressing meaning and recognizing ethnic groups, clans and languages, and the records of these images have been called "epics on the body" by experts and scholars. From the styling point of view, the traditional Chinese line-drawing or almost line-drawing styling method of using a single line as the outline of the pattern is adopted. From the point of view of production techniques, the five types of forms in the history of costume development, namely, the compilation type, the weaving type, the sewing type, the assembling type and the tailoring type, are exemplified in the costumes of the Miao people of Qiandongnan, with a clear relationship between the historical hierarchy, which is comparable to the exhibition hall of the history of costume production. From the point of view of color, they are good at choosing a variety of strong contrasting colors, and strive to pursue the richness of the color and the heavy sense of voluptuousness, generally red, black, white, yellow and blue. From the composition, it does not emphasize the highlighting of the theme, but only focuses on adapting to the requirements of the overall sense of clothing. From the form, divided into dressy and casual.

If silver jewelry is the representative symbol of Miao women, then the costumes represent the unique works of art of the Miao people. It is recorded in the Dictionary that "Miao embroidery has been included together with Hunan embroidery, Suzhou embroidery, Shu embroidery and Guangdong embroidery, which represent the highest level of Miao embroidery." Miao embroidery, clothing, as the famous art master Liu Haisu praised: "Miao women embroidery skillful work, Hunan embroidery Su embroidery than difficult to avoid, with great commercial development and prospects.

Miao girls love to wear pleated skirts, a skirt on the pleats of more than 500, and the number of layers, some as many as thirty or forty layers. These skirts from weaving cloth to bleaching and dyeing sewing, until the final drawing embroidery, are the girls themselves independently completed, plus hand-embroidered flower belt, flower chest pocket, really colorful, beautiful.

Headdresses include silver horns, silver fans, silver hats, silver scarves, silver floating head rows, silver hairpins, silver pins, silver topiary, silver mesh chains, silver flower combs, silver earrings, silver children's hats.

If the dressed Miao girls get together, it will become a beautiful silver world. Like to wear silver is the nature of the Miao girls, they pull hair in a bun on top of the head, wearing about 20 centimeters high, beautifully made silver flower crown, flower crowns inserted in front of the 6 uneven heights of silver wings, most of the above made with two dragons playing with beads, butterflies and flowers, phoenix sunrise, birds and phoenixes, swimming fish playing in the water pattern. In some areas, in addition to inserting silver pieces of silver crown, but also inserted about 1 meter high silver bullhorn, the tip of the horn Department of colorful floats, more noble and rich.