The origin of the Buyi people?

The Buyi people call themselves "Buyi", "Buyayi", "Buzhong", "Burao" and "Buman", which may be the origin of the ancient "Liao", "Man" and "Zhongjia" The origin of the titles "Barbarian Liao", "Liao Liao" and "Yi Liao".

From the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties to the Tang Dynasty, both the Buyi and Zhuang people were called "Li Liao", "Man Liao" or "Yi Liao". After the Five Dynasties, the Buyi people were called "Zhongjia" and the Zhuang people in the Song Dynasty. Called "child".

"Zhong" and "Tong" are still spelled with the same pronunciation.

Introduction to the ethnic group

The Buyi people are one of the ethnic minorities in China.

There are currently 2,545,059 people, including more than 2 million people in Guizhou Province, accounting for more than 95% of the Buyi population.

They mainly live in the two Buyi and Miao Autonomous Prefectures of southern Guizhou and southwest Guizhou, as well as 10 counties (cities) in Guizhou including Duyun, Dushan, Pingtang and Zhenning.

The rest are scattered in Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangxi and other provinces (regions).

The Buyi area has beautiful mountains and clear waters, and the natural scenery is colorful.

More than a dozen tourist attractions, including the famous Huangguoshu Waterfall, Guiyang Huaxi, Anshun "Dragon Palace" cave, and Panjiang Iron Cable Bridge, welcome thousands of tourists every year.

In addition to tourism resources, it is also rich in wildlife resources and mineral resources.

Buyi language belongs to the Zhuang-Dai branch of the Zhuang-Dong language family of the Sino-Tibetan language family and does not have its own ethnic script.

The Buyi script was created in the 1950s, but it has not been widely promoted. Nowadays, more Chinese scripts are commonly used.

The Buyi people mainly focus on agriculture and have a long history of planting rice.

It is known as the "Rice Nation".

The Hongshui River Basin is also one of the most important forest areas in China.

National History

The Buyi people are the indigenous residents of the southeastern Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau. They have been working and living here as early as the Stone Age.

The Buyi people are closely related to the ancient "Liao", "Baiyue" and "Baipu".

In the history of the Tang Dynasty, they were called "Southwestern Barbarians". After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, they were called "Fan" and "Zhongjia Barbarians".

The Buyi people have the same origin as the Zhuang people and are a branch of Baiyue in ancient times.

Today, the Buyi people still retain some of the customs and habits of the ancient Yue people, such as living in stilt houses and beating bronze drums.

Some people also believe that the Yelang Kingdom in the Western Han Dynasty is related to the Buyi people today.

Some Buyi people call themselves "Buyi" and "Buyue", and some Buyi people call themselves "Buyi" and "Buman". After the founding of the People's Republic of China, they called themselves "Buyi" and "Buyue" according to their ethnic identity. "Buyi" is uniformly used as the ethnic name.

Since the Song Dynasty, the Buyi people have fought peasant uprisings against the exploitation and oppression of the feudal ruling class in every dynasty. In modern history, they have also fought against foreign churches, Japanese imperialism and Japanese reactionaries. , is a nation with a glorious revolutionary tradition.

Ethnic diet

Rice is the main staple food.

Folks like to use a special cooking utensil "steamer" to steam rice into rice.

Buyi people generally like to eat glutinous rice, and often regard it as a staple food to improve their lives or adjust their taste.

Cold dishes, "frozen meat with moss", "jelly mixed with peas", etc. are the favorite foods of Buyi people.

Sauerkraut and sour soup are essential for almost every meal, especially women.

There are also blood tofu, sausages and flavored dishes made from dried, fresh bamboo shoots and various insects.

Most Buyi people are good at making pickles, bacon and tempeh. The unique folk pickle "hydrochloric acid" is famous both at home and abroad.

Among the meat dishes, dog meat, dog enema and beef soup pot are the top dishes.

When slaughtering pigs, the Buyi people are accustomed to put some salt in the blood basin first, and then stir it with the pig blood. After solidification, add chopped green onion, condiments, and minced meat to the water to make soup, and cook it with the pig blood. , called "activating blood", as the best dish for entertaining guests.

The Buyi people in Guizhou like to use scalpers for cooking when they are attending weddings or funerals.

Wine plays an important role in the daily life of the Buyi people.

After the autumn harvest every year, every family brews a large amount of rice wine and stores it for drinking all year round.

The Buyi people like to entertain guests with wine. No matter how much the guests drink, as long as the guests arrive, wine is served first, which is called "welcome wine".

When drinking, do not use cups but use bowls, and you must follow orders and sing.

The Buyi people have many traditional snacks, especially the Buyi people living in Yunnan, who are good at making rice noodles, bait cubes, pea flour, rice cold cakes, etc.

