1. The name of the Buyi people
The Buyi people originated from the ancient "Baiyue". They were called "Puyue" or "Puyi" before the Qin and Han Dynasties, and were called "Liao" in the Eastern Han and Six Dynasties. In the Tang and Song Dynasties, they were called "Tibetan barbarians". From the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties to before the founding of the People's Republic of China, they were called "Bafan", "Zhongjia", "Nongjia", "Bulong", "Congren", "Turen", "Yi", etc.
The Buyi people call themselves "Puyue" or "Puyi", which are written in Chinese pronunciation as "Buyi", "Buyi", "Buyueyi", "Bujiang" and so on. In the Buyi language, "Bu" means "tribe" or "people".
Therefore, in the old local annals, the Buyi people were recorded as "Yi people", "Yi family", and "Yi people". In addition to calling themselves themselves, the Buyi people in different regions also call each other "Bulong", "Buna", "Butu", "Budu", "Buyang", "Bulongha" and so on.
In 1953, according to the wishes of the ethnic group and approved by the State Council, they were unified named "Buyi".
2. Characteristics of the Buyi people
(1) Belief
The Buyi people believe in their ancestors and various gods. Mountains, water, wells, caves and ancient trees with strange growth are all considered to be the incarnation of gods. There are earth temples built in every village. Some specific religious ceremonies require the worship of sacred bamboo. The Buyi people in various places also worship the God of Thunder, the God of Doors, the God of Kitchen, the Dragon King and so on. These reflect the original religious beliefs of the Buyi people as a farming people.
(2) Diet
The Buyi people take rice as their staple food, and also eat corn, wheat, red barnyard grass, buckwheat, etc. The Buyi people especially like glutinous food, and there are many ways to make it, such as making glutinous rice cakes, round sugar cakes, ear cakes, pillow rice dumplings and triangular rice dumplings. During festivals, glutinous rice is eaten and glutinous rice cakes are given as gifts to relatives and friends. During the festival, people also like to eat various "glutinous rice" dyed with flower juice and leaf juice.
(3) Family
Buyi families practice a patriarchal system. Parents have the power to control the family's finances and direct members. Male elders are respected, and those who are upright have more prestige. Disputes within the clan can be mediated on their own without the need to appeal to the government. Women had lower status than men, and widows could inherit property but not if they remarried. In some places, there is a marriage system of "brothers last until brothers marry" (commonly known as "house filling").
(4) Language
Buyi language belongs to the Zhuang-Dong language family of the Sino-Tibetan language family and is closely related to the Zhuang language. The northern dialect of Zhuang language is basically the same as the Buyi language spoken in Guizhou’s Wangmo, Ceheng, Dushan, Pingtang, Anlong, Xingyi and other cities and counties. Due to the long-term cultural contact and exchange between the Buyi people and the Han people, there are many Chinese loanwords in the Buyi vocabulary system. Buyi language has a complete phonetic system, rich vocabulary and expressive grammatical structure. Buyi language is divided into three dialect regions: Qiannan, central Qianzhou and western Guizhou (customarily called the first, second and third dialect regions).
(5) Writing
The Buyi people did not have their own writing in the past, and generally used Chinese. The Buyi Mo Sutra uses Chinese characters to record sounds or uses radicals to make up the Chinese characters "Liu Shu" Calligraphy creates some new words to record scriptures. In 1956, the Central People's Government organized experts to create a Pinyin script for the Buyi people based on the Latin alphabet. The plan has been revised twice and is now being implemented mainly in Buyi areas.
Extended information
The Buyi people evolved from the ancient Liao people and mainly focus on agriculture. The ancestors of the Buyi people started planting rice very early and are known as the "rice nation".
The Buyi people are mainly distributed in Guizhou, Yunnan, Sichuan and other provinces. Among them, the Buyi people in Guizhou Province have the largest population, accounting for 97% of the Buyi population in the country. They mainly live in the two Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefectures of southern Guizhou and southwest Guizhou, as well as Anshun City, Guiyang City, and Liupanshui City. There are scattered residents in other cities, states, and regions, and a small part of them live in Vietnam.
The sixth national census in 2010 counted more than 2.87 million people.
Baidu Encyclopedia - Buyi Nationality