The Wa is an ancient ethnic group residing in the southwest border of China.
According to 1990 statistics, the population of Wa was 35. 190,000 people, mainly distributed in Ximeng, Cangyuan, Menglian, Gengma, Lancang, Shuangjiang, Zhenkang, Yongde in Yunnan Province, as well as in Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and the counties of Tengchong, Changning, Jindong and Pu'er.
Its main residential area is located between the Lancang River and the Salween River, the southern stretch of the Nujiang Mountains. Here, the mountains are continuous and there are very few flat dams, so it is called "A Wa Mountain", which is anciently known as "Gourd Country" (Qing Dynasty's "Literature General Examination - Four Descendants Examination").
Ximeng County and Cangyuan County are Wa autonomous counties, while Menglian, Shuangjiang, and Gengma are autonomous counties formed by Wa and other ethnic groups. The Wa language belongs to the Wa Deang branch of the Mon-Khmer language family of the South Asian language family, and can be roughly divided into the three dialects of Wa, Ler Wa and Bu Rao.
Before the establishment of New China, some Wa areas used the Wa script, which was pinyinized with the Latin alphabet, but the alphabet was imperfect; in 1957, a complete set of the Wa alphabet was designed with the Latin alphabet, and is now being popularized and used. The Wa name is associated with various clans, mainly "Wa", "Wu", "Le Wa" and "Ai Wa", "Awa", "La Wa", "Wa Num", "Wa Beng", "Wa Lai", "Wa Lai", "Wa Lai", "Wa Lai", "Wa Lai", "Wa Lai", "Wa Lai", "Wa Lai", "Wa Lai" and "Wa Lai". Awa Lai", "Wa Ku Teh", "Awa", "Lah", "Chor Lah ", "Gonla", "Burao", "Pao", "Bujun" and so on. 23 titles.
Some of these appellations, though originating from the self-proclaimed name of the ethnic group, were often accompanied by pejorative terms. After the founding of New China, according to the wishes of the majority of the Wa people, and with the approval of the State Council, these appellations were collectively referred to as the Wa ethnic group.
2. 2. History of the Wa PeopleRegarding the origin of the Wa people, the legend of "Sigangli" has been widely spread in the Wa area.
According to the explanation of the Wa people in Ximeng area, "Sigang" is a stone cave, and "Li" is to come out, which means that human beings came out from the stone cave very early. Legend has it that the first to come out from the cave was the Wa.
The cave is located in the middle of the A Wa Mountains, about 60 miles west of Ximeng County, and is regarded as a "holy place". The Cangyuan region interprets "Sigang" as "gourd", meaning that humans come out of the gourd.
Although the explanations are different, they all regard A Wa Mountain as the birthplace of mankind, and at the same time reflect that they are the earliest inhabitants of A Wa Mountain. The "Sigangli" is the Wa people's recollection of their own ancient cave life.
According to history, the Wa ancestors were one of the "Baipu" ethnic groups during the Zhou and Qin Dynasties. The literature of the Han Dynasty called the Lisha River and Yuanjiang River in Yunnan Province "Pu Water" because it was named after the area where the "Pu people" lived.
During the Han and Jin dynasties, the Pu people in Yunnan, mainly distributed in the Lisha River, Yuanjiang River Basin and west of the Lancang River Basin area. In the Tang Dynasty, the Pu people west of the Lancang River were divided into a group called "Wang" and a group called "Puzi.
The one called "Wang" refers to the ancestors of the present Wa tribe. They were described in the literature as "brave and skillful", and were the main members of the Nanzhao army, acting as the "vanguard" in battle.
During the Yuan and Ming dynasties, the literature mostly called them "Gurar" or "Harar", and in the Qing Dynasty, they were called "Garar" and "Hawa". ". From the documentary records of the Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties, it seems that the Wa "live in the mountains", "have walled villages", "also cultivate", but "do not use plowing oxen, but the women only use hoes to hoe their land", "in addition to the plowing oxen, the Wa also cultivate their land.
These records reflect that the Wa society in the Ming and Qing Dynasties had transitioned from hunting and gathering to an unstable agricultural economy, which is the form of clan-based communes. After the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the social development of the Wa in various regions, along with the changes in the historical development of each region, again appeared to develop unevenly.
