Abstract: In the long history of development, Ruyuan Yao nationality has created its own characteristic Yao custom culture, which shows its unique cultural value. Yao nationality is one of the nationalities that migrate frequently. In its long migration process, it has formed the spiritual culture of Yao people who are hardworking, simple, persevering, tenacious in survival and loving their own nation. In order to preserve the continuity of the national culture, in the struggle against nature and the development of social practice, the Ruyuan Yao people have formed their own national customs in marriage, dress, funeral, singing and dancing, except that the Yao language has become the Yao language branch of the "four branches" of the national Yao people, and it is the most widely distributed among the entire Yao people. These national customs reflect the development of Yao culture and history, and also directly reflect Yao's ideological and moral concepts, religious beliefs, cultural and artistic thinking standards.
Keywords: Ruyuan, Yao nationality, folk custom and culture
Ruyuan Yao nationality has a long history, and it mainly lives in the northern mountainous area of Guangdong Province, that is, among the mountains in the Nanling Mountains. Yao people call themselves "Mian" (pronounced Shang Sheng), belonging to Guo Shan Yao, one of the three main branches of Yao people. Yao people are called "Dongbian Yao" and "Xibian Yao" because of their different places of residence and costumes. "East Yao" can be divided into "Deep Mountain Yao" and "Shallow Mountain Yao". Yao itself once called each other by this. In the historical documents, the original Ruyuan Yao women once wore boards first, which was called Ban Yao. At the same time, Yao women from Qujiang County, that is, Ruyuan Youxi and other places, are known as Arrow Yao in bamboo arrows.
1. Folklore Morality
Yao people still have some "traces" of ancient primitive society in terms of production, life and even marriage and family, especially in the ideological field, many simple ancient heritages have become the traditional virtues of Yao people.
Yao people lived by slash-and-burn and supplemented by hunting because they were scattered in the mountains and mountains. This living situation has prompted them to maintain the spirit of friendship and mutual assistance from generation to generation in terms of production and life, so that they can help each other when something happens. The hunted wild animals are equally distributed among men, women and children; If you don't have enough money, you can also turn to your relatives and friends for help in holding wedding banquets and worshipping the king. This kind of loan does not pay interest, and there is no provision for repayment (generally, things are returned by borrowing). As long as the family is slightly wider and slightly surplus, it will be repaid automatically. If the next generation is unable to pay, the creditors will not come to ask for it. As for the person who is asked for help, no matter how big or small, once promised, no matter how difficult it is, it will be done. This spirit of mutual assistance is more prominent in production, such as heavy shoveling and weeding, and it is difficult to catch up with the season because of the small labor force of a single family. However, as long as you send a message to your relatives and friends, no matter whether you know each other or not, you will arrive at the construction site on time, whether in the dead of winter or in the hot summer, sometimes as many as 1 people, and the newcomers will bring their own meals, and the owner will not have to entertain tea, porridge and rice, nor pay a penny. This virtue of mutual assistance and friendship has been passed down from generation to generation by Yao people.
Yao people are hospitable both in the past and today. No matter whether it is Yao or Han nationality, as long as they visit Yaoshan, the host will treat them with table treasures-bacon, tofu, shochu and so on. Even the castrated master who walks from village to village can stay at any time. If the Han people and the Yao people become sworn "in the same year", as long as they treat each other sincerely, their relationship is like relatives. If you are working or trekking in Yaoshan, you can't go back because you are far from home. As long as there are people nearby, whether the owner is at home or whether you know each other or not, you can go in and cook. If the owner is not at home, try to tell the owner after eating and return it tomorrow. The eater never breaks his word and will not be criticized. When Yao people work in the mountains or go to the market in Han area, they are used to putting clothes, rice bags and so on on the roadside or on the tree branches, and attaching a "grass knot" (tying a knot with thatch on the object) to indicate that the object has its owner. In addition, if bees are found in the wild, but they lack tools or cannot be harvested immediately, they will also be remembered as "knot grass" and will not be picked by others.
Yao people are extremely contemptuous of dishonesty or fraud. In Yao society, the virtue of not picking up the road can be seen everywhere.
