Information about the Miao people (urgent ！！！！)

The Miao, with an existing population of 7.4 million, are mainly distributed in Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Hubei, Hainan, Guangxi and other provinces (regions).

The Miao Mountains and Wuling Mountains, where the Miao live, have a mild climate, are surrounded by mountains and water, and are dotted with large and small fields and dams. Produces rice, corn, grain, wheat, cotton, roasted tobacco, rape, oil tree and so on. In addition to this, it is also rich in timber resources and mineral resources.

The ancestors of the Miao people can be traced back to the primitive social era active in the central plains of the Chi tribe. During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the Miao ancestors began to establish the "three Miao country" in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, engaged in agricultural rice cultivation. The Miao people have migrated many times in history, the general route is from the Yellow River Basin to Hunan (Hunan), to Guizhou (Guizhou), to Yunnan (Yunnan).

The Miao have their own language, which belongs to the Miao branch of the Miao-Yao language family of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Originally there was no national script, but in the late 1950s a Latinized phonetic script was created. Today, most people use Chinese as a common language.

The Miao have a long history of music and dance, and their favorite dance, the Lusheng Dance, is highly skilled. The Miao's arts and crafts, such as flower picking, embroidery, brocade weaving, batik, and jewelry making, are magnificent and colorful, and are internationally renowned. There are many Miao festivals, the more grand festivals have been "Miao New Year", "April 8", "Dragon Boat" festival.

[Ethnic profile]

The Miao, with a population of 7,398,035, are mainly distributed in Guizhou, Hunan, Yunnan, Hubei, Hainan, Guangxi and other provinces (regions). The Miao Mountains and Wuling Mountains, where the Miao people live, have a mild climate, surrounded by mountains and water, and dotted with large and small fields and dams. It produces rice, corn, grain, wheat, cotton, roasted tobacco, rape, and oleander. In addition to this, it is also rich in timber resources and mineral resources. The ancestors of the Miao people can be traced back to the Chi tribe active in the Central Plains in the primitive social era. During the Shang and Zhou Dynasties, the Miao ancestors began to establish the "Three Miao Country" in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, engaging in agricultural rice cultivation. The Miao have migrated many times in history, roughly from the Yellow River Basin to Hunan, to Guizhou and to Yunnan. The Miao have their own language, which belongs to the Miao branch of the Miao-Yao language family of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Originally there was no national script, but in the late 1950s a Latinized phonetic script was created. Nowadays, most people use Chinese as their common language. The Miao have a long history of music and dance, and the Lusheng Dance, a favorite of the masses, is highly skilled. The Miao's arts and crafts, such as flower picking, embroidery, brocade weaving, batik, and jewelry making, are magnificent and colorful, and are internationally renowned. There are many Miao festivals, the more grand festivals have been "Miao New Year", "April 8", "Dragon Boat" festival.

[Religious customs]

The Miao used to believe in the spirit of all things, worship nature, and worship their ancestors. The "Drum Festival" is the largest festival of the Miao folk. Generally seven years a small sacrifice, thirteen years a big sacrifice. In the lunar calendar from October to November of the B Ohio Day, when to kill a bullock cattle, jumping Lusheng dance, sacrifices to see the 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. Very few Miao believe in Buddhism and Taoism.

Traditionally, the Hmong people have a number of giant or odd-shaped natural objects, often considered to be a spiritual manifestation, and therefore worship them, wine and meat offerings. Typical natural objects of worship include boulders, caves, trees and forests. In addition, the Miao believe that some natural phenomena or natural objects have a divine or ghostly nature, and the Miao language often does not distinguish between ghosts and gods, or the two words are used together. In most cases, ghosts are considered to be abandoned or aggrieved souls and tools transformed, often bringing disasters, sickness, plague or other misfortunes to human beings, such as the so-called Eastern ghosts, Western ghosts, sow ghosts, hanged ghosts, tiger ghosts, and so on, which are known as evil ghosts. And natural phenomena with spirituality are often considered good ghosts, with a certain degree of divinity, such as the god of mountain, the soul of grain, the god of cotton, the god of wind, the god of thunder, the god of rain, the god of the sun, the god of the moon, and so on. For good ghosts and bad ghosts, the Miao people's sacrificial method is also different. The good ghosts are sent and welcomed, and the sacrifices are more sincere, while the evil ghosts must be bribed and cajoled until they are driven away.