For a long time, the Wa people fought tirelessly with reactionaries at home and abroad. For example, in 1796 (the first year of the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty), the Wa people, together with their neighboring brothers, raised the flag of righteousness for the first time in the area of Mengmeng Tusi in order to fight against the "harsh taxes for years" of the Tusi, and once occupied the area under their jurisdiction.
This uprising persisted intermittently for more than ten years and dealt a heavy blow to the Qing Dynasty and the Dai reactionary landlords. After the Xinhai Revolution, the Wa people struggled against the Yunnan warlords and Kuomintang reactionaries and finally got rid of the feudal rule of the local reactionary Tusi after 1940.
At the end of the 19th century, British imperialism began to invade the A Wa Mountain area. The Wa people resolutely opposed the "China-Burma Undecided Boundary Clause" signed by China and Britain, and led by the Yonghe Tribe and united with other tribes, severely punished the invaders and treasonous scums who shot and killed the Wa masses, and thwarted the conspiracy of the imperialist elements who wanted to make the Wa people detached from the motherland.
In 1934, the British imperialists entered the Banhong and Banzhi areas with the threat of force and money, trying to plunder the rich silver and aluminum mines in the A Wa Mountains. As a result, the "Banhong" incident, which shocked both home and abroad, broke out.
The Wa people, who "would rather die in battle than surrender", crushed the enemy's conspiracy and united more than ten tribal ethnic armies to gather in Banhong, plagiarized the oxen and swore an oath, which dealt a severe blow to the enemy's arrogance. During the Anti-Japanese War, Wa people held up the anti-Japanese flag and organized a guerrilla army to crush the Japanese attack.
3. Traditional Culture of Wa (Essay 600)Wa, one of China's ethnic minorities. With a population of more than 350,000, it is mainly distributed in the mountainous and semi-mountainous areas of Ximeng, Cangyuan, Lancang, Menglian, Shuangjiang, Gengma, Yongde, and Zhenkang counties in the southwestern part of Yunnan Province, i.e., the "A-Wa Mountainous Area" in the southern part of the Nu Mountain range between the Lancang River and the Salween River. They are interspersed with Han, Dai, Brown, De'ang, Lisu, Lahu and other ethnic groups.
Historically, the Wa, men wore black short clothes and wide-mouthed pants; women wore guandan clothes and short skirts with horizontal stripes of flowers, and ornaments such as collars, necklaces, bracelets, waist hoops and ankle hoops, most of them made of silver or bamboo and rattan, or coated with natural colors, or depending on the natural colors, were loved by almost all men and women of all ages*** with each other. With the development of society, the Wa's costumes have begun to change, with the appearance of long skirts, tube skirts and some more contemporary clothes and decorations, but the areas inhabited by the Wa still maintain their traditional ethnic characteristics, and most of the clothes are made of self-grown cotton and flax, which are spun and woven into cloth according to their traditional way of processing, and the weaving patterns resemble the feathered plumes of peacocks and white pheasants, or the fur designs of ling cats and pangolins. Some of them resemble fur patterns of cats, pangolins, and so on.
Wa villages are mostly built on the hillside or on top of small mountains. Some villages in the Ximeng area have a history of hundreds of years, and have become large villages with hundreds of families. The Wa like to live in bamboo buildings, and some of them have changed to live in adobe houses, which is a new form of residence later. The bamboo buildings can be divided into two floors, with the upper floor housing people and the lower floor keeping livestock. The furnishings in the room are simple and bright, the essential thing is a fire pit for people to use and a fire pit for rituals or for rituals and livestock feed heating fire pit. Before the introduction of iron pots, the Wa mostly used bamboo tubes to cook rice, and when they ate, the housewife would divide the food according to the number of people, and the food would be divided evenly at one time. The Wa like to chew betel nut and drink wine, and there is a saying that "no wine is a rite of passage, and words do not count". Water wine is made from fermented small red rice, and it is mostly sown in large bamboo tubes and inserted into thin bamboo tubes to be sucked. Wa people also have the custom of drinking strong tea, and eating chili peppers is the same hobby of men, women and children.
