Yao have their own language, the Yao language is Sino-Tibetan. Language, Yao language belongs to the Sino-Tibetan Yao language family Yao language branch, but the situation is more complex, more than half of the people say "Mian" words, belonging to the Yao language branch of the Miao Yao language family; there are two-fifths of the people say "Bunu" language, belonging to the Miao language branch; Guangxi region, there are those who say "Laja" language, belongs to the Zhuang and Dong language family. Most of them are fluent in Chinese and Zhuang, and they do not have their own national scripts, but generally use Chinese as a common language. Oral literature is extremely rich.
The Yao people have 63 kinds of self-proclaimed names, such as Mian, Men, Min, etc., and 390 kinds of other names, such as Panyao, Indigo Yao, and Red Head Yao. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, they were collectively called the Yao.
By the limitations of the living area, most Yao people still retain the primitive hunting, fishing and farming culture, as well as exquisite Yao brocade, Yao clothing, ancient legends, beautiful Yao songs, beautiful dances, unique marriage customs and religious beliefs. Yao women are good at weaving, dyeing and embroidery, and their costumes have exquisite patterns and designs, which are rich in variations. Most of the clans are called by their costumes, for example, those who use boards to support their headdresses are called top-board Yao; those who wear indigo clothes are called indigo Yao. The language of the Yao people is complex, with many dialects, no writing, and the Chinese language is commonly used. In order to commemorate their ancestors, October 16th of the lunar calendar is designated as "Panwang Festival". The Yao mainly believe in primitive religions, worshiping the gods of village, family, mountain and wind, etc., and also divining auspicious days and sacrificing to the gods for their activities in life and production. The religious beliefs of the Yao people are complex, with Wicca, Taoism and primitive religions varying from place to place.
Etiquette
The hospitality of the Yao people is even greater than that of the Han areas. Any guest who enters a Yao home is treated with respect and hospitality. Interesting "hanging bags" and "Guadan wine", is a typical courtesy of the Yao hospitality. When a guest arrives at a Yao house, he or she only needs to hang the bag he or she is carrying on the hook on the main pillar of the house to indicate that he or she wants to dine in the house. No need to explain in advance, the host will naturally stay in the guest dining at home. If you do not understand this rule, the old bag and other things on the side, the host will think that you have to go elsewhere, the meal often fall through.
The Yao people have great respect for their ancestors, and are accustomed to reading the names of their ancestors for several generations before eating, which means that their ancestors first tasted before their children and grandchildren can be used. This is especially true for the sumptuous meals. Every festival must have pork, chicken, duck and wine to worship ancestors, eating seats also have to pay attention to: the elderly and honored guests must sit on the seat. In the event of guests, to wine and meat hospitality, some places to offer the chicken crown to the guests. Yao in the toast to the guests, generally by the young girl to raise the cup Qi Mei, in order to show respect for the guests; there are also highly respected old man for the guests to toast, is regarded as a great gift.
Yao family hospitality generous and courteous. Preserved meat, mountain delicacies and local specialties are the most common dishes in Yao family hospitality. On the guest table, the golden thick bacon as the top product, the host will enthusiastically put a large piece of bacon clip to the guests. Whether the guests like it or not, they should accept it so that the host will be happy.
Guadan wine is a special wine for Yao family to entertain guests. This kind of wine is made of glutinous rice. It is brewed into a paste wine, mixed with spring water or cool water, drinking with a melon scoop out of the pour in the bowl, even liquid with slag to drink. It is not very strong and has a sweet flavor. When dining, the youngest girl in the family poured wine and rice, and the host frequently toasted to the guests. At this time, the guests do not have to be too modest, should be generous and open to drink. In this way, the host believes that the guests look up to the Yao family, will be more and more happy, more cordial. If the formal see outside, but not welcome.
In Dashan Yao, also like to honor guests with oil tea, in case of guests, are used to honor three bowls. Named "a bowl of sparse, two bowls of pro, three bowls to see the true". Yao old people also like to drink tea, so tea is also a hospitality drink. Hospitality guests, chicken, meat, salt in a row in the bowl, regardless of the host and guest, must be eaten in order to clip, no disorder. Guests and the elderly eat every bowl of rice by the women on behalf of the loaded rice. Salt has a special status in the food customs of the Yao people, the Yao district does not produce salt, but there can be no shortage of salt. Salt in Yao is a great gift to invite Taoist priests and relatives, commonly called "salt letter". Anyone who receives a "salt letter", no matter how important things have to be put aside, on time to the appointment.
