The "Daughters' Meeting" is one of the representative regional ethnic festivals of the Tujia people in Enshi Prefecture, and it is a unique and novel festival culture, which is particularly bright and colorful because of its uniquely feminine cultural splendor in the land of China. Generally every year on the lunar calendar from July 7 to 12 these days, is the traditional "daughter will" auspicious days, initially popular in the Enshi lime kiln, Dashanting area, now has developed into a statewide national festival.
Hailed as the "Oriental Valentine's Day" of the Tujia "daughter will", preserved the legacy of the ancient Bajin primitive marriage customs, is the remote Tujia cottage and feudal arranged marriage opposed to a way of love, is the Enshi Tujia young people in the pursuit of freedom of marriage in the process of spontaneous formation. In the process of marriage, it is a festival event formed spontaneously with the main purpose of choosing a spouse collectively. Its main feature is to use songs as a matchmaker to choose a spouse on their own. The festival is mainly attended by young girls, but also by married women, who go to the festival to look for their lovers or to date their old lovers through songs and to talk about their love.
Participating in the Daughter's Club, young women dressed in festive attire, put on their most beautiful clothes, used to wear the long inside, short outside, a shorter than a short, layers can be seen, known as the "bright folding" or commonly known as "three drops of water! "
The daughter's dress was made in the same way as the other dresses, so she wore her best gold and silver jewelry.
Daughters will be the day, the girls with a basket back to the native products on both sides of the street, they are sitting firmly on the back of the basket inverted, waiting for the person of interest to buy things. The young man is slung over the shoulder of a basket, like a careless wanderer, in front of the girl to talk to, the two sides of the words together, the chance to meet, to the jungle outside the street to catch the "daughter will", through the female asked the male answer to the form of the song, interoperability of the heart, to set life.
According to legend, the Tujia "daughter will" from the end of the Ming Dynasty, has a history of more than 400 years, the Qing Yongzheng 13 years (1735), the implementation of the "return of land to the stream", "daughter will" was banned. The "Daughter's Club" was banned. After the Xinhai Revolution, the "Daughters' Meeting" flourished again, and after the 1980s, Enshi Prefecture held a grand Daughters' Meeting every year to show the national flavor, making it a symbol of Enshi's national culture and a dazzling artistic wonder for people outside the mountains. Through the festive and prosperous but simple and elegant "Daughter's Festival", people can feel the true, good and beautiful pulse and soul of the far Cuban people, and see the Tujia people's pursuit of happiness and the positive spirit of the nation.
In the past two years, as a traditional cultural boutique, the Daughters' Meeting has become an event in the Tujia Folklore Festivals, which is a big stage for displaying the Tujia Folklore Culture. Therefore, Enshi Tujia Daughters' Meeting itself is only a traditional folk festival, not a tourism product. Only, the parties concerned to take advantage of this festival, playing the tourism card, she packaged into a tourism product ......
"Daughter will" is divided into the song of matchmaking, the test of betrothal, tug of war, bye bye into four parts of the marriage. Tujia young men to their favorite woman song, song endorsement, pouring out the heart of the feelings of adoration, the girl if the man in the eyes of the man, then to their favorite man throw incense bag. In addition, the Tujia young men to tug-of-war contest for son-in-law, the prospective aunt guest over eating Tujia cover bowl meat, against the bamboo pole off, both men and women "side by side". In addition, crying marriage, hit the iron threshold to stop the car and other customs are also interesting. The young man looked at people's girls, please matchmaker to go to the woman's home to propose marriage, the woman's parents if agreed, will choose an auspicious day by the woman's brother and sister-in-law, accompanied by younger siblings to look at the man's home, called "see the corridor field". Satisfied with the consent of the marriage on the engagement, the two families invited people "together eight characters", and will be both men and women together eight characters written on a piece of paper, each holding half as proof of the marriage contract, called "geng stickers". Geng stickers, the male party according to the number of female elders, prepare the corresponding letter (meat), tea and food (wine, noodles, cookies, etc.), accompanied by the elders or brother and sister-in-law siblings to the female side of the family recognition, salute. Since then, the male party has to make a pilgrimage to the female family. After the marriage is finalized, the man prepares the bride price, the woman does the dowry, and the matchmaker goes to the woman's home to discuss the marriage, which is called "seeking happiness". On the first day of the wedding, the man sends the bride price to the woman's home called "over the gift". In the evening, the male party invited nine unmarried sons and daughters of friends and relatives to drink and sing with the groom, called "accompanying ten brothers". Tujia girls in the first night of marriage, shall be the face of sweat hair pulling net, the hair in the back of the head combed into a round sideburns inserted jade hairpins, called "on the head" (also known as pulling the face), and then set up a banquet by the nine unmarried women accompanied by a banquet called "accompany the ten sisters". Accompanying "ten sisters" are generally the bride's close friends in the leap, accompanied by the girl to be married in a few large tables put together by the stage, improvised songs and dances to express the blessings of the girls to be married to the partner and reluctant to part with the feelings.
When the girls get married, they sing the "Song of Crying for Marriage" to express their love for their parents, brothers and sisters, and their attachment to their hometown. When you cry, your sisters, brothers and sisters-in-law, mother, relatives and friends cry with you. After the newlyweds pay their respects, the bridegroom carries the bride into the bridal chamber, called "carrying the bride". Three days after the newlyweds to return to the bride's home to kowtow to the ancestral tablets, and parents to see the ceremony, after the meal, the bride and groom returned three days later, to the male relatives to send gifts called "back to the door".
Tujia girls get married when the crying marriage, novel style, is the unique and distinctive customs of the Tujia people. Crying words in short and long sentences, have been handed down from generation to generation, there are also improvisation, most of them are rich in poetic rhyme and sense of music. The words are skillful and profound. The content of the old system of attack, there are on the matchmaker derision, there are on the old feelings of expression, there are on the mountains and rivers of nostalgia, there are on the women's praise, there are on the future of the longing.