The Wa family form is a small monogamous family, and the property is inherited by the youngest son, and the daughter has no inheritance right. The Wa name the family with the reverse type of father and son even name system, by their own upward ancestry. The name of the earliest generation of all Wa families is "Sigang", which means gourd or cave, and is a symbol of the worship of matriarchal power. Before marriage, men and women are free to socialize in what is called "stringing girls", where young men and women gather in groups of three or two, sing love songs, and express their love by giving betel nut and tobacco. However, parents must make the decision to enter into marriage, and the man must pay a bride price of several cows, called "milkmaid's money" and "girl-buying money". Sometimes, if one of the parents does not agree, both parties will run away from the marriage and the parents will not pursue the matter. In the past, the Wa tribe had popularized the marriage of aunts and uncles, but now there is a big change.
The Wa practiced thin burials, and the villages have **** the same cemeteries. Some areas retain the habit of burying the dead under or near bamboo buildings
4. The Ethnic History of the WaThe Wa (wa) tribe, the ancient inhabitants of the A Wa Mountains
The Wa are one of the ethnic minorities in China. The current population is more than 350,000 people. It is mainly distributed in the mountainous and semi-mountainous areas of Cangyuan, Ximeng, Lancang, Menglian, Shuangjiang, Gengma, Yongde and Zhenkang counties in the southwestern part of Yunnan Province. They are located in the "A Wa Mountainous Region" between the Lancang and Salween Rivers and in the southern section of the Nushan Mountain Range. They are interspersed with Han, Dai, Brown, De'ang, Lisu, Lahu and other ethnic groups.
After the Han Dynasty, Yunnan was inhabited by the Pu people. Tang Dynasty, "Pu people", "Wang people" distributed in the east from Jindong, Weishan, west to Tengchong, Lianghe, south from Zhenkang, north to Yongping Zhenxi area. Pu People" may be a general term for the Wa speaking ancestors living in this area. The "Wangren" may be mainly Wa ancestors. In the historical documents, the names of "Wang Ban", "Wang Tho Zi", and "Wai Yu" are basically the same or very similar to the self-proclaimed name "Wa" of the Wa people nowadays.
The Wa call themselves "Wa", "Ba Raoke", "Bu Raoke", "A Wa", "A Wu", "A Wu", "A Wu", "A Wu", "A Wu", "A Wu", "A Wu", "A Wu", "Awa", "Awa Lai", "Le Wa" and so on. Other names include "La", "I", "Awa" and "Kawa". The historical names of the ethnic groups are "Hara", "Hawa", "Kawa", etc., which mean "people who live in the mountains". According to the will of the ethnic group, the name "Wa" was given in 1962.
The Wa have their own language and script. The Wa language belongs to the Mon-Khmer group of the South Asian language family, and is divided into three dialects: "Ba Raoke", "A Wa" and "Wa". The old Wa language was compiled by British missionaries for the spread of Christianity, and was relatively crude. After the founding of New China, the Party and the People's Government created a new script for it.
The Wa economy is mainly based on agriculture. They like to eat red rice, drink strong tea, eat chili peppers, chew betel nut and drink water wine. The housing is mainly two-storey bamboo buildings. The traditional dress color is black. Men often wear black head wraps, short black clothes and wide-legged pants. Women's dress varies from place to place, the most characteristic is to wear a kangshan-style collarless and sleeveless kangtou, with a tube skirt underneath, and headbands, collars, necklaces, waist bands, bracelets and other jewelry made of silver or bamboo gimlets.
The Wa mainly believe in primitive religions. A few people believe in Buddhism or Christianity. The New Rice Festival is the grandest festival. Literature and art are colorful and bamboo culture is unique. Cangyuan cliff paintings are famous at home and abroad.
The "Wooden Drum Dance" is rich in national characteristics and has won many awards in national folk dance competitions. History
The legend of "Sigangli" is widely spread in the Wa area. The Wa in the Ximeng area explain that "Sigang" is a stone cave and "Li" is to come out, meaning that human beings came out from a stone cave at a very early stage. Legend has it that the first people to come out of the cave were the Wa. The cave is located in the middle of A Wa Mountain, about 60 miles west of Ximeng County, near the mountain. So far, the Wa people in Ximeng and other places regard the stone cave as a "holy place". The Wa people in Cangyuan area interpreted "Sigang" as "gourd" and "Li" as "out", meaning that human beings came out from the gourd.