The Buyi people are generous and hospitable, and their characteristic is that during the Maple Leaf Festival on February 3rd (or March 13th) every year, many Buyi people use various plant pigments such as liquidambar leaves to dye their glutinous rice into colorful colors. , make glutinous rice to entertain guests and distribute to relatives and friends.

Ethnic architecture

Slate houses surrounded by mountains and rivers

The distinctive feature of the Buyi people’s residence is that they live together near mountains and rivers.

Most of the residential buildings are stilt-style buildings or half-buildings (the front half is a building from the front, and the back half is a bungalow when viewed from the back).

Buyi areas such as Zhenning and Anshun in Guizhou are rich in high-quality stones, and there are also large flat stone slabs that can be peeled off layer by layer and are basically uniform in thickness. This flake stone is derived from sedimentary shale.

The local Buyi people used local materials and stones to build slate houses with national characteristics in accordance with local conditions.

Stone houses are built with stone strips or stones as walls, and the walls can be built up to five or six meters high; they are covered with stone slabs and paved in neat diamond shapes or scaled patterns with materials. The stone houses are not only impermeable Weathering the wind and rain, it is simple and beautiful, and the roof is as light as weight, making you live peacefully without being depressed.

In short, except for the sandalwood rafters, which are made of wood, the rest are all made of stone. Even the tables, benches, stoves, bowls, mills, troughs, jars, basins, etc. used daily in the home are all made of stone. of.

Everything is simple and honest.

This kind of house is warm in winter and cool in summer, moisture-proof and fire-proof, but has poor lighting.

In Chengguan Town, where the county seat of Zhenning Buyi and Miao Autonomous County is located, most houses are built of stone, with dozens of three- and four-story stone buildings.

Because the stone is light gray-white and becomes more crystal clear after processing, when you look at Zhenning during the day, the silver light shines; when you look at Zhenning on a moonlit night, it is covered with frost and snow.

For this reason, it has the reputation of "Silver Zhenning" in ancient times and "Silver Zhenning" in popular culture.

The stone buildings in this town have a long history of more than 600 years, so they can be called both solidified music and immortal epics.

The Buyi people have a lot of particularities in building houses.

First of all, we need to ask Mr. Yin and Yang to look at the "Feng Shui" and choose a place close to mountains and rivers for the homestead. It should not only be backed by green mountains, but also face the green peaks.

The best backgrounds are "Crouching Lion Guards", "Green Dragon Encirclement", "Noble Man's Mount" and other mountains; for mountains, choose "Two Dragons Grabbing Treasures", "Two Dragons Playing with Pearls", "Ten Thousands of Mountains" "The horse returns to its trough", "the longevity star shines brightly" and other forms.

Fortunately, Buyi areas are mostly limestone mountains, and such green mountains and green ridges are not difficult to find.

When building a house, you must choose an auspicious day. One month before the auspicious day, ask a carpenter to scrap materials to make the frame of the house.

The auspicious day for erecting a house frame is to offer sacrifices to Master Lu Ban.

After the house frame was erected, the father-in-law’s family sent large beams with large flowers tied with red silk tied to them, accompanied by a band and a lion dance team that fired firecrackers.

When the beam is put on, there will be singing and dancing ceremonies and banquets.

The last step is to take the ancestral tablets and the kitchen god (charcoal fire) to the new home.

The whole process of building a new house is full of joy and mutual help in Buyi villages.

Culture and Art

The culture and art of the Buyi people are colorful.

Traditional dances include "Bronze Drum Dance", "Weaving Dance", "Lion Dance", "Sugar Packet Dance", etc.

Traditional musical instruments include suona, yueqin, dongxiao, wooden leaf, flute, etc.

Earth opera and lantern opera are favorite types of opera among the Buyi people.

Buyi homespun cloth woven by farmers themselves has long been famous.

In recent years, enterprises specializing in the production of Buyi brocade, batik cloth and ethnic craft clothing have been established one after another, and their products are exported to Southeast Asia, Japan, Europe and the United States.

Batik Technology

The Buyi people’s batik has long been famous.

As early as the Song Dynasty, there are records of batik cloth, a specialty of Huishui, Guizhou.

The "blue and white cloth" mentioned in the history books of the Qing Dynasty is batik cloth.

Buyi girls began to learn batik techniques from their mothers when they were twelve or thirteen years old.

First heat the beeswax to melt it into wax juice, then use a triangular copper wax knife to dip it into the wax juice, carefully draw various beautiful and vivid patterns on the self-woven white cloth, and then put it into the indigo vat. The cloth is dyed blue or light blue, and finally the cloth is boiled in a pot to remove the beeswax. After it is fished out, it is washed repeatedly in the river and dried to become a unique batik handicraft.

