Introduction to the Lisu People
The Lisu first lived in the Jinsha River basin along the border between Sichuan and Yunnan, and then gradually moved to the Nujiang River area in western Yunnan and settled down. The Lisu are a unique ethnic group in Yunnan, mainly living in the Nujiang River in Yunnan Province. The Lisu are endemic to Yunnan, mainly living in the Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture and Wisi Lisu Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province, with the rest living in Lijiang, Baoshan, Diqing, Dehong, Dali, Chuxiong and other prefectures and counties in Yunnan and Xichang, Yanyuan, Muli and Dechang counties in Sichuan. The Lisu people are the descendants of the Qiang people, that is, one of the Tibetan-Burmese language group, the Lisu people have their own language, the language belongs to the Tibetan-Burmese language group of the Chinese-Tibetan language Yi language branch. The original script is very imperfect, and a new script based on the Latin alphabet was created in 1957. The Lisu folklore is rich and colorful. Myths and legends such as "Genesis" and "Our Ancestors" are the main sources for the study of the ancient history of the Lisu people. The myths and legends such as "Genesis" and "Our Ancestors" are valuable materials for the study of the ancient history of the Lisu people, and are also treasures in the treasury of Chinese folk literature. Their poems pay more attention to rhyme and rhythm and neatness. In some puns, the poems often skillfully contain fresh metaphors, which is the most prominent feature of Lisu poetry. The most prominent feature of Lisu poetry. The Lisu are mainly engaged in agriculture. Their marriage is monogamous. Lisu clothing is very characteristic, women wear embroidered blouse, linen skirt, like to wear red and white material beads, coral, shells and other ornaments; men wear short clothes, outside the linen coat, left waist knife, right waist hanging arrow bag, Lisu people can sing and dance, every harvest, marriage. Hunting and cover the house and other seasons, they have to sing and dance to their heart's content. Lisu believe that everything has a spirit, worship ancestral light. Traditional festivals are Kuoshi Festival (New Year's Day), Knife Pole Festival, Harvest Festival and so on.
? Lisu people are very fond of singing to the tune of "salt, do not eat can not; song, do not sing not" said. Folk songs are simple and touching, rich in tunes, and the traditional dance is mostly a group dance, with imitation of animals and animals, and also expresses the production life. Traditional musical instruments include the pipa, the mouth string, the four strings and the lusheng.
? The Lisu people are mainly engaged in agriculture, planting corn, rice, buckwheat and so on. The Lisu people believe in primitive religion and worship nature. Some also believe in Christianity and Catholicism.
History of the Lisu
The Lisu originated from the Qiang people who migrated south, and belonged to the same ethnic group as the Yi. The name of the tribe was first written in the Tang Dynasty. Tang Dynasty historical records say that the "chestnut millet two surnames barbarians" or "chestnut barbarians" and "Shi barbarians", "Shun barbarians", all belong to the "Wu barbarians". "Wu barbarians", distributed in today's Sichuan, Yunnan Yabi River, Jinsha River, the Lancang River and other broad areas; Yuan and Ming Dynasty by the Lijiang more Naxi feudal lords and other rule. 16th century, because of the unbearable Naxi Wood's Tusi enslavement and the threat of war, a large number of Lisu in the head of the Brahmu Bibi Pa's leadership, such as Nujiang River, Northwest Yunnan and other areas of the migration. In the 17th and 19th centuries, the Lisu migrated to the Nujiang River and other areas in northwestern Yunnan under the leadership of their chief, Komubipa. In the 17th-19th centuries, after the failure of the uprising, the Lisu people migrated again and again, some of them entered Myanmar; some of them moved to the Lao Slap, Thailand and so on. The migration continued until the Qing Dynasty. In the course of history, the Lisu people dissolved into the blood of many other ethnic groups.
Music of the Lisu
The Lisu have a population of about 470,000, mainly in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous County in Yunnan Province and Xichang in Sichuan Province. They have their own language and script based on the Latin alphabet. The Lisu believe in many gods and worship nature.