Costumes
The Yao people used to have different characteristics due to their residence and costumes, and there used to be "Overhill Yao", "Red-headed Yao", and "Daban Yao", "Pingtou Yao", "Indigo Yao", "Sha Yao", "White Head Yao", and other self-named and other names. In terms of customs and habits, the traditional features of the Yao people have been maintained, especially in the clothing of men and women. Yao women are good at embroidery, with exquisite patterns on the lapels, cuffs and hems of their pants. Their hair is plaited around their heads, surrounded by fine beads of five colors, and the neck of their lapels is embroidered with colorful motifs to their chests. Men like to store their hair in buns and wrap their heads in red or green cloth, wear collarless lapel long-sleeved clothes, white cloth "kangshi" slung over the clothes, and wear pants with big legs. Yao men and women up to fifteen, six years old to change the flower cap to change the head wrap, marking the body has matured.
Customs
To Yao guests, but also know the local taboos, otherwise it will cause the host's resentment. These taboos are: taboo feet on the fireplace support frame; taboo in the fireplace burning paper with words; into the Yaojia taboo wear white shoes and white hats, because the symbol of mourning; taboo sitting on the threshold; wearing straw shoes can not go upstairs; can not sit on the housewife burns the fire of the stool; to the wooden rows, the taboo "to kill, words," the rain to kill, say "rain cover ", because" kill and "scattered" harmonized; meet people logging, avoid saying "eat meat", "dead" and other ominous words and so on.
Pan Wang worship of the Yao people in the past generally prohibit the eating of dog meat; worship of "Milo Tuo" Yao people in the past prohibit the eating of sow meat and eagle meat. Chenxi County in southwestern Hunan prohibited cucumber before the fifth day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar. The vast majority of the Yao forbade cat meat and snake meat. In some places, lard is forbidden in the first few days after the birth of a woman. Yao sacrifice to the gods, generally with pigs, chickens, ducks, eggs, fish and other food, avoiding dogs, snakes, cats and frogs meat.
Marriage customs
Men and women are free to socialize, and many young men and women of the Yao nationality take the opportunity of "playing the song hall" to choose the person of interest, and once the men and women are in love with each other, the parents of the two sides will be able to talk about the marriage through the matchmakers, and the pork and wine as gifts. When the wedding is held, are to feast, according to traditional custom, the wedding banquet must be invited to Zhai old to participate, the bride and groom drink wine. But do not intermarry with other ethnic groups. Family organization monogamy, more aunts and uncles cousin marriage. Intermarriage with the same surname is not taboo. Indigo Yao door-to-door family more prevalent, white head Yao popular "marriage" custom.
The Yao people practiced monogamous marriage system, generally do not intermarry with other clans, net clan five generations away from marriage. Some marriages are arranged by parents, and there are also free love unions. Those whose marriages are arranged by their parents are often promised to others by their parents at a young age, and if their parents have died, they are left to their brothers and sisters-in-law and uncles. The main way of choosing a spouse freely is to sing songs.
The song is generally carried out in the Spring Festival and outside the village young men and women to the village of the song, there are also young men in the village invited to friends and neighbors of the village song. The location of the song is usually chosen near the village, when the men and women are on one side, to ask and answer questions to sing the song. The tunes of the songs are simple, but the lyrics are complex, depending on the depth of the feelings of the men and women singing to each other. After the collective song of observation, comparison, consideration, if a young man to a young girl to happen to have a good feeling, it can be sung with the young girl alone, but the location can only be seen in the crowd of places, both sides have a certain understanding of the male that is to the female side of the proposal to disclose the views of the two sides, such as the two sides of the love of the heart, can be given each other a small piece of jewelry as a token. In some areas of the Yao ethnic minority, mutual tokens when the little girl to bite the young man's arm, if the young man's arm is bitten and cum thick, it is said to have a destiny, otherwise the marriage will be difficult.
The song is a free form of marriage popular in Yao society for a long time, so in the long-term development process gradually formed some *** with the rules, essay material "Yao customs and habits". As the village young men and women can not be on the desire, the presence of the elderly can not be on the song; their own family can not be on the song; men and women shall not be alone or in a secluded place on the song and so on. Yao marriage prevailing matchmaking, even through the song of choice of the couple, but also through the matchmaking engagement. Matchmaking usually consists of the male family selecting and sending a matchmaker to the female family to deliver tobacco leaves to show the marriage proposal, which is called "asking for cigarettes", and the female parents accept the tobacco leaves to indicate that they agree to the marriage proposal, and if the tobacco leaves are returned, then it is said to be rejected. There are also those who choose to get married through song and then matchmaking.