In many areas, the Miao people also believe that there are many monsters in nature. For example, cows cover themselves with feces in their stalls or spin around in their stalls, stamping feces into circles, pigs eat piglets or lie down in their troughs, ducks eat duck eggs, tigers go into the fields, two snakes cross their tails, and hens make the chirping sound of roosters, etc. All of which are considered to be the corresponding evil spirits.

In some Hmong areas, the cult of man-made objects are land Bodhisattva, the land milk, the family god, sacrificial bridge, wells and so on. Land Bodhisattva Miao called land ghosts, generally by a few stone base, land house is mostly wooden or with three slate built, extremely simple, set in the village next to the intersection or the roadside pedestrian resting place. The belief in the family god exists in some of the Miao in the Sichuan-Guizhou-Yunnan dialect, that is, they set up the idol of "family god" at home. The bridge festival is popular in most parts of Southeast Guizhou. Dragons are also worshipped and sacrificed to by the Miao in various parts of the country.

Totem worship. Many of the eastern region of the Miao and Yao *** with the worship of Discus (a kind of sacred dog). They have been told the story of "the mother of God, the father of the dog" for generations, and regarded Discus as their ancestor. Some Hmong in the central region believe that their ancestor, Jiang Yang, originated from the heart of a maple tree, and thus regard the maple tree as their totem. In some other areas, the Hmong worship buffalo and bamboo as their totems.

Universally, ancestor worship occupies a very important place in Miao society. They believe that although their ancestors are dead, their souls are always with their children and grandchildren, and they must make offerings of wine and meat on New Year's festivals, and even honor their ancestors in their daily diets. Many regions hold ancestor worship ceremonies on a regular or irregular basis. In western Hunan, there are "knocking on a stick pig" and "sacrificing an ancestor with a cow", in southeastern Guizhou, there is "eating a bullock", and in Qianzhong, there is "knocking on a barang". In Qiandongnan, there is the custom of "eating bulls", and in Qianzhong, there is the custom of "knocking barangs". Among them, the eating of bullocks in southeast Guizhou is still prevalent and is the most typical. It is also known as the Festival of Drum Offering, Drum Society Festival and Drum Collection (Guliao) Festival, which is held once every seven or thirteen years by the clan (Drum Society) as a unit. They believe that the souls of their ancestors reside in the wooden drums, and the drums are played to summon the souls of their ancestors to enjoy the offerings of their children and grandchildren. The officiating priest is known as the bullock dirty head, and the bullock dirty cattle are specially bred for this purpose. Each festival lasts for three years.

Most Miao people believe in witchcraft. The main sorcery activities are over the Yin, divination, God referee, ghost sacrifices, in addition to compulsion and so on. Sorcery activities are presided over by sorcerers. Most of the sorcerers are non-professional. They play the role of presiding officers in the various primordial worship and witchcraft activities mentioned above, and in some places, the sorcerers also serve as village elders. In addition to being familiar with the ritual methods, most sorcerers can also tell the genealogy of their branches, the major historical events of their people and the routes of their migratory origins, and are familiar with all kinds of myths and legends, ancient songs, ancient lyrics and folk tales, and some sorcerers also have the functions of singers and dancers. Therefore, sorcerers are the important inheritors of traditional Miao culture and play the role of intellectuals in Miao society. In addition, sorcerers also master certain medical skills and know some herbs, which are supplemented by scientific medicine while driving away ghosts for people.