The Lisu have beautiful narrative poems and folk songs, folk songs are especially rich in tunes, some high and passionate, some low and sentimental, improvisational singing, infectious, and bring people to the Lisu villages.
Lisu rituals
Lisu festivals
? The Lisu people use the natural calendar and divide the year into 10 seasonal months, including the blossom month, the bird call month, the mountain burning month, the hunger month, the gathering month, the harvesting month, the cooking month, the hunting month, the New Year's month, and the house building month. Traditional festivals include the New Year Festival, Harvest Festival, Torch Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and Knife and Pole Festival. ?
Koshi Festival (New Year's Day) is the biggest folk festival, which is held once a year. New Year's Day is also the New Year's Day, New Year's food and brewing water and wine, in order to pray for grain abundance of one, each family should be the first pounded out of indica rice poi or glutinous corn poi out of a portion of the hanging in the tree to do the offerings, but also divided into a small bowl to feed the dog, because of folklore is that the dog brought the five valleys to the earth; in some cases, it will also be the first time the pounded out of the poi to feed the cattle to thank the cattle to help mankind to plow the land. On the first day of the New Year Festival, the whole family gathers for a meal and drinks wine with the same heart.
Harvest Festival? Most harvest festivals are held in the ninth and tenth months of the lunar calendar. The biggest event of the harvest festival is that every family makes wine and tastes new products, and some even go directly to the field to harvest while cooking wine, accompanied by songs and dances, often all night long, and then disperse.
Knife pole festival paper held every year on the eighth day of the second month of the lunar calendar, it is said that the knife pole is to make? The Lisu people have a "knife mountain dare on, the sea of fire dare to break into the" spirit and set up.
? Lisu people have their own calendar, the calendar month of January is their New Year's month, due to the habits of the region and the calendar called the method is different, the New Year's time is not the same. In the Nujiang region, the Lisu people have their own calendar, and January of the Gregorian calendar is their New Year month. Lisu see, about the summer calendar December 5 to the first month of the second year around the 10th for the New Year time. At that time, men, women and children dressed in new clothes, carry out wine cans, kill hunting and slaughtering sheep, giving each other. The boys take out their beloved lutes, the girls dress up beautifully, and people gather together, talk and laugh with each other, singing and dancing in a joyful atmosphere. At the same time to hold the song, jump "pot Zhuang", crossbow shooting competition and other activities. The Lisu people call the New Year's Eve "Qash" Festival. After the liberation of Hushui, Gongshan, Yunlong area? Lisu also organized the habit of hot springs song, every year on the occasion of the New Year, are to bring the food, back on the line of cooking utensils rushed to the Nujiang state capital of the six banks north of the twelve kilometers of the hot springs, to participate in the "soup spring race song will be". At that time the turbid springs on the side of the tents, a sea of people, famous singers from all over the world and on a round, beautiful and moving songs one after another, that is, late into the night, the songs are still in the bear to be the campfire to be echoed next to the fire. Such an annual "Tang Chi Zhai song will", has been to carry out more than ten days.
Crossbow shooting competition is also an important part of the Lisu Festival, people in the gathering of song and dance at the same time, young and middle-aged men often take out their favorite crossbow, in a hundred paces away from a target, than to test the skills of each person. To? Lisu people, the crossbow is essential, almost every family has, the men are all familiar with the crossbow with wild mulberry or other hardwood made of crossbow line with cattle tendons. General young men with crossbows must use a lot of strength to string, can be called a strong crossbow. Crossbow arrows made of bamboo or hardwood. In order to improve the power of the crossbow,? Lisu people often in the arrow coated with raw grass and other poisonous plant juice, so as to play a "see the blood seal throat", shot that is the role of death.