Yao marriages, uncle enjoys the right to marry his niece as his daughter-in-law, and only when the uncle has no son can he marry someone else. When the eldest daughter of the family gets married, the aunt and uncle will preside over the wedding, and when the second daughter gets married, the eldest sister and brother-in-law will preside over the wedding, and the eldest sister will comb her hair for her. If a family has no male heir, it is common for the family to recruit a family member. Widows are generally sympathized with by the community and can remarry. If they are in lack of care, their property will be equally divided among the brothers of their original husbands, and the widows can take away their own personal belongings. Customary law is the standard for maintaining the marital life of Yao families. Unmarried men and women fornication, such as being discovered, must ask "Yao eyes" to kill chickens for the "wash face" to recognize the mistake, such as the woman is pregnant and give birth to a child, generally that is married to a large wife. A married man and an unmarried woman in an adulterous pregnancy, the man can be taken as a concubine, and vice versa, the man will be punished. A married man and a married woman adultery, was found by the husband, it will be "Yao eyes" by the adulterer of the husband of the penalty of five yuan half open (pre-liberation Yunnan prevailing a kind of goods advance), to the husband; continue to commit adultery, will be subject to a heavy penalty. Divorce is regarded as a serious matter by the Yao people, and when the two sides really cannot be reconciled, they must be broken by the "Yao eyes", or else they will be condemned by the people of the village. Both sides voluntarily divorced, divorce, the two sides each with a machete, bamboo Jane a section (or a section of bushels of wood), far into the material Zhai, to the mountains to the bamboo tube broken into two halves, each holding one half, and immediately walk away in the opposite direction, that each walk each way, and never look back; or a section of silk thread, with a knife to cut, each holding a section, that a knife and a cut off. If one party initiates a divorce and the other does not agree, the party initiating the divorce is required to refund part of the other party's gift money for the marriage.
Food customs
The Yao people have three meals a day, usually two meals and a porridge or two porridges and a rice, and three dry meals during the busy season. In the past, the Yao people often add corn, millet, sweet potatoes, cassava, taro, beans and so on in the rice porridge or rice. Sometimes they also use the method of "simmering" or "baking" to process food, such as simmering sweet potatoes and other potatoes, simmering bitter bamboo shoots, baking young corn, baking poi and so on. Living in mountainous areas of the Yao people, cold food habits, food production, are considered easy to carry and storage, so the staple food, side dishes both rice dumplings, bamboo rice are their favorite food production. Labor Yao are on the ground picnic, we come together in a piece, out of the dishes brought **** with food, while the main food but each eat their own food.
Vegetables commonly eaten are a variety of melons, beans, greens, radishes, chili peppers, as well as bamboo shoots, mushrooms, fungus, ferns, parsnips, yellow flowers and so on. The Yao region also produces a variety of fruits. Vegetables are often made into dried or pickled vegetables. Some Yao in Yunnan prefer to make their vegetables very light, basically boiling them in plain water with salt. Some directly boiled in white water, dipped in salt and chili pepper preparation of dipping water, in order to maintain the original flavor of a variety of different vegetables; meat is also often processed into bacon. Guangxi's Yao cooking meat is generally dry fried, boiled, seasoned with salt, less with spices; and meat is to be made into a very strong flavor of the dishes, fresh meat or bacon, first fried and baked brown, and then boiled.
The Yao people like to eat insect chrysalis, often eat pine chrysalis, kudzu chrysalis, wild bee chrysalis, bee chrysalis and so on. The Yao people also like to use the mountainous areas to process and make their own cane sugar, sweet potato sugar, bee sugar and so on.
The Yao people like to drink, usually at home with rice, corn, sweet potatoes and other home-brewed, often drink 2 or 3 times a day. Yunnan Yao people like to use the mash soaked water wine to drink, go out, commonly used bamboo tube to put the drink on the water.
Guangxi region of the Yao people also like to use cinnamon, ginger and other decoction tea, that this tea has a refreshing, clear fatigue effect. Many areas of the Yao people like to play oil tea, not only their own daily diet, but also with oil tea to entertain guests.
Typical food: the Yao people have a large population, wide distribution, each place has a unique flavor of food, which the typical food: oil tea; dumplings; Ho Bao Zha.