Second, surnames and first names
The surnames of Yao people are all single surnames, and there are no compound surnames. The main surnames are Zhao, Pan, Deng, Li, Kuang, Feng, Wang, Shao, Huang and Pang, among which Zhao, Pan and Deng are the majority. Names are mostly two words, the first of which is seniority (women are not limited by this).
Dong Fang Yao's name didn't come from childhood. After a baby is born, even a boy won't have a name until he is eight or nine years old. Even in his teens and twenties, many people still call him by his birth name. If she is a girl, she will not only have no name when she was a child, but also grow up without it. After marriage, she will be called "Oh" until she dies ("Oh" means wife in Yao language). However, after a man is born, when he holds a "tailor-made" ceremony, he should also ask his master to give him a dharma name. This name is not called at the time of birth, and it is written in the "family first list" for future death.
Calling method after birth: For boys, the first one calls "La Gao", the second one "De Nai" and the third one "De Lun"; Girl, the first one is called "La Bei", the second one is called "Mei Nai" and the third one is called "Mei Lun".
Xibian Yao likes to use the branches of the year of birth to name it, that is, to embed a word such as Jia Jiao, Xin Feng, Yi Sheng and Wu Xiu in the middle of the name, and the rest are similar to those of the Han nationality.
Third, costumes
The costumes of Yao people are very different from those of Yao people in the east and west. Dong Fang Yao also lives in different areas, and its costumes are slightly different.
(1) In the history of Dong Fang Yao, Dong Fang Yao men wore hair and braids, like the hairstyle of Qing Dynasty, and covered their heads with blue or white cloth towels embroidered with patterns. There are two ways to tie a headscarf: forehead and back. If the forehead is knotted, the rest of the two ends is short, and it is provoked to the left and right. If the head is knotted, the rest of the two ends is long and hangs behind the ears. The pattern in the middle of the headscarf must be exposed to the back of the head, wearing silver triangle earrings. The clothes are mostly blue-green, wearing a short cardigan, and an embroidered pattern is embedded in the chest and back, which is similar to the royal dress of the Qing Dynasty. Wear wide pants, the length of which is only between the calves, and tie leggings.
women and women wear boxers. After marriage, I put on a sailboat-shaped triangular high hat, glued my hair together with lard and beeswax, and wrapped it with cloth. The triangular high hat is wrapped with white cloth, and then covered with a blue embroidered towel. This hat cannot be removed day and night. It takes a day to wash your hair once, so you often wash and dress once every two months. Women's blouses are all made of blue cloth, which is knee-length and has no collar and a button on the right. Don't wear pants, wear a short skirt inside, hang a long apron on your chest, and then tie a belt with colored silk strips hanging down at both ends. In the past, women hung a string of copper coins around their waist, and they tinkled when they walked. At the back of the coat and in the center of the long apron on the chest, there is an embroidery embedded in each side, which is basically the same size as the pattern of men's clothes and tied with leggings.
The costumes of Dong Fang Yao are slightly different because of their different living areas. For example, the men in Bibei, Youxi, Chaping, Shangxia Village wear white headscarves, tie them behind their heads, divide them into eight shapes, hang them over their shoulders, tie white leggings and wear blue shirts. The men in Yingkeng and Dong Tian wore blue headscarves, tied them on their foreheads, tied blue leggings, and liked to wear white coats and blue jackets. Women in the camp wear triangular high hats, with two bamboo pieces extending downward from their cheeks, which are as long as chin.
The scholar said, "Yao people decorate the bonnet with sharp corners, like the ears of a dog. The white cloth towel tied around her waist will be triangular at both ends, hanging on the upper sides of the two strands, in the shape of a dog's tail. And a man's turban, with both ends hanging behind his ears, is about five or six inches long, also like a dog's ears. ..... According to the legend of Yao people, their ancestor was a king of dog heads, so the decorations of men and women all take the meaning of dogs. " [1]
(2) Yao men in the west are wearing blue headscarves. There is no big difference between men's and women's clothing and Han nationality's, except that women wear not triangular high hats, but cloth folded into many layers, or blue headscarves embroidered with patterns. The collar, cuffs and feet of the coat are inlaid with white, blue and black.