Although the Wa in various regions have different interpretations of "Sigangli", they all regard A Wa Mountain as the birthplace of mankind, and at the same time reflect that they are the earliest inhabitants of the A Wa Mountain area. "Sigangli" is the Wa people's recollection of their own ancient cave life. Ceremony Edit This section The Wa people are generous and hospitable, welcoming guests with wine as the first thing to do, believing that no wine is a rite of passage. The Wa people have many different customs for toasting their guests. One of them is that the master of the toast first drinks a mouthful of wine to dispel the guests' various preconceptions, and then passes it to the guests to drink in turn. The guests must drink the wine to the guests and try their best to drink it dry, so as to show that they are honest and sincere, otherwise they will be regarded as disrespectful to the master; another form is that the master and the guests squat on the ground, the master passes the wine to the guests with his right hand, and the guests take it with their right hand and pour it on the ground a little bit or pop the wine on the ground a little bit with their right hand, which is meant to be honoring the ancestor. Then the host and the guest drink the wine together. The Wa folk have the custom of not honoring wine to those who do not know the heart and are not kind. Whenever a son goes out and a guest leaves, the host also has to make a "gift to relatives".
The Wa people are one of the indigenous ethnic groups in Yunnan Province of China, and they have a unique culture.
There is a long patriotic history, glorious culture and art; there are rich and bizarre myths and legends. In the long history, due to the unique geographical environment, historical factors, the influence of social life has formed a lot of cultural characteristics.
The traditional dress is in black. Men often wear black head wraps, short black shirts and wide-legged pants.
Women's costumes vary from place to place, but the most characteristic ones are wearing a kangshan-style collarless and sleeveless kangtou, a tube skirt, and headbands, collars, necklaces, waist bands, bracelets and other jewelries made of silver or bamboo gimlets. Wa beliefs: Primitive religion is the main one.
A few people believe in Buddhism or Christianity. The New Rice Festival is the grandest festival.
Literature and art are colorful and bamboo culture is unique. Cangyuan Cliff Painting is famous at home and abroad.
Wa folk dance: "Wooden Drum Dance" and "Hair Throwing Dance" are Wa folk dances, and "Wooden Drum Dance" has won many awards in national folk dance competitions.
Wa is an ancient ethnic group living in the southwestern border of China.
According to 1990 statistics, the population of Wa is 351,900, mainly distributed in Ximeng, Cangyuan, Menglian, Gengma, Lancang, Shuangjiang, Zhenkang, Yongde, and Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture and the counties of Tengchong, Changning, Jindong and Pu'er in Yunnan Province. Its main settlement is located between the Lancang River and the Salween River, the stretching zone of the southern section of the Nujiang Mountain Range.
The area is characterized by rolling hills and very few flat dams, so it is called "A Wa Mountains", which is the ancient name of "Huludu Country" (Qing Dynasty's "Literature General Examination - Four Descendants Examination"). Ximeng County and Cangyuan County are Wa autonomous counties, while Menglian, Shuangjiang and Gengma are autonomous counties formed by Wa and other ethnic groups.
The Wa language belongs to the Wa Deang branch of the Mon-Khmer language family of the South Asian language family, and can be roughly divided into the three dialects of Wa, Ler Wa and Bu Rao. Before the establishment of New China, some Wa areas used the Wa script with Latin alphabet pinyin, but its alphabet was not perfect; in 1957, a complete set of Wa script alphabet program was designed with Latin alphabet, which is now being popularized and used.
The Wa self-name and the various clans are linked, and the main ones are "Wa", "U", "Le Wa", "Ai Wa", "Ai Wa", "Ai Wei", "Ai Wei", "Ai Wei", "Ai Wei", "Ai Wei", "Ai Wei", "Ai Wei", and "Ai Wei". "Wa", "U", "Le Wa", "Ai Wa", "A Wo", "A Wo", "La Wa", "Wa Num", "Wa Pang" The following are examples of such activities: "Awa Lai", "Awa Ku De", "Awa", "Lah", "Chola", "Kungla", "Burao", "Pao", "Bunyun" and 23 others. Bugong", "Burao", "Baoao", "Bugong" and 23 other titles. Some of these appellations, though originating from the self-proclaimed name of the ethnic group, are often accompanied by derogatory words. After the founding of New China, according to the wishes of most Wa people, they were collectively referred to as the Wa ethnic group with the approval of the State Council.