Because of the different regions, the activities of the L year is different, some of the New Year's Eve to first feed salt to the plowing cattle, to show respect for the plowing cattle a year of hard work; some of the pine tree planted in front of the house, so that on behalf of the mountain gods, to wine and meat offerings; some of the annual food in the people eat and drink before scooping up a spoonful of the dog to eat first, because they believe that the world's five grains of the seeds, is the dog after all the painstakingly flew to the Palace of Heaven to be
They believe that the seeds of the world's grains are the result of the dog's long and arduous flight to the palace of heaven to come here, so the dog should be the first to be consoled for this great work.
In addition to the "Qaish" festival, Lisu generally in other unified festival, just in the Nujiang River in some areas to the calendar in October (the month of drunkenness in the natural calendar of the Lisu). The natural calendar of the Lisu month of drunkenness), half a month after the harvest of the harvest festival, the festival time, villages and villages to cook wine and kill pigs, gatherings to eat and drink, singing and dancing, day and night.
Kurilu wedding customs
When the young men and women hold a wedding, both men and women have to set up a banquet to organize the banquet. In the woman to the door of the man's home, the man also set up a table in front of the door, accompanied by guests to drink wine. After the wedding, the bride and groom to exchange chopsticks, said the future to respect each other.
Lisu clothing
? Lisu men usually wear long or short linen shirts, knee-length black pants, black headbands, leather arrow bags and machetes, and coral earrings in the left ear. The Dehong Lisu men wear long knives, shell collars around their necks, hand-stitched flower bags adorned with small red and green pom-poms, and white leg guards. Women mostly wear long pleated skirts, but also wear black pants and aprons, wrap their heads in green cloth, carry hand-sewn hanging bags, and wear white giant clams and red and white coral beads strung together as "Ohle". Some are colorful, some are elegant and generous, extremely distinctive.
The diet of the Lisu people
? The Lisu people generally eat three meals a day. Still accustomed to the cooking method of rice and vegetables cooked in a pot, that is, when cooking, first put the rice into the pot to simmer, in the middle of the replacement of the water twice, when the rice is almost cooked, put into the vegetables, cabbage until the vegetables rotten. Usually, they seldom cook alone, and when the porridge is cooked, the whole family dines around the fire. The rice used for porridge is usually corn and buckwheat. Because the rice planting is less, only in the festival or reception of guests with rice porridge.
The Lisu people living in Lijiang? Lisu people like to eat yin corn rice, the so-called yin corn is the fall just ripe corn package, go to the package after the leaves into the boiling water to cook a little, and then dry storage. When eaten, the corn kernels are rubbed down, the skin is removed by pounding with a wooden nut, and the kernels are added with string beans, pig's head, or pork chops and cooked over low heat as a delicacy. Most of the Lisu people like to eat corn pops. Lisu people like to eat corn popping corn flower.
? Lisu meat sources include home-raised pigs, cows, goats, chickens and hunted muntjac, rock goats, mountain donkeys, bison, rabbits, pheasants and fish in the river, most of the meat is eaten by rubbing the meat with salt and putting it into the fire pit to barbecue and then eat it.
Common vegetables include bok choy, cabbage, radish, taro and various kinds of melons and potatoes, supplemented by a variety of fruits such as oranges, peaches, saffron, pears and seasons. Because of the abundance of local lacquer oil, all dishes are cooked with lacquer oil. For example, chicken stir-fried with lacquer oil, chicken stewed with lacquer oil, and eggs boiled in sweet wine with lacquer oil. Lacquer oil boiled sweet wine is considered to be the best food for maternal deficiency.
? Lisu family are raising bees, as few as 4, 5 groups, more than a dozen groups, every year in the fall, families are brewing wine, the raw materials used in addition to corn, sorghum, but also like to use tares, and tares wine is the best. Brewing, the first raw material mashed, steamed and put liquor medicine altar seal, 10 days after the seal can be opened to drink, the degree is not high, light and alcohol, thirst-quenching and refreshing effect.
