Introduction: Yao an ethnic minority, in China's 55 ethnic minorities is also considered to be one of the oldest ethnic groups, Yao mostly distributed in southern China, the residents are very long-lived, so Yao is one of the most long-lived ethnic groups in China. So, what are the traditional festivals of Yao people? What are the characteristics and customs of Yao people? Come with me to find out.
What are the Traditional Festivals of the Yao People
The traditional festivals of the Yao people include the Mountain Song Festival, the Song Church Festival, the Sunshine Clothes Festival, the Ganba Festival, the Pan Wang Festival, the Cattle Festival, the Danu Festival, the Bar Mitzvah, the Choliao Conversion Festival, and the Choling Nian Bai. The Yao people, one of China's ethnic minorities, are a mountain-dwelling people whose villages are usually built on top of mountains, halfway up mountains and at the foot of mountains and streams. Yao men and women like to store long hair, ancient books have Yao people men and women to store hair, coiled knot on top of the head, called "bun" records.
Jiu Ge Tang Festival
The Jiu Ge Tang Festival, also known as the Jiu Wang Festival, is a grand festival of the Yao people in Liannan Yao Autonomous County and Lianshan Yao Autonomous County in Guangdong Province. Juguetang" is a translation of the Yao language, which means to celebrate a good harvest. It is also a festival for young men and women to sing songs to find friends. It is held once every three to five years, usually in the golden autumn season, around October 16th, and lasts for three days and nine days.
When the festival came before, each family had to notify friends and relatives from near and far to come to sightseeing. When the festival comes, people from all villages carry the tablet of Zu Gong from the temple to parade and worship, and they bring the newly harvested grains, sweet potatoes and patties, rice wine, mountain fruits and other items in groups, over the mountains, converging on the pre-selected Jiu Ge Tang (a village with a flat terrain), the cannon for the trumpet, and blowing the bullhorn song.
Handsome Yao boys with hair in buns, red cloths on their heads, and beautiful feathers in their hair, jumped to the sound of gongs and drums and danced the long encouragement drums. Dressed in embroidered flowers, colorful butterflies, beautiful mountains and rivers, and floating colored clouds, Yao girls dance and choose their lovers. There are sometimes as many as eighty or ninety pairs of young people taking part in the singing. As the young men sing one song after another, the girls carefully measure the singing young men and secretly choose their beloved ones. The young men also sing to their heart's content to win the hearts of the girls, and after getting to know each other in the singing hall during the day, they can sing to the girls alone at night to woo them. On the hillside and under the shade of the trees, they tell each other how they love each other by singing songs to each other. Other people either drink and talk, or sing Yao songs and look into the distance, the scene is very lively.
During the festival, each family makes twenty to thirty pounds of sticky rice patties to entertain relatives and friends. Each family also produces a number of water wine (about seven pounds) for people to drink. On the stage of "Jiu Ge Tang", the rice wine provided by the people is placed for people to drink.
Saiyi Festival
Every year on the sixth day of the sixth month of the old lunar calendar, the Panyao of Guiping County, Guangxi Province, celebrate the annual Saiyi Festival in a grand manner. In the morning of the festival, the old man of each family directs the young people to move the boxes, cabinets and clothes, shoes, etc. to the sunbathing ping outside the house in an orderly manner, spread out on bamboo mats or hung on bamboo poles, waiting for the scorching sun, the whole cottage is colorful and has become a "sea" of clothes. Sun to three or four hours and then put the clothes back to the original place. In the evening, the whole village stood in the sunbathing ping, waving frequently at the sinking sun, expressing gratitude and respect for the sun. "Sunshine Festival" families to slaughter chickens and kill ducks to celebrate, and have a lot of fun.
Ganba Festival
Ganba Festival, is the Hekou Yao Autonomous County, Yunnan Province, Yao Mountain Township, around the indigo Yao people (Yao subfamily) people's annual festival. It is held every year on the third day of the third month of the lunar calendar.
They have been busy since late February of the lunar calendar. People first agree on whether to go hunting in the mountains or fishing in the river on the day of the festival, and then divide into groups to prepare. Those who decided to go hunting in the mountains started to burn charcoal, repair guns, pound gunpowder, and make yards; those who were going to go fishing in the river also set up their own utensils. Every family uses the best glutinous rice to make rice wine in preparation for the "Ganba Festival".
On the day of the festival, the adult men who went to the mountains to hunt, armed with bows and crossbows, muskets, and took with them the poop at dawn set off on the journey. Getting wild game, everyone **** enjoy, if you can not get the prey, will be made fun of. In particular, the "menchu" (young men) are despised by the "menzai" (girls). Therefore, those who go to the mountains always try to return with a full load. People who go down to the river to fish and shrimp also do the same. The old men and women stayed behind and were busy preparing the New Year's dinner, roasting chickens and ducks, cooking colorful glutinous rice, spring poi, and all kinds of wine.