The resulting batik cloth has rich and simple patterns, lively and bold paintings, and unique turtle patterns (also known as small ripples), which have an artistic effect that cannot be replaced by machines.

Batik art in different regions has different styles: some like to use flowers, birds, insects, and fish as batik patterns, with bold compositions and vivid images; some are characterized by rigorous structures and delicate lines; Some are based on dragon's claw flowers and terrestris flowers, with rough and bright colors... Batik art not only beautifies people's lives, but also enriches the clothes of Chinese and foreign women.

In the past 20 years, some batik factories have been built in Guizhou, with specialized art designers creating and drawing new patterns.

The images of various characters and animals are richer, and the colors tend to be more diverse.

Batik cloth is mostly used for women’s headscarves, skirts, aprons, quilt covers, door curtains, and curtains.

Some of them have a high level of craftsmanship and very novel and exquisite patterns. They are also used as art wall hangings to decorate living rooms, hotels and restaurants.

Buyi women also add embroidery to their batik dresses to make them more charming.

In addition to batik, the traditional folk crafts of the Buyi people include tie-dye, brocade, embroidery, wood carving, stone carving, bamboo weaving, etc.

National marriage customs

Marriage among the Buyi people is monogamous.

Intermarriage between people of the same clan or surname is strictly prohibited.

The customs of "cousin marriage" and the transfer of houses between brothers and sisters are also preserved.

Young men and women are free to fall in love before marriage. Unmarried young men and women from all over the world like to take advantage of New Year celebrations, markets and group gatherings to chat through free combinations of three or five to seven or eight people. Joking and singing are swapped to talk or express each other's feelings.

When a man falls in love with a girl, according to tradition, he must find a third party to accompany him. In some cases, his sister-in-law will introduce him.

If the woman has this intention, she can meet alone in a quiet place to further sing folk songs and express her feelings until both parties give each other tokens, which shows that they have made a lifelong vow.

When getting engaged, the groom's parents ask a matchmaker to go to the bride's house and give her certain gifts such as wine, meat, and rakes.

If the other party agrees, the second matchmaker will use the "horoscopes" of both men and women as "validations" for each other. As long as the "horoscopes" match, the wedding date can be chosen.

The amount of betrothal gifts in this area is particularly particular about the number of "six" or "even". It is said that "six" is a homophone of "lu", which means that both people will be blessed if they get rich after marriage.

When getting married, the groom does not welcome the bride, but only invites a few young men and women who are in love to greet him on his behalf.

The bride usually walks to the groom’s house holding an umbrella, but some also ride on horseback or in a sedan chair.

If the newlyweds do not live in the same room on the wedding day, they will return to their parents' home the next day.

The Buyi people in the settlement area still maintain the custom of "not leaving their husband's home" or "sitting at home".

Some people take two to three years or even five or six years to live in their husband's house.

Most of the Buyi people in mixed areas have abandoned this custom.

Etiquette and Customs

The Buyi people are hospitable, enthusiastic, generous and sincere. Anyone who comes to the village, whether relatives, friends, old friends or strangers, will be treated with wine.

Buyi people are very polite and do not welcome guests who are foul-mouthed or rude.

Buyi families all live separately.

However, even though the brothers are separated, when the property is distributed, the land for their parents' retirement should be left to their parents, and the brothers should take turns farming.

After the death of his parents, the pension field was turned into a grave-sweeping field for the purpose of sweeping tombs during the Qingming Festival.

Let future generations always remember the sincere advice and nurturing grace of their elders.

National Costumes

Buyi people mostly live in Pingba or in villages near river valleys. Men and women like to wear blue, green, black, white and other colored cloth clothing.

Young and middle-aged men mostly wear turbans, short-breasted jackets (or long-breasted gowns), turbans, and trousers.

Most of the elderly wear short-breasted jackets or long gowns.

Women's clothing varies from place to place. Some wear right-folded clothes, trousers or pleated skirts, and silver bracelets, earrings, necklaces and other jewelry.

Some like to embroider flowers on their clothes, and some like to wrap their heads with white towels.

Buyi girls have the aura to make batik since they were young. Most of the clothes they wear are sewn by themselves, fit well, and are simple and elegant.

National Festivals

Except for the New Year (Spring Festival), Dragon Boat Festival, and Mid-Autumn Festival, the traditional festivals of the Buyi people are basically the same as those of the Han people, including "February 2" and "March 3". , "April 8th", "June 6th", "June 24th", "Ox King Festival" and other festivals rich in national characteristics.

The most solemn festival is "June 6th" in the lunar calendar.

