Maonan Folk Houses with Obvious Regional Characteristics

With the continuous progress of the Chinese nation, we have long since come out of the cave in ancient times, and through the accumulation of years to form a suitable environment suitable for our residential architecture, the Maonan people are mainly concentrated in the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, in order to adapt to the environment, the region, in the culture of the Maonan people, the formation of a unique Maonan folk residence architectural style.

There are three characteristics of the Maonan people's residence: First, the village organization, facilities and living customs with the ancient Baiyue ethnic cultural factors; Second, the "dry bar" type of housing is unconventional, retained for a long time; Third, the use of stone in the building and household appliances in large quantities.

Residential construction has gone through four stages. Initially lived in the grass and wood structure, the upper floor to live, the lower floor of the captive livestock. A little later is the earth and wood structure, divided into three rooms or five, seven rooms, all take the singular. The third stage is the stone or brick structure, commonly known as the stone building. Its interior and exterior decoration are more elaborate, spacious and bright. The fourth stage, reinforced concrete structure, is not yet common.

Dry rail style apartment: dry rail inside and outside the walls are all wood, stone for the structure, solid and stable. The dry bar is generally divided into two floors, upstairs people, downstairs circle livestock, outside the door with a sun deck, suitable lighting and can be moisture-proof.

Maonan houses are stone pillars, building steps are stone, the foundation and most of the walls are made of stone, even the threshold, sun deck, cattle pen, tables, stools, water tanks, water basins, etc. are stone or carved, these stone supplies carved on the birds, flowers, fish and insects is even more beautiful.

Most of the Maonan houses are stone base, mud wall and tile roof, and a few are brick wall and tile roof. They are divided into two floors, the upper floor to live, the lower floor to keep livestock and pile up farming tools, firewood and other sundries, and the Zhuang "dry fence" building is similar. But the Maonan put to live in the boulder mountainous area, there are stones everywhere, so the house foundation or wall is mostly made of refined material stone, but also made of long stones to the door of the stone steps, the Maonan language is called "Toujie" (which means stone ladder). These houses are called "dry rail stone building".

How many trusses with how many roots or how many rooms (Maonan called "Boom") to distinguish the size of the housing. There are three rooms, five rooms, seven rooms, nine rooms and so on. From the roof to the front and back eaves, the one with thirteen trusses is called "Eave 13", the one with fifteen trusses is called "Eave 15", the one with seventeen trusses is called "Eave 17", and the one with nineteen trusses is called "Eave 19". The construction of "Eave 17" is called "Eave 17", "Eave 17", "Eave 19" and "Eave 19". Construction of "eaves 17" more, such a house, the house is spacious, ventilation and light is also good. "Eaves nineteen" low eaves, not enough light, more gloomy, so the construction is not much.

When building a house, with stone, mud pounding or brick into the two sides of the mountain wall, Maonan language called "sealing the mountain". In the middle of the wooden pillars, wooden capitals, mortar and pestle left strip to do rows of shelves. Each row with the mother column (big column) two, two sub-pillars, with thick boards made of wood capitals, the two mother columns and two sub-pillars linked together, Mao Cai language called "row of eaves". The bottom of each column is padded with carefully chiseled conical stone cushions, called stone columns, generally 70-80 centimeters high, some as high as more than a meter.

"Row of eaves" how many, to the number of rooms to determine. Such as doing three to do two "row of eaves", five to do four "row of eaves", seven to do six "row of eaves", and so on. The number of rooms is generally an odd number, because the door should be installed in the center of the house, so that the two ends are equal. After each "row of eaves" vertical, the center of the horizontal trusses, nailed to the bolt skin (rafters), the top can cover the tile. The following page "eaves fifteen" section:

House in the middle of a top of the beam, the beam painted red, write "Liang Wen". "Liang Wen" to the center of the beam as a boundary, to the two ends of the separate writing, one side of the beam written on the year, month, day, hour; the other side of the address of the main family, name (address from the province to the village). Dyeing a set of doors, lintel wide, to facilitate the celebration of the day pasted on the couplets.

The door is made of two large thick boards, a fan of one. Door fan up and down the two ends to do one to two inches long cone, inserted into the door frame above and below the wooden yoke confinement, without a loose-leaf, open and close the "Oh" sound, said the household is now booked or sleep, because the daytime is rarely closed the door. Door sticker door god, iron or copper door ring.

Here, the doorway is also very delicate, with a long strip of stone refined and made of early stepped on the evening step, not afraid of damage, the longer the age of the doorway, the brighter the doorway. Bedrooms on both sides of the main door, all have windows, with thick boards for the window frame, window sill, festive days are also affixed with couplets. Window sashes are also made of two thick boards, with the same structure as the main door. The roof has a ridge made of tiles, and generally few bricks are used. The eaves of the house are made of three bamboo gabions and bolts of leather crossed to form a cornice to prevent the tiles from falling down. The whole house structure is rigorous, firm and beautiful.