The Mid Autumn Festival customs of the Wa people, the folk customs of the Wa people

All the men, women and children of the village should get up early to clean the village and build roads and bridges. One day, the whole village is going to celebrate the "fasting" festival and summon the soul of the valley!

The Wa people, one of the ethnic minorities in China and Myanmar, the national language is Wa, which belongs to the Wa German branch of the Mon-Khmer language family of the Austroasiatic language family.

The Wa people mainly live in Cangyuan, Ximeng, Menglian, Gengma, Lancang, Shuangjiang, Zhenkang, Yongde and other counties in southwestern Yunnan Province and Wa State and Shan State in Myanmar.

According to the Sixth National Population Census in 2010, the total Wa population in China is 429709.

The Wa people feed on rice, poultry and livestock, and when they eat, they will eat by hand, and they will be accompanied by wine made of red rice, and the Wa men and women will wear collarless short shirts, while men will wrap their heads with black and red cloth, and women will wear silver hoops, and the Wa people have festivals such as the New Fire Festival, the New Rice Festival, and the Sowing Festival, praying for the safety of their families and a good harvest every year.

What are the customs of the Wa people?

1. Diet. The Wa people take rice, corn, red rice, and beans as the staple food, and the meat mainly includes beef, chicken, pork, and pheasants and birds obtained from hunting.

2. Clothing. There is a difference in the clothing of men and women among the Wa people. Wa men wear collarless blouses with short, fat trousers and red or black cloth wrapped around their heads, while Wa women wear collarless black blouses with straight-folded skirts and silver hoops around their heads and silver collars around their necks.

3. Festivals. The main festivals of the Wa nationality are the New Fire Festival, the New Rice Festival, the Sowing Festival, etc., of which the New Fire Festival is the annual festival of the Wa people, which is from December of the lunar calendar to January of the following year, and the New Rice Festival is in the eighth month of the lunar calendar every year, that is, the period when the grain is ripe, and the sowing festival is on the 15th day of March of the lunar calendar.

According to the customs, beliefs and other habits of the Hui people, because the Hui people believe in Islam, the customs and habits of the Hui people during the New Year are deeply influenced by Islam, and in addition to the provisions stipulated in the doctrine and the religious ceremonies such as chanting, worship, and meditation, many rituals of Islam have been transformed into the customs and habits of the Hui people. The Hui people did not have a Mid-Autumn Festival, and there were no Mid-Autumn Festival customs;

1. The Hui people have three major festivals, namely Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, and Shengji. All three festivals are religious holidays. In the customs of the Hui New Year, Eid al-Fitr is a paraphrase of the Arabic word "Erde Fisir", so it is also called the "Erde" festival, and there are still in Xinjiang"Rouzi"The name of the section.

Eid al-Adha, the 70th day after Eid al-Fitr, which is December 10 in the Islamic calendar, is Eid al-Adha.

2. Eid al-Adha, also known as Eid al-Adha, is the last day of the pilgrimage for Muslims to Mecca (Mecca: the holy place of Islam). On this day, you should bathe and cleanse your body, burn incense indoors, and fast and do your day.

In the Hui New Year customs, people go to the mosque in the morning to attend the ceremony, bow to Mecca, ask the imam to slaughter the animals, and give part of the slaughtered cattle and mutton to relatives and friends, and give alms to the poor; The Sacred Day is the day to commemorate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad, which is the day of the 12th day of March in the Islamic calendar and the day of Muhammad's death. Commemorative events are usually held in mosques, during which sutras are recited and speeches are recounted. The custom of the Hui people for the New Year is that some places also hold a grand Ermeri meeting (good deeds banquet) on this day to entertain guests.

3. Their diet is mainly rice and noodles, and they eat beef, sheep, chicken, fish, etc. Fried foods such as "oily fragrant" and "steamed dumplings" during the New Year's holidays. The Muslims love to drink tea, and when entertaining guests, they also add rock sugar and red dates to the tea. Halal-style snacks have a good reputation.

1. Wear.

Historically, the Wa people wore short black clothes and wide trousers. Women wore tunics and short skirts with striped flowers, and ornaments such as collars, necklaces, bracelets, waist bands and anklebands, most of which were made of silver or bamboo and rattan, or painted with natural pigments, or depending on the color of nature, and were almost universally loved by men, women and children.

With the development of society, the clothing of the Wa nationality has also begun to change, there are long skirts, tube skirts and some more contemporary clothing and decoration, but the areas inhabited by the Wa people still maintain the traditional national characteristics, and most of the raw materials of the clothes are self-planted cotton and linen, according to their traditional way, processed and made, and the patterns woven are like peacocks, white pheasants and other feathers, and some are like the patterns of fur such as civets and dace.

2. Residence. Most of the Wa villages are built on mountainsides or small hilltops. Some villages in the Ximeng area have a history of hundreds of years and have gathered into hundreds of large villages. The Wa people liked to live in bamboo houses, and some of them changed to adobe bungalows, which was a new form of housing that changed later.

