Annual March 15 of the Guizhou Miao "Sisters Festival", also known as the "Sisters Rice Festival", refers to the Guizhou Province, Taijiang County, Shibing County, as well as part of Jianhe County, the Miao people in the spring of each year by the women hosted by the sisters to eat rice festival. The specific time varies from place to place. The festival rituals are simple and unique, and the most typical and spectacular is the Miao Sisters' Festival of March 15 to 17 of the lunar calendar in the Shidong area of Taijiang County on the banks of the Qingshui River. The festival is centered on young women, inviting lovers to get together to eat sisters' meals, jumping on drums, singing songs, exchanging tokens, and entering into marriage contracts, which truly shows the life of men and women in the process of the change of human society from matriarchal to patriarchal clan society. During this time, the ancient and long-lasting Miao song and dance costume art, swarthy and thrilling dragon dance and bullfighting entertainment activities, peaceful and warm farm life and the pursuit of the pursuit of modern tourism activities intertwine and interact with each other, which has been described as "hidden in the stamen of the festival", "the oldest Oriental Valentine's Day! It is the "oldest oriental Valentine's Day", and has become a bright landscape of modern tourism economy in southwest China. Sisters Festival legends and changes
Miao Sisters Festival of a wider range of hundreds of villages and villages more than 100,000 Miao in the rituals and customs of the simplified or much the same, in the legend is also slightly different, the study of its origins of the legend, there are mainly the following three kinds of.
1, according to legend, Taijiang County, Ge a region, there is a large village of the Miao people, the village of the men every year to a very far away place to go hunting, a long, long time do not come back. There were also many women and children in the village and seventy flowery sisters. When the women return from their labor, they raise their children and live a life they can never finish. Sisters picking fruits on the mountain and work in the field, at home sisters also spinning and weaving brocade and picking flowers and rust, they weave out of the cloth box can not be loaded, they weave out of the color brocade ah, than the sky of the color of the sun is more beautiful; they embroidered out of the flower, the bees and butterflies are flying to stay, but the seventy sisters always feel that there is a lack of what, the heart is always not happy, because they have reached the age of cardamom. So the sisters were invited to go to open the field, they chose a place with abundant water, and turned their minds to open the field to create a field, open, open, open a big field, from this side of the field can not be seen from the other side of the field. So they stocked a lot of fish in the field, the spring came, they sowed glutinous rice seeds in the field, the fall came, they hit the glutinous grain filled a warehouse and a warehouse, brewed a tank and a tank of glutinous rice wine. They had food, drink and clothing, but the sisters always felt that something was missing and seldom sang or laughed. The old people saw the sisters' thoughts, came up with a good way to suggest that they can not finish eating the glutinous rice and drink the glutinous rice wine to save, to be the next year, when the spring flowers, made of fine rice sticky rice, and then to the fields to catch the fish and shrimp shells and snails to set up banquets, greeted young men from afar to come to eat the sisters rice and drink wine and dance and friendship and mate selection. The next year indeed through this form, some of the sister also chose the preferred couple and happily married out. Afterwards, eating sister rice has formed a specific festival.
2, according to legend, the Miao once lived in the far east. Later, due to the increase in population and the difficulties of life and disasters and wars, they were forced to migrate to the west, and whenever they came to live in a place for a period of time, some of their sisters would have to get married, and once again, the sisters who got married would not be able to go back to their homes. See each other when it is difficult to say goodbye is also difficult ah, so they decided in the spring season, to the field to catch fish and shrimp, invited the sisters have been married out of the sister back and unmarried sisters to get together, eat a meal of sisters to tell each other, and then say goodbye to each other, so that the practice of the annual Sisters Day, as the saying goes: ate a meal of sisters, but a year of lovesickness.