In the evening, people returned to their villages and congratulated each other. They took out the sweet rice wine, ate the fragrant glutinous rice, and ate all the game and fish they had hunted that day. If you can't finish it, leave part of it, hang it by the fire, roast it into dry bar, and keep it for entertaining guests later. In the evening, when the night shrouded the cottage, men, women and children after a day of hard work, are sitting around the fire, singing a moving Yao song. After the meal, everyone gathers in the square, where men play brass drums and women dance with limp feet. People enjoy the joy after labor, wishing for a good harvest and celebrating the festival.
Moon Half Festival
The Moon Half Festival in the seventh month of the lunar calendar is an important festival for the Yao people (equivalent to the Spring Festival). On the eve of the festival, every family is busy, and the sound of cattle horns, gongs and drums, and laughter are heard everywhere inside and outside the villages. Starting from the tenth day of the month, every family puts on fish, meat, wine, etc. to celebrate the festival or worship their ancestors. The fifteenth day is the last day of the festival and also the most lively night, this night, every family makes the best and the most sumptuous meal, and the hosts and guests get together to wish each other family harmony, health of the old and the young, and a good harvest. After dinner, girls and boys dressed in festive costumes, singing and dancing, until the cock crows in the morning, people only go to sleep.
Characteristics and Customs of the Yao People
1. Marriage Customs of the Yao People
Since ancient times, when a man is big enough to get married, when a woman is big enough to get married is a must for men and women of the right age. Chinese tradition, the woman married to the man, the birth of the heir age with the father's name, which has become a thousand years of unchanging rules. But in our country among the ethnic minorities, marrying a man to marry a woman have a kind of saying.
2, climbing
Chashan Yao young people "climbing" Yao compatriots living in the Yao Mountains in Guangxi, by the impact of living in the region, in the marriage of the basic to maintain the traditional practices.
Here living in the Dayao Mountains of Chashan Yao, is a branch of the Yao people, meaning that the people living in the mountains. Chashan Yao's young man in search of love, the popularity of the "climbing" custom, unique ethnic flavor. Chashan Yao villages are generally based on the mountains and water, large and centralized, and their homes are two-story wooden buildings.
The facade and the hanging part of the building, carved dragons and phoenixes, painted with oil and color, like a sedan chair hanging in the mountains. The quiet hanging building is a place for adult girls to socialize. Into the door of the hanging building building, you will find the Yao compatriots living in the Dayao Mountains in Guangxi, by the influence of the region of residence, in the wedding basically maintain the traditional customs. Here live the Chashan Yao in the Dayao Mountains.
3, marrying a woman and marrying a man
Yao Autonomous County is the first Yao Autonomous County established in China, the territory of the convergence of Pan Yao, Hua Lan Yao, Chashan Yao, Shanzi Yao, Au Yao, and other five clans of Yao and is known as the "home of the world's Yao people".
The late Mr. Fei Xiaotong, a famous sociologist, once said, "The Yao people in Dayao Mountain have more branches and the most typical folklore in the country. At present, there are two ethnic hotspots for human research in the world, among which is the Yao. The world Yao research center is in China, and the Chinese Yao research center is in Jinxiu."
The Yao people have formed a deep, simple, colorful Yao culture and customs in their lives. Yao marriage rituals cover the richness of the Yao people. Most of the PanYao marriage after the fall harvest, before the Spring Festival, divided into "marrying the girl" and "marrying the groom" two kinds. Before the formal wedding, it is necessary to go through the process of choosing a spouse, proposing marriage, and getting engaged.
The wedding banquet is three meals for the "main wine" and six meals for the "partial wine" (breakfast and snack). On the morning of the fourth day of the pro-guests to leave, the male family to send a "nipple gift" (also known as the small source of gift), that is: to send the parents-in-law of each leg of eight to nine kilograms of pork, other pork four to five kilograms. The fourth or fifth day, the couple back to the door to live overnight, the same back to the round room.
4, Yao religious beliefs
Yao religious beliefs are more complex, some areas of primitive nature worship, ancestor worship or totem worship occupies a certain position; some areas are mainly practicing Wicca and Taoism. Taoism has a great influence on the Yao people, where a set of funeral rituals, basically according to the Taoist law, only which is mixed with some of the content of the original religion of the nation.
5, dance
Yao dance and religious rituals, the most famous is the long drum and copper drum dance. The long drum dance is mainly popular in the Yao areas of the Pan Yao branch.