Festivals
Yao people in addition to the Spring Festival, Qingming Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival, etc., there are also their own unique traditional festivals, such as Panwang Festival, Festival of the Spring Festival, Darnu Festival, playing songs, Paga Festival, and so on. Festivals because of the large number of people, rice generally do not use iron pots and pans to cook, but with wooden Zhen steam, this rice aroma is stronger. Every festival. Yao people also want to do poi. Festival dishes are mainly chicken, duck, fish, pork, tofu, vermicelli and various vegetables. In some places, the Yao people also cook umi rice on April 8th. The Yao girls in Jiangshui County, Hunan Province, eat flower eggs, make flower poi and eat flower candies on the eighth day of the fourth month of the lunar calendar every year when they celebrate the "Picnic Festival". The girls ate flower eggs, flower sugar and flower poi poi, lads are not allowed to peep, violators will be punished.
Juggling Songtang is a large-scale recreational activity for Liannan Paiyao to worship their ancestors and celebrate the harvest, which is mostly carried out after the 16th day of the 10th month of the lunar calendar, and the length of time varies from 3 to 9 days. At that time, every family has water wine, glutinous rice poop to entertain the guests, Yao sacrifices to the gods, generally with pigs, chickens, ducks, eggs, fish and other food, avoid using dogs, snakes, cats, frogs and other meat. The Yao people must cut cows to offer sacrifices for funerals. The number of head of cattle depends on the family situation, some kill as many as 7 or 8 heads. To do funeral banquet, some places to pork and tofu-based.
Yao Panwang Festival: The 16th day of the 10th month of the lunar calendar is the grandest Panwang Festival of Yao singing. In ancient times, the Yao Mountain Evaluation King and the high king of the war. The king offered a reward to the one who could take the head of the high king, and would marry the most beautiful three princesses to him. Unexpectedly, the next day, a colorful dog named Pandu brought the head of the High King. The king did not break his promise and promised his beloved third princess to the colored dog and made the dog the king of Pandu. On the wedding night, the colorful dog turned into a strong man, the princess was very happy. Later, the princess for the king of the pan gave birth to six men and six daughters, passed down the twelve Yao family name. One day, King Pan went to the mountains to hunt, but was accidentally killed by an antelope that fell off a cliff. Upon hearing the news, his children caught the antelope, skinned it to make a long drum, and danced angrily to avenge their father's death. From then on, every day, the Yao people would gather together and sing and dance in honor of King Pan. Today, the "Pan Wang Festival" has gradually developed into a celebration of the harvest of the fellowship. Young men and women take this opportunity to sing songs to express their love for each other and to look for a good match.
Girls Street: is a traditional festival of the Yao people, held every year after the Spring Festival, the first street period. Every time this street period, the girls of all ethnic groups put on colorful national costumes, from all directions to the market. Festival of the town, a joyful atmosphere, in the square, girls of all ethnic groups in a circle, singing and dancing to the accompaniment of musical instruments. There is also a striking tournament of gyros. Gyro is made of hard wood, the competition, two groups separated by a certain distance, each group of people take turns with their own spinning gyro to touch each other's spinning gyro. After hitting the gyro is still spinning for the winner. In addition, the streets and alleys are filled with colorful silk threads, lace, silverware, jewelry and other goods and a variety of delicious snacks. Men and women, bustling, crowded the street. In the joyful crowd, there are Yao girls dressed in peach blossom figure clothing, wearing earrings, bracelets; there are Miao girls wearing short clothes with big collars and pleated skirts, with three or four necklaces around their necks, and there are Ha girls wearing black pants and chests with big silver rings - "batch of Suo", and there are Ha girls wearing silver rings with flowers and lace. girls, Yi girls dressed in lace, embroidered with beautiful patterns of clothing, wearing a silver bubble "cockle hat". They sell their agricultural and sideline products in the market in groups and buy lace, colorful silk threads and silver jewelry such as earrings and bracelets in front of the stalls. As the sun set, people in the town dispersed one after another, while the fields outside the town were filled with singing. Pairs of young men and women of all nationalities, on the hillside, under the trees, by the stream, by the lake, singing. Songs, piano and laughter are intertwined together, swinging in the "girl street". Spring Festival of Yao People There is a unique and interesting activity of Yao people in Spring Festival, which is the performance of "Plowing Play". On the first day of the Lunar New Year, people gather in the village square to watch the "Plowing Play". "Cultivation play" by a person playing a cow, a companion to support the plow farmer, a person playing a hoe farmer, three people singing and dancing, after watching, young men and women indulge in song and dance. Song and dance, the girls, if they fancy the man of the hour, they carefully embroidered flower belt or their own silver jewelry, hanging in the young man's waist, to show their love, some areas of the Yao newlyweds, in the Chinese New Year Festival with gifts to the father-in-law's home to pay homage to the woman must be hosted a banquet. During the banquet, the father-in-law sang a song to wish the newlyweds hard work and harmony, white head to old age.