3, Sisters Day legend, mainly from the more than 500 lines of the "Sisters Day Song". Legend has it that there are two aunts' children, the male named Jindan, the female Ajiao, they both grew up childhood childhood sweethearts, two small, grew up, each other produced love, Jindan must marry Ajiao, Ajiao also must marry Jindan. However, Jiao's parents want her to marry back to her uncle's family (the old Miao custom of returning the head of the mother). But Jiao's parents want her to marry back to her uncle's family (the old Hmong custom is to return the head of the mother's family), so Jindan wants her to marry Jindan. They secretly date every day for the sake of their faithful love. Fearing that their parents and the elders of the village would find out, the two of them met in the wild to talk about their love. Each time, Jiao used her bamboo basket with needle and thread to secretly hide the rice and bring it to Jindan to eat. Year after year, after a lot of trials and tribulations and tenacious resistance, they finally married. The story of "Sisters' Rice" is based on the fact that the Miao language calls the food brought to the lover as "hidden rice (gad liangl)", which is translated as "Sisters' Rice" in Chinese.
Later, I don't know how many years later, legend has it that there are 800 girls in the Shi Dong area of Taijiang County who can't find a boyfriend and can't get married; and there are 800 young men in the Samping Datang area who can't find a daughter-in-law and are playing single. Elderly people remembered the story of Ajiao and Jindan eating "Sisters' Rice", and taught the girls to use the method of Ajiao and Jindan to invite the 800 young men in Sanbian Datang to eat "Sisters' Rice". In this way, everyone has found his or her love, a pair of pairs, a pair of married couples. Since then, the "Sisters' Rice" has evolved into a festival that focuses on the selection of couples between young men and women.
Shidong area to eat "sister rice" activities are very lively, every year in March of the lunar calendar, when the festival is approaching, near and far the Miao villages are busy, ready to meet and participate in this annual grand festival activities.
March 13 of the Lunar Calendar, the villages of the Miao girls, are going up the mountain to pick dyeing sticky rice black tree leaves and yellow flowers dyed black and yellow or multi-colored sticky rice. In the morning of the 14th, the girls go to the fields to fish for shrimps (no matter whose field it is); in the morning, each of them brings a big bowl of colorful glutinous rice, two duck eggs (for frying shrimps), and some money (the amount does not matter) to buy ducks. Why only ducks and eggs but not chickens and eggs? Because ducks can cross the river, symbolizing that they can cross to the other side to be with their lovers. This is all ready, close to the age of the girls are each concentrated to a family (preferably no boys or boys are very small family, which is good to receive boyfriends from abroad), and then the night there with men from abroad *** to eat "sister meal". After the meal, we meet in the village square or alleyway to sing and talk about love, all night long.
March 15 to 17 is the festival's official activities time, but also the climax of the lively. During the day, the girls are dressed in beautiful dresses, wearing a gorgeous silver jewelry, to Langxi (place name, the Chinese translation of Yangjiaping) to watch the bullfighting, fighting birds; with their own together with the men to eat "sister rice" jumping Lusheng and jumping wooden drum dance; night, and as the night of the 14th, men and women get together in the village square or alleyway to sing and talk about love. At this time, the girls (divided into many batches of different ages) use bamboo baskets to hold their own colorful glutinous rice balls and gifts of fish, meat, duck eggs, etc., and present them to the men who have accompanied them for two days. In the coming year, these young men collectively raise money to buy gifts (embroidered silk threads, silk satin, etc.) in the bamboo baskets that the girls gave last year, and bring them back to the girls (called the return of the bamboo baskets). So after many times you and I, so that the mutual understanding of deepening, and then produce and talk about love, and ultimately married.
Now, a few days before the Sisters' Spider Festival, the sisters go to the mountains and fields, picking the leaves of the Southern Candlewood. Sister tops, honey montana and other various colors of flowers and plants, respectively, with cold water impregnation and boiled in water method, made of black, red, yellow and green various flowers and plants juice. Then use these juices to soak glutinous rice separately. One or two days later, these juices completely penetrate the glutinous rice, and then take out the separate filtration, and then rinse with water to the table hundred excess color juice, and then these separately soaked in a good color of glutinous rice mixing, on the retort steamed, it became a crystal bright fragrant colorful sister rice. This with a variety of wildflowers and grasses to take the color of the sister rice, not only colorful, fragrant and delicious, and long put inconvenience is not bad. Also has eyesight fitness, nourishing and strengthening effect, is the festival with friends and family **** enjoy with the gift of special food.