IV. Marriage and family
According to its traditional habits, the marriage and family of the Yao nationality are mixed with marriage outside the ethnic group and monogamous. Young men and women are free to fall in love, and they can get married with the same surname except brothers and sisters and other close relatives. Unmarried men and women, if they want to be lifelong partners, must be legally married and hold a certain marriage ceremony before they are recognized as legal couples by society. There are also differences between the marriages of Yao in the east and Yao in the west.
(1) The marriage custom of Dong Fang Yao
Baldness (Yao language for marrying a wife) has three stages: engagement, betrothal and marriage. When engaged, if both men and women are in love, the man will give the woman a bracelet or a scabbard. In modern times, there are also pens and watches. A woman gives a man a scarf embroidered with patterns, which is a promise. About one month after the exchange of gifts between men and women, the man informs his parents and asks the matchmaker to propose to the woman. If they agree, the date of marriage and the number of people to send the bride off when the woman gets married are set. If after the engagement, the woman reneges on the engagement, she will pay for the food, drinks and expenses incurred during the engagement, and if the man reneges on the engagement, she will give up. After the betrothal, after the engagement, please ask the matchmaker to send the betrothal money to the woman's house. To get married, according to the date agreed by both parties at the time of engagement, the man asks the touts to choose an auspicious day, and informs the bride's family of this "auspicious day" and then holds a wedding ceremony.
Zhaolang is a common marriage among Yao people. However, there are also two practices in "recruiting lang". First, after a man is adopted by his wife, he should completely break away from his parents' family, follow his wife's family name and change his name, and all the children born will follow his mother's family name; Second, after a man's adoption, he will not leave his parents' family or change his name. The first child born will take his mother's surname, the second will take his father's surname, and so on. If there is only one child in his life, the two families will have a share. The latter also has the right to inherit the inheritance of her parents-in-law. But there are also all children who take their father's surname.
This kind of marriage is special, and there is no need to hold any wedding ceremony. Some families have no children. In order to carry on the family line, when their daughters grow up, they choose one to stay at home, but they have not yet chosen a match, so they can associate with their favorite men. After pregnancy, their parents choose a suitable unmarried man among their relatives and friends to be their nominal husband. A man can stay with a woman during the "name-bearing" period, give birth to a child belonging to the woman, and follow the mother's surname. Those who have good feelings can live together for a long time, and those who are not good can be separated. Both men and women have no property to give. If the woman finds another partner to get married, she can give the man two yuan for the loss of name. At present, this custom has been basically abolished.
Matouqin (also known as "halfway relatives") men marry remarried women as their wives. The marriage ceremony is simple and inexpensive, so men from poor families usually marry more "horseheads". Widows are called "back relatives" when they recruit lang.
Divorce In the past, the divorce procedure of the Yao nationality was very simple. As long as both parties agreed, the elderly people in the clan were invited to testify, and the divorce was successful if one thing was torn apart or broken. Since then, it has nothing to do with the marriage of men and women. However, in some families, if the woman files for divorce, she must return the money to the man. If it is proposed by the man, the woman does not have to return any dowry.
Widows or women who remarry after divorce are not discriminated against.
On the wedding day, the man will send a trumpeter to play suona to the woman's house to pick up the bride along the way. The man's house will set up a stool at the door, with a bowl of tofu and a pot of wine on the stage. When the bride and the seeing-off arrive, everyone should take a sip of wine and eat a little tofu. Favourite stood in front of the farewell party and the bride and sang. The other man grabbed the rooster in one hand and stood at the door with a knife in the other. When the master sang the last sentence, the chicken catcher took a knife and cut off the head of the chicken, and threw it into the inner hall to predict good or bad luck. When the bride enters the house, the parents of both sides sit in front of the couple, telling their children to be filial to their parents, be diligent in production, be frugal in housekeeping, and not steal or gamble. After the warning, the bride and groom drink a toast and worship their relatives and elders. After the ceremony, the bride enters the new house. Before the banquet, the newlyweds are invited to make a toast to the guests. The newlyweds are each led by an elder of the other party, and the other person holds a tray and holds a pot of wine. The number of cups is only followed. For each elder to address a guest, the newlyweds propose a toast. After the marriage recognition, all the guests sat down for a banquet, guessing boxing orders and toasting all night.
