Yao people mainly live in Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Guizhou, Yunnan and other regions, with a population of more than 2 million. Historically, due to the differences in specific conditions such as mode of production, living environment and dress customs, there are dozens of nicknames for Yao people in different regions, such as Landian Yao, Beilou Yao, Guoshan Yao, Baiku Yao, Bapai Yao, Xishan Yao and Pingdi. But surprisingly, they not only always take Yao as the national name, but also mostly take Pan, Bao (blue), Fang, Li, Deng, Zhou, Zhao, Hu, Tang, Lei, Feng and Shen as the common surnames, which are called twelve surnames of Pan Yao.
According to the Yao document "Comment on the Emperor's Voucher Gap", the origin of these twelve surnames is consistent with the formation of the Yao nationality in time and logic. It is said that in ancient times, there was a dragon dog with 24 stripes in the palace of Gaoxin, who was alert and brave, and King Gaoxin loved him like two princesses. Later, when Wang Xing-bing made an insurrection, the people were terrified. King Gao Xin posted a notice: Who can defeat Fan Wang, let him choose five princesses! Who knows, the Manchu civil servants did not dare to call, and the dragon dog tore down the notice and was willing to serve the country. King Gao Xin was overjoyed, and called the queen, princess and ministers to bid farewell to the dragon dog. Fourteen days later, the dragon dog returned triumphantly with the head of Fanwang in his mouth, and the people lived and worked in peace again.
Dragon and Dog made great contributions. King Gao Xin asked three princesses to come to him in turn for him to choose from. After the dragon and dog selected the princess like a fairy, they told her that you put me in a steamer for seven days and seven nights. I can shed my hair and become a human being. The second princess did as she said, and the dragon dog turned into a handsome man. King Gao Xin immediately named him the King of Pan Hu, the Ten Treasures. King Pan Hu and Princess Sancui gave birth to six men and six women in the Ten Treasures Hall. King Gao Xin gave each of them a surname, and also awarded a list of books: all the mountains where Pan Hu's children and grandchildren live are allowed to be reclaimed and planted, and all food tax officers are free. This is the family heirloom "Guo Shan Bang" handed down from generation to generation by the Yao family.
With the Mountain List, Pan Hu returned to the mountains with his wife and children and lived a mountain life of farming, weaving and hunting. When children grow up, they get married and have children, forming a prosperous Yao nationality. Generally speaking, Yao people don't intermarry with foreigners, and the custom of uxorilocal is more common, so the twelve big babies are passed down from generation to generation. Many years later, the government was determined to occupy the fertile mountain fields cultivated by the twelve surnames of the Yao family, but ignored the provisions of the Mountain List and sent many soldiers to attack Yao Village in the future. Yao people were outnumbered, and finally, under the leadership of Pan Weng, they abandoned their homes and crossed the sea by boat to make a living in other places. After forty-nine days and nights of wandering, the Yao family finally crossed the sea and landed. Pan Weng smashed the golden incense burner dedicated to the king of Pan Hu into twelve pieces, one for each surname; Saw the horn that gave orders into twelve pieces, one for each surname. Then * * * drink chicken blood wine and swear: three and a half catties of copper incense burner, and one piece of gold, four, two, five, Qian Yao's family, and flee across the sea. The horn was sawed into twelve pieces, and each surname flew separately. The horn of the incense burner was closed properly, and the descendants were killed back in the future. From then on, everyone went their separate ways and entered Guangxi, Hunan, Guizhou, Guangdong and other places to reclaim land and build their homes.
Both Yao and She nationalities have the custom of worshipping Pan Hu, and both have Chinese documents recording the legend of Pan Piao (Yao is called Guo Shan Bang, and She is called Kai Shan Gong Zhi). The contents of the two are similar, and Pan, Lan and Lei are the most common names of the two ethnic groups, so it is speculated that the historical origin between them should be very close.
Yao is divided into several different branches. Let's take Pan Yao and Ba Pai Yao as examples to illustrate the custom of naming:
First, Pan Yao
Pan Yao generally has to take three names in his life, namely, birth name, title and dharma name. 1. Milk name. I took it at birth. Pan Yao's birth name is generally expressed in the order of birth, with the boy in the order word gat and the girl adding plum before the order word. (2) the title. The title of Pan Yao is equivalent to the name of the Han nationality, which is usually taken by a child who is literate or other people after school. The title of Pan Yao is the same as the name of the Han nationality, and a word is often embedded to indicate seniority. There are also rules for generations of characters. For example, the word generation sequence of Zhao Yao in xing an, Guangxi, is rich and prosperous, family friends are always in Changchun, and ten words are recycled. 3 dharma name. The distinctive feature of Panyao's name custom is its legal name. The dharma name of Panyao is different from that of monks. It has nothing to do with Buddhism, but with the primitive religion of Yao nationality. When a man of Panyao reaches the age of fifteen, he can ask a wizard to come to his home to practice, so that he can quit, and the man after quitting will have the qualification to be a teacher. After abstinence, men should take dharma names, and the method of taking dharma names depends on the number of lights they hang when abstaining. However, dharma names can only be used after their death. Panyao also records the genealogy of the family members who have been supported in the past dynasties, which is called the genealogy. The names in the genealogy are registered under the legal names.
Erpaiyao
Bapaiyao is a branch of Yao people living in Liannan Yao Autonomous County, Guangdong Province. The name of Ba Pai Yao is particularly complicated, and its name system constitutes an extremely perfect social symbol system, and a person's social status can be clearly reflected in his name. A complete name of Eight Pai Yao includes six parts: surname, family name, father name, my name, my ranking name, my marital status and children's status. Names can reflect their blood, family, ranking, gender, descendants and my physical characteristics.
① surname. It's a sign of family blood.
② Family name. It is the symbol of the house clan. Eight Pai Yao is divided into different clan under the same surname, which is divided by the ancestor's compatriot Shi Di, that is, the division of the same surname, and different clan often have disputes and even fights because of conflicts of interest. Therefore, in the name of Eight Pai Yao, the surname suffix should be taken as the clan name.
③ Father's name. The father's name. Embedding the father's name in the name is obviously the product of the father-son naming system.
④ My name. It is my unique name, that is, my private name. It is often taken from my physical characteristics or the names of animals and plants.
⑤ rank first. Indicates my birth order, which is generally expressed by numbers such as one, two and three.
⑤ my marital status and children's status. This part changes with my gender and age. Before marriage, men use expensive words. After they get married and have children, if they give birth to a son, they will change it to a kettle. Kettle Instead of), one is my ranking. If I have a daughter, I will change it to Shamou kettle. With grandchildren, this part changed again, that is, the word kettle was changed to public; If you have a great-grandson, you have to change the public to Huang Gong again. This last part of a woman's name is different from that of a man. Before marriage, she uses the word sister. After marriage, it was changed to Shakespeare; After having children, it should be changed to mother or son; If you have grandchildren, you will be changed to a grandmother; If you become a great-grandmother, you should change it to huangpo. In addition, after giving birth to children, women in Bapai Yao will change the first five parts of their names to their husbands' names. Eight Pai Yao also has the custom of changing their legal names after death.
To sum up, the name of Eight Pai Yao can reflect its blood, family, ranking, gender, descendants and my physical characteristics. It can be said that the name system of Eight Pai Yao constitutes a perfect social symbol system, and a person's social status can be clearly reflected in his name.