Process of festival activities
Preparation:
Prior to the festival, the girls should go to the field to fish, regardless of which family's field fish can be fished in ancient times, the owner of the field generally do not intervene. Each family goes to the slope to pick "sister flowers" to make "Ga Liang" (glutinous rice), and cook "Ga Liang" and prepare enough food and wine.
Process of the festival:
In most areas, the girls voluntarily collect eggs, meat, fish, wine, sister rice and other food to entertain the invited descendants. When the latter come home, the girls, as hosts, invite their sisters from the village to accompany them, and they drink wine, eat sister rice and sing songs. Sisterhood rice is dyed in different colors such as red, purple, green and yellow in the area of Laotun and Shidong, which is crystal clear, fragrant and delicious. In the rest of the area, it is dyed in black color, also known as black rice, which is made by picking a kind of fragrant young leaves from the mountain slopes and dyeing them. When singing, men and women are seated in two rows, and then set up their positions and open the battle curtain to sing, to sing to pass on their feelings. The content of the songs is very wide. There are ancient song interrogation and love songs, etc., the girls with the song interrogation of the origin of the Sisters Festival and what the Sisters meal symbolizes, you sing my answer, the song goes on and on. Through vivid similes and rich associations, they express their true feelings. At the end of the song, who can not answer, or sung and the other side of the song does not match, the answer is not the question, who is considered to lose. If the girls lose, they have to send the man a gift, such as hand circle, earrings, rings, etc.; If the man loses, before sending the girl a silver hand circle, now send a watch or a souvenir gift. The winning party should also return thanks to a gift of considerable value. If the two sides voluntarily give each other gifts, most of them are During the festival, some middle-aged and old-aged men also meet to the neighboring cottage to go with the corresponding age of the women to the song, the scene is similar to the young people to sing. During the festival, in addition to these activities, there are also activities such as drum stomping, bullfighting, birdfighting, horse racing, etc. At the end of the festival, the descendants will go back to their villages. At the end of the festival, when the juniors want to go back, the girls use new bamboo baskets or new pads to hold sister rice and give it to the juniors to bring back as a gift. Getting the sister rice sent by the girls means that the girls have already been favorably impressed. If there is no girl to send, the boys can also go to the girls "to ask", to ask the poor and sparse fashion, and casually said: "Please send a mouthful of Ga Liang to eat, cover mosquito bites it!" The girls often feel sympathy and generosity. In the delivery of the latter's rice baskets and Pa Pao, sensitive girls often quietly hidden markers, such as pine leaves, bamboo hooks, live chickens and ducks, parsnip sprouts, chili peppers or garlic, etc., to convey a variety of feelings.
Holiday tokens of symbolism
Sisters rice color symbolism: green symbolizes the hometown of the beautiful Qingshui River, red symbolizes the Zhai developed and prosperous, yellow symbolizes the five grains of abundance, purple and blue symbolizes the rich and solid, white symbolizes the purity of love.
The significance of the sisters' rice markers:
① Tibetan pine leaves: representing the needle, suggesting that the latter should return the girl embroidery needles and floral threads later.
② Hanging bamboo hooks: implied reward with umbrellas, hanging a few hooks to send a few umbrellas, if you put two sets of bamboo hooks with each other, it is expressed the hope that in the future more with the girl.
③ put toon buds: said the girl would like to marry with the latter. Because the Miao language called the toon buds for "E", "Yang" means "lead" and "marry", the girl implied that she hoped that the latter would come to marry as soon as possible.
④ Putting cotton: it implies that the girls miss their offspring. Because the Miao language called cotton as "bear", and the Miao language "miss" agree, so it is used to imply the feelings of longing.
⑤ Put coriander Xi vegetable: its meaning and implication is the same as the spring sprouts, because the Miao language called this dish "E Yang Xi", "Yang" meaning the same as above.
vi) Put cotton and coriander: it indicates the eagerness to get married.
⑦ Hanging a live duck: it is hoped that a piglet will be given back to the girl to keep for the next year's sisterhood dinner, to be killed for everyone to eat, and to be celebrated again.
⑧ put chili or garlic: imply that they do not want to come back or cut off.