Newly-married couples, without special clothes, wear headscarves for men and triangular high hats or round hats for women.
the wedding ceremony lasts * * * two days. On the first day, he received the guests of Hershey, and on the second day, he married the bride.
When a woman gets married, her parents only give a wooden box as a dowry to hold the clothes agreed upon by both parties at the time of engagement, and to store private money (the day before marriage, parents and relatives each give 2 to 3 cents private money).
On the day of marriage, besides all the family members of parents, brothers and sisters, relatives also sent people to attend, so the number of people seeing off relatives ranged from 8 to 1 to 24. When going out, an unmarried girl holds an umbrella to cover the bride, and goes to the man's house at the same time. On the way, she meets the river and crosses the bridge. The bride has to curtsy half and put down a copper coin at the bridge.
All the wedding-givers stay in the man's house for one day and one night or two days and two nights. At the end of the wedding, the relatives of the woman will give the groom 2 to 3 cents for firecrackers, while the man will give the wedding-givers about 2 to 3 kilograms of pork according to the amount agreed upon at the time of engagement. At this point, the wedding was over and the guests dispersed.
After returning home, the woman can stay in the man's house for 7 days and then return to her mother's house. The residence period is usually 3 to 5 days, or 8 to 1 days. When a man gets married, his wife visits his husband's family for the first time on December 3th of that year, which is called "turning around". At that time, the woman's family will send someone to the man's house to pick up pork, chicken, wine, rice cakes and other things for the newlyweds, and set off firecrackers along the way, and the woman's relatives will also set off firecrackers to welcome them when they arrive. At the beginning of the year, the new son-in-law will set off a string of extra-large firecrackers in the Shetan Temple outside the village, light a pair of big candles (the bigger the candles, the better), and set up wine for the relatives of the woman's family, with one cup for each person and one piece of pork for the drinker. After that, the bride's relatives hosted a banquet for the newlyweds in turn, and the newlyweds returned 2 Jin of wine, 1 Jin of pork, and 2 rice cakes as big as pots. The stay was as long as 15 days, and when she returned home, the woman's relatives set off firecrackers to see her off, so the etiquette cost a lot. However, if a man's family is poor after marriage, he can wait until his wife gives birth to a child or his life is better.
(II) Marriage Customs of the West Yao
The marriage customs of the West Yao are quite different from those of the East Yao in that the same surname cannot be married. Men and women generally make an engagement at the age of 14 or 15, and get married at the age of 16 or 17. The wedding ceremony and procedures are similar to those of Dong Fang Yao. The difference is that on the wedding day, the "stop-the-door meal" set by the male family in front of the door must have a lot of food and wine for all the bride-givers to eat until they are full of food and wine, and there is a surplus. This is the most abundant meal in the wedding. There are also "half-way meals" for those who are far away, that is, a banquet is set up halfway. "Stop eating" feast, that is, "chop evil spirit" introduction. After the bride and all the brides entered the house, the man set up an "introductory meal" in the house. However, this meal was more casual and did not matter how much. At the end of the wedding, before the bride-giver leaves, the man should give money to "Lishi", 2 cents for 1 yuan or 4 cents for 2 yuan, and 6 cents for 3 yuan for the richer. If a man is adopted by his wife, the wedding will be simpler, and both parties will gather in the bride's house and have a casual meal and drink the bride's wine.
If there is only one child at the time of divorce, the parents of both parties should discuss which party owns it. If it belongs to the woman, the woman will take back the man 5 yuan and go to 1 yuan.
according to the traditional marriage habits of the Yao people, the Yao people in the west and the Yao people in the east never marry each other, while the Yao people in the west are allowed to marry with the Han people, but it is only limited to "recruiting people into the house". It is extremely rare for Yao women to marry in the Han area, while the Yao people in the east and the Han people are completely unmarried. At present, Yao and Han people can intermarry, and marriage and divorce are performed in accordance with the provisions of the Marriage Law.
v. Folk Belief
In Yao history, there was ancestor worship centered on Panwang. "Yao people recognize their ancestors as Pangu, and the Pan Wang God they worship not only represents Pangu, but really represents everything.