"Catch the bird festival": the first day of February every year, is the Yao people's "catch the bird festival". Every year on this day, regardless of rain or shine, a radius of 50, 60 miles of cottage men and women young people, dressed in a colorful blue lined with white trimmed festive national costume, tied with colorful headgear, set of embroidered shoes and socks, holding green cloth umbrellas, a group, a group, gathered on the hill. Pairs of men and women, or four men and four women, sit in pairs on green lawns and rocky outcrops, or snuggle up under tea tree roots and pine trees, and sweetly sing love songs, mountain songs, charades and riddles from sunrise to the rising of the moon, and when they are thirsty, they drink a cup of fresh spring water, and when they are hungry, they eat a few poi rakes. Birds forget to return to their nests, singers do not want to go home, until the night dew soaked the handkerchiefs, they only male to send female, female to send male, sent over the ridge, sent over the mountain, send a ride, sing a section, almost into the walled village door, and only affectionate, reluctant to part. On this day, young people are busy catching the song, looking for a soulmate; the elderly will be at home, the overnight pounding out of glutinous rice poop, pinched into the size of a coin, poked on a bamboo branch, inserted in the altar side or next to the door of the hall, called "Birdie rake", let the neighbors and children to take food. It is said that the bird pecked the rake, it will be stuck to the shell of the beak, and will not spoil the grains anymore. In the evening, the people of Kung San cross the village string of fire pit, tasting each family's "bird rake", hoping for a good omen.
Inverted Draft Festival: October 16th of the lunar calendar, is the Yao people's traditional celebration of the harvest. At this time, the rice, sweet potatoes, cabbage, corn and other crops have been harvested, the Yao people set this day as "reverse draft festival". Before this day, whoever planted who harvested, not allowed to cut indiscriminately, or according to the township rules and regulations of the people to impose a fine. After this day, anyone can go up and down the field to collect the results, who collects who gets, no interference.
"Song Hall" Festival: Yao young men and women talk about love, singing courtship festival. According to traditional custom, held every three to five years. Generally held on the sixteenth day of the tenth lunar month lasts three days, nine days. When the festival comes before, each family has to notify friends and relatives from near and far to come to visit in advance. On the night of the festival, young men and women gather around the bonfire and sing love songs, passing on their love through songs, and the songs are long and deep, and they go on all night long before they stop. During the festival, people wearing new clothes, wearing a new headscarf, inserted brocade chicken feathers; streets and alleys, bustling, lively. The beginning of the "play song hall", that is, the ancestral grandfather's tablets from the temple to carry out the parade, worship. Accompanied by gongs and drums and drums team, burning earth copper cannon. When the middle-aged and elderly people carry the statue of Zu Gong and parade around the streets, a group of young women and young men gather in the square and sing songs to the young girls in pairs or groups of three. Sometimes there are as many as eighty or ninety pairs of young people taking part in the singing. As the young men sang one after another, the girls carefully looked at the singing young men and secretly chose their favorites. 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. During the festival, each family makes twenty to thirty pounds of sticky rice patties to entertain relatives and friends. Each family also produces some water wine (about seven pounds) for people to drink at will.
Architecture
Yao folk dwellings are good at adapting to local conditions, and are divided into "half-floor", "full-floor" and "quadrangle".
"Half of the building" is generally five columns and three rooms, with two sides attached to the side of the building, or one side of the side of the building, or one side of the side of the building in front of the extension of the building compartments. The main door is mostly in the head of the upper floor of the house between the side of the building. This kind of building is mostly built by Hongyao.
"The whole building" relative to the "half of the building" and called; generally built along the river or the mid-levels of the flatter layer of the foundation. Scale and ancillary buildings and "half of the building" with. Huayao and Pan Yao mostly live in the "whole building".
"Courtyard" in the flatter ground connected to build four "full floor" synthesized houses, there is a small square open space in the middle of the courtyard, so it is called "courtyard". This kind of building is only used by the rich families of Hongyao along the river. The fastest and surest way to conquer fear and build self-confidence is to do what you are afraid of, until you get the experience of success.