In addition to these traditional beliefs, since modern times, with the Western missionaries deep into China's interior missionary, in the junction of Yunnan-Guizhou-Chuan area, Guizhou Kaili, Hunan Yuanling and other areas of some of the Miao people converted to Christianity, and a few Miao faith in southeast Yunnan 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, Bak Geli, Zhang Daohui and Wang Shude, the first two of whom died in the Hmong area.

After the establishment of new China, the influence of Christianity and Catholicism declined for a time, and in recent years there has been a certain trend of recovery. However, now that Christianity and Catholicism are practicing the "three selves", there are many differences in social organization, social influence, and even the content of beliefs between Christianity and the pre-1950 Christian faith.

Foreign Hmong, there are a few Hmong in Vietnam and Laos who believe in Catholicism. Hmong in the United States, France and other Western countries also have Christian and Catholic faith. 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.

[Diet]

The Hmong in most areas eat three meals a day, with rice as the main food. Deep-fried food is most common in the form of deep-fried poi. If you add some fresh meat and pickled vegetables as filling, the flavor is more delicious. Meat mostly from livestock, poultry raising, Sichuan, Yunnan and other places of the Miao people like to eat dog meat, there are "Miao dog, Yi wine," said. Miao cooking oil in addition to animal oil, mostly tea oil and vegetable oil. Chili pepper is the main condiment, and some regions even have the saying that "no spicy dishes". Miao dishes are varied, common vegetables are beans, melons and greens, radish, most of the Miao are good at making soybean products. Hmong people everywhere generally like to eat sour dishes, sour soup is a must for every family. Sour soup is made from rice soup or tofu water, which is put into tile jars and fermented for 3-5 days before it is used to cook meat, fish and vegetables. The preservation of food among the Hmong people is commonly done by the pickling method, where vegetables, chicken, duck, fish, and meat are preferred to be pickled into sour flavors. Almost every Miao family has a pickled food jar, collectively known as the sour altar. The Miao people have a long history of brewing wine, from the production of song, fermentation, distillation, blending, cellar have a complete set of processes. Oil tea is the most common daily drink. The Miao people in western Hunan also have a special kind of Wanhua tea. Sour soup is also a common drink. Typical foodstuffs include: blood dunking soup, chili bone, turtle and phoenix soup of Miao township, sheep cabbage, worm tea, ten thousand flowers tea, pounded fish, sour soup fish and so on.

[Marriage and Funeral Customs]

A food that is also essential in the process of marriage between young men and women is glutinous rice. Miao people in Chengbu, Hunan province, painted with mandarin ducks sticky rice poi as a token to give each other; held a wedding, the bride and groom to drink a cup of wine, the bridegroom also invited the bride and groom to eat painted with dragons and phoenixes and bong dolls pattern of sticky rice poi.

[Costume features]

If the dressed Miao girls get together, it will become a beautiful silver world. Like to wear silver jewelry 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 crowns, flower crowns inserted in front of the 6 different heights of the silver wings, most of the top of the production of the two dragons playing with the beads 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 magnificent. Silver crown along the lower edge of the circle hanging silver flower belt, hanging a row of small silver flower pendant, wearing a silver collar on the neck has several layers, more than a silver piece of beaten flowers and small silver ring even set and become. Chest wearing silver locks and silver pressure collar, chest, back wearing a silver cloak, hanging many small silver bells. The earrings and bracelets are all silver. Only the two sleeves show embroidery in a fiery red color, but the cuffs are also inlaid with a wider circle of silver ornaments. Miao girls often have several kilograms of dress, some of which have been inherited for several generations. Known as "flower clothes and silver Sai Tianxian" beauty. Miao silver craft, ornate and elaborate, ingenious, fully displaying the wisdom and talent of the Miao people. Miao girl's skirt called pleated skirt, but in fact a skirt on the pleats have more than 5,000, and the number of layers, some as many as thirty, forty layers. These skirts from weaving cloth to bleaching and dyeing sewing, all the way to the final drawing embroidery, are the girls themselves to complete independently, plus hand-embroidered flower belt, flower chest pocket, really colorful, beautiful.