Ethnicity 500 Words

The Tujia people are said to be the descendants of the ancient "Ba people", and the Tujia people are said to be a part of the ancient Wu barbarians. The Tujia people are mainly engaged in agriculture and worship their ancestors. Population: 5704,223

Distribution: The majority of the Tujia live in Yongshun, Longshan, Baojing and Guzhang in Hunan Province, as well as in the areas of Laifeng, Lichuan, Hefeng, Xianfeng and Yion in Hubei Province and in Sichuan Province. They call themselves "Bizka" (meaning local people).

The Tujia have their own language, most of them speak Chinese, and only a few settlements still retain the Tujia language. They do not have their own script, but use the Chinese language. They worship their ancestors and believe in many gods.

Mainly engaged in agriculture. The art of weaving and embroidery is the traditional craft of Tujia women. The traditional crafts of the Tujia people also include carving, painting, paper-cutting and batik. Tujia brocade, also known as "Silankappu", is one of the three famous brocades in China.

The Tujia people love to sing mountain songs, including love songs, wedding songs, hand-waving songs, labor songs and pan songs. Traditional dances include the "Pendulum Dance", the "Eight Treasures Copper Bell Dance" and the song and dance "Maugus". Musical instruments include suona, wooden leaf, "dongdongquan", "playing guy", and so on.

Customs

The Tujia pay great attention to etiquette, meeting to greet each other, family guests, will be hospitality. The Tujia people usually have light meals, and if there are guests, they will drink a bowl of sweet glutinous rice wine in summer and eat a bowl of deep-fried deep-fried noodle cake in winter, and then treat the guests with good wine and food. Generally speaking, inviting guests to eat tea means eating oil tea, glutinous rice or dumplings, eggs, etc. No matter whether it is a wedding, a funeral, or a house repair, the guests will not be able to enjoy the tea. Regardless of the wedding, funeral, house construction and other happy events, the banquet should be organized, and it is generally customary to have nine bowls of food, seven bowls of food or eleven bowls of food at each table, but there is no eight-bowl table or ten-bowl table. Because the eight-bowl table was called spoon eating flower child seat, ten bowls of ten and stone homophonic, are considered to be guests of disrespect, so avoid eight and ten.

Food customs

Tujia usually three meals a day, generally eat two meals during leisure time; spring and summer farming, labor intensity is greater when eating four meals. Such as rice-planting season, the morning to add a "morning", "morning" is mostly made of glutinous rice dumplings or mung bean flour snacks. It is said that the "morning" meal to eat dumplings have a good harvest, good luck. Tujia people also like to eat oil tea soup.

Daily staple food in addition to rice, the most common to the baguette rice. Sometimes also eat beans and rice, poi and deep-fried noodle cake is also the seasonal staple food of the Tujia people, some even eat all the way to planting rice seedlings, in the past, the red camas in many areas have been treated as a staple food, is still some areas of the winter after the regular food.

The Tujia cuisine is characterized by hot and sour dishes. Every family has a sauerkraut jar, which is used to pickle sauerkraut, and almost every meal is made with sauerkraut. Soybean products are also very common, such as tofu, tempeh, soybean leaf skin, tofu milk. Especially like to eat with residue, that is, soybean grinding fine, slurry residue is not divided, boiled and clarified, plus vegetables cooked can be eaten. Folk often put beans rice, rice plus baguette soup together with the slag to eat.

The Tujia people's drinking, especially at festivals or guests, wine is essential. Among them, the common ones are sweet wine and smack wine made from glutinous rice and sorghum, with low degrees and pure flavor.

Typical food: the Tujia people love to eat foods such as poi (mochi) bacon and oil tea, as well as combined vegetables; doughnut flour; mung bean flour (rice flour); and fried poi.

Festivals

The Tujia people pay great attention to traditional festivals, especially the New Year. At that time, every family has to kill the New Year pig, make mung bean noodles, and cook rice wine or smack wine. Pork and vegetables are the essential dishes of the Tujia folk on New Year's Day and festivals. The second day of the second month of the lunar calendar every year is called the social day, when we have to eat social rice. Duanyang Festival to eat dumplings. Sticky rice poi is one of the most popular foods among the Tujia folk.

The Tujia people used to be superstitious about ghosts and gods and worshipped their ancestors, and they had to pay great tribute to their ancestors on every New Year's Day, and small tribute on the first and fifteenth days of the lunar calendar. The food for ancestor worship includes pig's head, doughnut deep-fried noodle, poop, chicken, duck and five grain seeds. In some cases, before each meal, first use chopsticks to clip a small amount of vegetables inserted in the rice on the silent moment, said the deceased ancestors please eat first, and then they began to eat, the sixth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar for the sacrifice of the king of the soil, each village should be set up to swing the hand of the hall, will be the pig's head, fruits and other offerings placed in front of swinging hand of the hall. October first day of the winter festival, slaughtering chickens and ducks for a feast. In addition, the Tujia people also honored the God of the stove, the God of the land, the God of the grains, the God of the boar, in the repair of the house when the sacrifice Lu Ban, the offerings in addition to meat and wine, but also a large rooster.