The bamboo building can be divided into two floors, the upper floor is occupied by people, and the lower floor is closed to livestock.

The furnishings of the house are simple and bright, and it is essential to have a fire pit for human use and a fire pit for sacrificial purposes or for the heating of sacrificial and animal feed.

3. Diet. The Wa people mostly use bamboo tubes to cook rice, and when eating, the housewives divide the food according to the number of people, and divide it evenly at one time. I like to chew betel nut and drink alcohol, and there is a saying that "no wine is not polite, and talking does not count". The water wine is made by fermenting small red rice, which is mostly contained in a large bamboo tube and inserted into a thin bamboo tube to suck.

The Wa people also have the custom of drinking strong tea, and the preference for chili peppers is a common hobby of men, women and children.

4. Marriage. The Wa family is a small monogamous family, and most of the property is inherited by the youngest son, and the daughter has no inheritance rights. When naming the Wa people, they use the reverse father-son joint name system, and trace their ancestors back to themselves. The name of the earliest generation of all the Wa families is "Sigang", which means gourd or stone cave, and is the worship of matriarchy.

Men and women can associate freely before marriage, called "string girls", young men and women gather in groups, sing love songs, and give betel nuts and tobacco to express their affection. However, the marriage is concluded by the parents, and the man has to pay a bride price of a few cows, which is called "nurse money" and "girl money". Sometimes if one of the parents does not agree, the parents will run away from the marriage, and the parents will not pursue the case.

In the past, the Wa people used to be popular for aunt and uncle cousin marriages, but now there have been great changes.

5. Funeral. The Wa practice thin burials, and villages have common cemeteries. In some areas, the custom of burying the deceased under or near a bamboo building is preserved.

"Wine" The Wa people are bold and hospitable, welcoming guests with wine first, believing that no wine is not polite. The Wa people have a variety of customs of hospitality and toasting. The first is that the toaster first takes a sip of his own drink to dispel the guests' various wars, and then hands them to the guests in turn.

The wine given to the guest must be drunk by the guest, and he must drink it dry as much as possible to show that he is honest in his heart, otherwise it will be considered disrespectful to the host; Another form is that the host and guest are squatting on the ground, and the host hands the wine to the guest with his right hand, and the guest pours it on the ground with his right hand or flicks the wine on the ground with his right hand, which means respecting the ancestors. Then the host and the guests drank it dry. The Wa people have the habit of not toasting those who don't know their hearts and are not kind.

Whenever the son goes out and the guest leaves, the host has to make a "family gift". That is, toast to relatives or guests, when the host fills the wine with a gourd (wine container), first take a sip, and then send it to the mouth of the guest or distant relatives, and the guests need to drink until the gourd bottoms out, in order to show that family affection and friendship will never be forgotten.

Staple Food》The Wa people eat rice as their staple food. The Wa people in the Ximeng region like to cook vegetables, salt, and rice in a pot to make a thicker rotten rice. The Wa people in other regions eat more dry rice.

When the farm is busy, it eats three meals a day, and usually eats two meals. Chicken porridge such as camellia porridge is the best of home-cooked food. Upland rice is eaten now, men, women and children all eat chili peppers, and the folk have the saying that "no spicy seeds are not full".

Meat》The meat of the Wa people is mainly raised at home, including pigs, cows, and chickens. In addition, there is also a habit of preying on rats and insects. In some areas, the Wa people also have the habit of preying on insects, and eat more than ten species such as pupa, red caterpillars parasitic on plants and plants, broom insects and winter melon insects parasitic on winter melon trees.

Generally, edible insects are boiled together with rice to make porridge, with vegetables, salt, and chili peppers, which is spicy and delicious.

Bee beekeeping is more common among the Wa people, but the beekeeping method is very special, first use a hollowed-out log, seal at both ends, leave a few small holes for wild bees to enter and exit, put it in the forest or under the eaves, make it reproduce and make honey, cut it once a year, and eat it together with the bee pupa.

Bitter Tea" The Wa people generally like to drink alcohol and drink bitter tea. The sake we drink is home-brewed "soaking sake". Drinking water and wine regularly is not only harmless to the body, but also beneficial to health. It is only in recent decades that the Wa people have started drinking shochu liquor.

The Wa people prefer to drink bitter tea. Some bitter teas are boiled so strongly that they almost become tea paste. Although bitter tea has a bitter taste, it has a refreshing feeling after drinking. For the Wa people in the hot climate area, it has a magical thirst-quenching effect.

Betel nut chewing betel nut is a common hobby of Wa men, women and children, usually working and resting or chatting, chewing a piece of betel nut in the mouth. The betel nut chewed is a substitute made from oak leaves and lime, and it is said that chewing betel nut has a tooth-strengthening effect.

Typical foods" camellia porridge, roasted snake meat, green peas fried ant eggs, fried firewood insects, etc.