The folk houses of the ancestors of Gelao nationality are characterized by "dry columns". Have you seen Shu Wei? Liao Zhuan: "Take wood as the base and wood as the residence, which is called it." See "New Tang Book" again? Nan Man biography: "People live in buildings and climb stairs, which is called' Gan Lan'." "Xi Man Cong Xiao" records: "The Gelao people can't live on the land. Despite the wealth of the chiefs and the number of houses, they all go to the ground a few feet, by contrast ... fir leaves. " "Miao Man Tu Shuo in southern Guizhou" records that the Gelao people "live in a house a few feet away with huge wood and cedar leaves on it."
Before 1949, some poor gelao people lived in caves, some built nests in trees, and some "thousand-legged sheds" made of small trees and "collapsed houses" with "thousand-legged sheds" on low earth walls.
Generally, the houses of the Gelao nationality include wooden "fighting rooms", stone slab houses and thatched houses. The cross-bucket room is made of wood as beam frame, and thick plates are installed as walls. Slate houses have stone walls and thin slate roofs. Most thatched cottages are built with mud walls and thatched roofs; There are also wooden beams and columns, with bamboo as the bone, mud as the wall outside and thatched roof as the house.
Residential system, mostly two-story residential buildings. In the middle is a hall dedicated to ancestral tablets and entertaining guests, with no ceiling and floor. There are bedrooms and kitchens on both sides, and a granary upstairs. The corral is called "enclosure" and attached to the back or left and right ends of the main house. It is slightly short and should not be connected to the roof of the house. Courtyard pattern, there are three courtyards and quadrangles, with wings at both ends of the main room and wings on the left and right sides.
Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) is usually a structure with three long rooms and five pillars. Those with strong financial resources will build five long rooms, and those with insufficient financial resources will build independent rooms. Most houses imitate the pattern of the Han family, with a row of three bungalows. There is a hall in the middle and wings on both sides. Each wing is divided into two small rooms before and after, which are used as bedrooms outside the kitchen. There was a fire kang in the bedroom before, and the annual salary in the fire pit was endless, which was the place where family members ate daily. After work every day, the whole family rest or chat around the stove. Relatives and friends are also talking in the fire pit. There is a door between the hall and the side hall. A square table in front of the owner's wall. Common appliances such as grinding, bucket, plough, winnowing and basin are also placed in the hall. Only weddings, funerals and ancestor worship are held in the Hall of the Great Hero. There are pillows and fences under the roof, which are generally uninhabited and used to pile up food. The front of the house is flat, commonly known as the "courtyard dam", which is used to dry clothes, dry food and put chickens and ducks. On both sides of the dam are cows, pigsty and a simple house for stacking firewood. Form a courtyard with housing. Behind the house or in front of the dam is a vegetable garden, and there are many peaches, plums, plows or bamboo bushes around the yard. Most of the residential areas of Gelao nationality are located in Guizhou Plateau, with many mountains and few plains. In ancient times, it was called "all mountains", which can be described as "straight to the point".
Gelao people are distributed in different areas, and the houses of Gelao people in different areas have different characteristics.
The houses of Gelao villagers living in central Guizhou are similar to those of Buyi and Han Tunbao people nearby, mostly stone houses.
Most of the Gelao compatriots living in the northwest of Guizhou live in thatched houses. The thatched cottage is particularly thick and tidy, and the ends of the eaves are carefully woven with ribbon knots of different shapes, just like the "cornice board" on the roof of the tile. It has a good artistic effect and is known as "poor girl combs her hair skillfully".