The Wa subfamily can be divided into six to seven subfamilies according to the self-proclaimed name of the ethnic group, historical legends, clan genealogy, and dress culture, etc. These subfamilies are the Le Wa, Burao, Wa, Lah, Wa, Wa Avalanche, Wa Gude, Enjin, and Sungren. Le Wa: living in Ximeng County and the hinterland of the A Wa Mountains; Burao: widely distributed, mainly living in Lancang, Shuangjiang, Gengma, Pu'er and other counties, which retains the title of "Pu (Pu)" people and may be the direct descendants of the ancient Pu people; Wa: living in the area of Yongde and Zhenkang; Wa: living in the area of Yongde and Zhenkang; Wa: living in the area of Yongde and Zhenkang; and Wa: living in the area of Yongde and Zhenkang. The Wa: living in the areas of Yongde and Zhenkang; the La: the Wa in the areas of Banlao, Banhong, Longqua and Manxiang call themselves La or "Chola"; the Wa: also known as the "Awa Lai", who originally lived to the west of the Salween River and moved to the Ximeng Mountains more than 100 years ago, and whose ancestors lived in the "Mengmao Haofa" area of the city, which is also known as the "Mengmao Haofa" area. They were originally from the west of the Salween River and moved to the Ximeng Mountains more than 100 years ago, and their ancestors lived in the "Mengmao Haofa" (Dali Baoshan) period, where they belonged to the same clan as the De'ang; the Wa Kudu: the Wa of Ongako call themselves the "Wa Kudu", and they belonged to the same clan as the Sangpou when their ancestors lived in Burma and Thailand; the Enjin and the Sungjin: they call themselves the "Gongn" and the "Sung". It is said that when they were in Jingdong, they belonged to the same clan as the Burao (Wei and Tian clans) of Mangdui in Lancang, but later they were defeated by the Shan tribe and fled in separate directions, and two of their ancestors, Darn and Dassong, stayed in the mountainous area of Jingdong, and so they call themselves "Enren" and "Songren" to this day. They called themselves the En and the Sung people.
The mountains in the A Wa region are gradually lowered from north to south, and the main mountains in the region are Mount Zhaofang, Mount Huihan, Mount Sipai, Mount Wukan, and Mount Mangsu, which constitute the watershed of the Lancang River and the Salween River. The valleys here are crisscrossed, constituting dozens of large and small rivers, which flow into the Lancang River, the larger rivers are: Mengdong River, Lameng River, Xiaohejiang, Heihe, Nanyuan River and Nanbian River; into the Salween River, the rivers are: Nanting River, Mangkou River, South Rolling River, South Ma River, Kuxing River, Nankang River, South Xie River and Nankajiang River.
Awa Mountain is a subtropical area with complex terrain and big difference in altitude, the highest altitude is more than 2900 meters and the lowest is about 700 meters, thus the climate has significant vertical changes, the highest temperature reaches 40℃ and the lowest to 0℃, the annual rainfall is 1500-3000mm, of which 80-95% of the rainfall falls from the late May to the end of October, which is called the rainy season, and the other months are the dry season. The other months are the dry season. There are 49 soil classes, 12 subclasses, 28 soil genera and 44 soil species, including brick red soil, crimson soil, red soil, yellow soil, yellow-brown soil, brown soil, subalpine scrub meadow soil, purple soil and rice soil.
The Wa inhabited area is very rich in flora and fauna, including wild Asian elephants, Bengal tigers, money leopards, gibbons, gray langurs, hummingbirds, antelopes, boa constrictors, cobras, giant lizards, peacocks, hornbills, Feiqi parrots, white pheasants, sunbirds and other hundreds of species of birds and animals. There are more than 70 families, 150 genera and 300 species of plants.