? Lisu people like to drink a hemp seed tea. When making hemp tea, the first hemp seeds into the pot with a slight fire baked yellow, and then crushed into the boiling water to cook 6-7 minutes, take out the dregs, the soup is still into the pot to put salt or sugar to boil to drink. Hemp seed tea white, drink more like drinking wine can be drunk. In the Gongshan area of the? The Lisu people, influenced by the local Tibetan way of life, also have the habit of drinking ghee tea.
Typical food: Lacquer oil wine, water boiled piglets, pig's feet and pearl porridge.
Lisu architecture
According to the Lisu people's traditional habits, the construction of the house must be built within a day, otherwise it is considered inauspicious. In order to ensure that the house is built within one day, the owner must rely on the cooperation of family members, friends and neighbors, which is called the "waju" form in Lisu. A few days before the house is built, the owner of the house informs his friends and relatives. Beforehand, respectively, enough of the building materials, and then asked the shaman to choose an auspicious day, when all invited friends and neighbors to do it together, within a day that is completed. The owner of the house will treat his friends and relatives according to their financial situation.
In some places, the construction of houses is relatively simple, basically small bamboo buildings. Upstairs, generally with a bamboo fence separated into two compartments, the two rooms in the center of the house are set up a fire pit, prepared tripod, as a cooking fire. At night, the whole family sleeps around the fire, and the fire is built all year round inside the fire. In the event of guests, the host will let the guests live by the fire. Under the bamboo building is generally used to raise cattle, pigs and other livestock, bamboo building around the garden, planted with fruits, vegetables and so on.
The Lisu people of this bamboo building, simple, practical, it can be both wet, anti-beast, and easy to move and build. A new bamboo building in the same day to be built, otherwise it is considered unlucky. Built with local materials, the whole village to help. Once the new bamboo building is completed.
By Lijiang and other places of the Lisu people, the building is mostly all-wooden structure of the building, the smoke is always about one, two cubic meters long square wooden material base; covered with wooden boards. At the same time, due to the influence of the double and other ethnic groups, a small number of Lisu people also build houses of earth and brick structure.
Customs of the Lisu People
The Lisu people in the Nujiang area have spring baths. The Lisu people have the custom of spring bathing, when most young men and women bring their own luggage, food and eating utensils to the hot springs to bathe. Lijiang region of the Xiulan River in the summer three days before or after three days, the water will become muddy, said to contain a large number of minerals, drinking has the function of curing gastric diseases, with the Xiulan River water to cook, rice was red, fragrant and delicious. At that time, there will be a steam bath, which can cure rheumatism after bathing. During the bathing period, we have a picnic together. Lisu folk larger scale hunting picnic activities.
? Lisu folk weddings and funerals are to slaughter sheep (or cattle) to kill pigs feast guests. In the invitation, regardless of pork, mutton (or beef) are willing to put into a pot to cook if there is a VIP to, but also boiled suckling pig hospitality to two months just weaned piglets for the best. Hospitality to eat unique dishes, dining guests are seated on the floor, meat and food, the remaining can be taken away. Some of the Fugong? Lisu, in the event of a guest light, the host commonly used walnuts, ginger, chili, garlic, etc. into a bamboo tube, mashed, into a wooden bowl with salt to treat guests. Lisu hospitality drinking the most rich ethnic characteristics, drinking two people *** hold a bowl of wine, each other around the neck and shoulders, together with the mouth, so that the wine flow into the mouth of the host and guest at the same time, called "concentric wine", to the closest friends and relatives meet commonly used in this way of drinking.
When a woman gives birth, outsiders can not break into the room, especially taboo knife and arrow holders to break into; the house on the fire on the tripod, forbidden to pedal or move, and can not be splashed with saliva and snot, can not use the foot instead of the hand to add wood to the tripod; avoid harming spiders; during the mourning period, the deceased's friends and relatives and people in the same village are prohibited from eating chili, or else it is considered to be a disrespect for the deceased.