Among them, there are more than 20 kinds of plants listed as national key protection, 15 kinds of starch plants, more than 20 kinds of oil plants, 7 kinds of resin plants, 237 kinds of indica and round-grained rice as well as hundreds of maize and 14 kinds of wheat as food crops, and sugarcane, peanut, rapeseed, ginger, chili pepper, cotton, tobacco, etc. and all kinds of vegetables as cash crops, and tea, purple gum, rubber, oleaginous tree, fruit and so on. Fruits and so on. There are hundreds of kinds of medicinal herbs and spice plants, such as pepper, sand nuts, grass fruits and so on.
The A Wa mountainous area is also extremely rich in underground mineral deposits, where silver mines have been exploited in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, among which the famous Maolong silver mine, which was jointly exploited by Wu Shangxian, a Han Chinese in Shiping, who brought in a group of Han Chinese from the mainland, and the local Wa people, not only promoted the economic development of the country and the ethnic regions at that time, but also strengthened the friendly exchanges between the Wa people and the various ethnic groups in the mainland.
7. Cultural Characteristics of the Wa PeopleIntroduction The ancient inhabitants of the A Wa Mountains - Wa (wa 三声) ethnic group The Wa, one of the ethnic minorities in China.
The current population is more than 350,000 people. They are mainly distributed in the mountainous and semi-mountainous areas of Cangyuan, Ximeng, Lancang, Menglian, Shuangjiang, Gengma, Yongde, Zhenkang and other counties in the southwest of Yunnan Province.
The "A Wa Mountainous Region" is located between the Lancang River and the Salween River, and in the southern section of the Nu Mountain Range. It is interspersed with Han, Dai, Brown, De'ang, Lisu, Lahu and other ethnic groups.
After the Han Dynasty, Yunnan was inhabited by the Pu people. Tang Dynasty, "Pu people", "Wang people" distributed in the east from Jingdong, Weishan, west to Tengchong, Lianghe, south from Zhenkang, north to Yongping Zhenxi area.
"Pu people" may be a general term for the Wa speaking ancestors who lived in this region. The "Wang people" may be mainly Wa ancestors.
The names of "Wangban", "Wang Thozi", and "Waiyue" in the historical documents are basically the same as or very similar to the name "Wa" used by the Wa people nowadays. The Wa call themselves "Wa", "Ba Raoke", "Bu Raoke", "A Wa", "A Wu", "A Wu", "A Wu", "A Wu", "A Wu", "A Wu" and "A Wu",
Other names include "La", "I", "Awa", "Kawa" and so on. The historical name "Hara", "Hawa", "Kawa", etc. means "people living in the mountains".
According to the will of the nation, the name Wa was given in 1962. The Wa have their own language and script.
The Wa language belongs to the Mon-Khmer group of the South Asian language family, and is divided into three dialects, namely "Ba Raoke", "A Wa" and "Wa". The old Wa language was compiled by British missionaries for the spread of Christianity, and was relatively crude.
After the founding of New China, the Party and the People's Government created a new script for them. The Wa economy is mainly based on agriculture.
They like to eat red rice, drink strong tea, eat chili peppers, chew betel nut and drink water wine. The housing is mainly two-storey bamboo buildings.
The traditional dress is black. Men often wrap their heads in black buns and wear short black clothes and wide-legged pants.
Women's costumes vary from place to place, but the most characteristic ones are wearing a kangshan-style collarless and sleeveless kangtou, a tube skirt, and headbands, collars, necklaces, waist bands, bracelets and other jewelries made of silver or bamboo gimlets. Wa people mainly believe in primitive religion.
A few people believe in Buddhism or Christianity. The New Rice Festival is the grandest festival.
Literature and art are colorful and bamboo culture is unique. Cangyuan cliff paintings are famous at home and abroad.
The "Wooden Drum Dance" is rich in national characteristics and has won many awards in national folk dance competitions. The legend of "Sigangli" is widely spread in Wa area.
The Wa people in the Ximeng area explain that "Sigang" is a stone cave and "Li" is out, which means that human beings came out from the stone cave very early. Legend has it that the first to come out of the cave was the Wa.
The stone cave is located in the middle of A Wa Mountain, about sixty miles west of Ximeng County, near the mountain. To this day, the Wa people in Ximeng and other places regard the cave as a "holy place".
The Wa people in Cangyuan area interpreted "Sigang" as "gourd" and "Li" as "out", meaning that human beings came out from the gourd. Although the Wa in various regions have different interpretations of "Sigang Li", they all regard A Wa Mountain as the birthplace of mankind, and at the same time reflect that they are the earliest inhabitants of the A Wa Mountain area.
"Sigangli" is a reminder of the Wa people's ancient cave life. Etiquette The Wa people are very hospitable and welcome guests with wine, and believe that there is no etiquette without wine.
The Wa people have many different customs of honoring their guests with a toast. One of them is that the master of the toast first drinks a mouthful of wine to dispel the guests' preconceptions, and then passes it to the guests to drink in turn.
The guest must drink the wine to the guest and try his best to drink it dry, so as to show that his heart is frank and sincere, otherwise he is considered to be disrespectful to the master; another form is that the master and the guest squat down on the ground, the master passes the wine to the guest with his right hand, and the guest takes it with his right hand, and then pours it on the ground a little bit or pops the wine with his right hand on the ground a little bit, which is meant to be honoring the ancestor. Then the host and the guest drink it together.
Wa folk have the habit of not knowing the heart and not being kind enough not to toast. Whenever a son goes out, the guest leaves, and the host has to play "send a gift".
That is, to toast to relatives or guests, when the master uses a gourd (wine container) full of wine, first drink a mouthful, and then send it to the guests or far away from the mouth of the relatives, the guests need to drink to the bottom of the gourd, to show that affection and friendship will never be forgotten.
The housing of Wa is different in different regions. In areas where the Han Chinese have a greater influence, there are generally grass and wood houses with four walls on the ground, and there are also grass houses with earth walls and individual tile houses.
In most of the Wa areas, the structure and shape of the houses are similar to those of the Dai, and the building materials are bamboo (bamboo rattan, bamboo poles, bamboo sheets, bamboo gimlets, etc.) and grass (thatch, rafters, spine sandals, wooden boards, etc.). The top of the wooden columns to retain the branches of the tree, used to support the beams, beams on the support of some fine bamboo, and then covered with thatch, built into the overhead "bamboo floor.
The houses are divided into two floors, with people living upstairs and livestock and poultry downstairs. Individual ironmongers also have a bellows and a set of tools for ironing downstairs.
The Wa in the Ximeng area like to cook vegetables, salt and rice into thick rice. The Wa in other areas eat more dry rice.
The Wa eat three meals a day when they are busy with farming, and two meals during the week. Chicken porridge such as camellia rice is the best home food.
Dry rice is often eaten and pounded now. Men, women and children eat chili peppers, and the folk say, "You can't have enough without chili peppers". The meat of Wa people mainly comes from family rearing, including pigs, cows and chickens.
In addition, the Wa also have the habit of hunting rats and insects. The Wa in some areas also have the habit of preying on insects, and more than ten kinds of insects such as chrysalis, red caterpillars parasitized on herbaceous plants, broom worms and winter melon worms parasitized on winter melon trees are consumed.
Generally, the edible insects are boiled with rice into porridge with vegetables, salt and chili pepper, which is spicy and delicious. Wa beekeeping is more common, but the method of beekeeping is very special, first use a section of hollowed out logs, sealed at both ends, leaving several small holes for wild bees to enter and exit, placed in the forest or under the eaves of the house, so that it reproduces and makes honey, and cuts it 2 or 3 times a year, and consumes it with one of the pupae of the bees.
The Wa generally enjoy drinking wine and bitter tea. The wine they drink is home-brewed "bubble water wine".
Drinking water wine is not only harmless to the body, but also good for health. It is only in recent decades that the Wa started to drink soaked white wine.
Wa people love to drink bitter tea. Some of the bitter tea is boiled so thick that it almost becomes a tea paste.
Although the bitter tea is bitter in flavor, it has a cool feeling after drinking it. For the Wa people in the hot climate area, it has a magical thirst-quenching effect.
Chewing betel nut is a common hobby among Wa men, women and children, who usually labor and rest or.