In some places, there are "Yangba Scattering Festival", "Little New Year", "Twenty-ninth of the twelfth lunar month", "Twenty-seventh of the first lunar month" and "March 3rd", and Han festivals are also celebrated.

The biggest festival of the year is the Chinese New Year (Spring Festival).

From New Year’s Eve to the 15th.

Before New Year’s Eve, the New Year pig is killed, glutinous rice cakes are pounded, and various vegetables are prepared.

The Buyi people in Yunnan have the habit of eating vegetarian food from the first to the third day of the Lunar New Year; the Buyi people in Sichuan must eat chicken porridge every New Year's Eve or the first day of the Lunar New Year, which is called blood rice porridge among the people.

Each surname has a different pre-dinner ritual, and the pre-dinner rituals of both parties who recognize each other must be exactly the same.

Many entertainment activities are held during the festival.

The Flower Dance Party is held every year from the first day to the twenty-first day of the first lunar month.

The "Flower Dance Party" is a social activity for young men and women. It is a grand event with over a thousand participants. Many unmarried young men and women make a lifelong commitment by blowing leaves and singing antiphonal songs.

Every festival, the little girls wear gorgeous lace clothes with very beautiful flower buttons, and the boys wear cardigans and bearded belts, blowing the leaves, and each one The face is full of spring breeze.

The enthusiastic ladies led the horses for the young men from the five villages and eight villages, from the invisible mountainside to the flower dance party venue, which was a large flat grassland with a A crystal clear river, with tung trees full of buds to the north.

There were people shouting and neighing, laughing and chattering everywhere, at least several thousand people.

The thunderous sound of the cowhide drum shook the empty valley, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, sometimes rising and falling, coupled with the clanging cymbals, it was intoxicating! On the field, young men and women were dancing in groups here and there, singing ancient songs with beautiful voices and light dance steps. They sat on the bank of the river and played "Leyou", Yueqin, blowing wood leaves, and talked about love. The young people, with their bright and affectionate eyes like rivers, expressed their passionate love to each other, and the reflections shook, adding another flavor.

There is a platform set up next to the tung forest.

There is a wonderful Buyi opera performed there, which is rich and colorful, and the whole lawn is filled with a cheerful and joyful atmosphere.

They sang and danced, and before they knew it, the sun set on the back of the slope, and the sunset fell on the buds of the tung forest. People reluctantly mounted their horses and left the lawn one after another.

The Flower Dance Party is also a bridge building party for young guys and girls. They sow love on the grass dam. On the last day of the festival, which is the 21st (called "union"), they announce the year. The flower dance party was over.

The 22nd is the day of "leading the sheep", which means an engagement. The young people take the "sheep" home (bring the girl back for a blind date) to see the man's family situation to make a decision. lifelong event.

On this day, many young men went to Caoba to bring their future wives to the village.

However, how can shy girls step into the threshold of their partner's home? But on the hilltop behind the stockade, in the jungle, I secretly took a look at where the subject's house was located. After the 22nd, work would begin. Spring plowing had begun. People were engaged in busy spring plowing production in order to capture grain, cotton, and other crops for the coming year. A bumper harvest of sugar, a new battle for the construction of mountainous areas!

"June 6th" is a traditional festival for the Buyi people. Due to different living areas, the date of the festival is not uniform. In some areas, the festival is held on the sixth day of June, which is called June 6th; The New Year is celebrated on the 16th day of the lunar month or the 26th day of the sixth lunar month, which is called June Street or June Bridge.

The Buyi people attach great importance to this festival and it was once known as the "Little New Year".

When the festival comes, every village will kill chickens and pigs, make small triangular flags out of white paper, dip them in chicken or pig blood, and insert them into the crop fields. Legend has it that by doing this, the "Tianma" (Tianma) will locusts) will not come to eat the crops.

On the morning of the festival, several respected old people in the village led the young and middle-aged people to hold traditional activities of offering sacrifices to ancient pots and sweeping the village to drive out "ghosts".

Except for those who participated in the sacrifice, the rest of the men, women, old and young, according to the Buyi custom, must wear national costumes, carry glutinous rice, chicken, duck, fish and water and wine, and "hide" on the hillside outside the village. "Mountain" (called Qianyuechang by the local Han people).

After the sacrifice, the chief sacrificer led everyone to sweep the village to drive away "ghosts", while the people "hiding in the mountains" talked about the past and the present outside the village, and had various entertainment activities.

When the sun sets in the west.

The "hiding mountain" people sat on the ground one by one, opened their rice baskets, took out fragrant wine and food, and invited each other to be guests.

Waiting until the shouts of "The meat is divided! The meat is divided!" were heard from the place where the mountain god was worshipped, people picked out the strong people and divided them into four groups to carry back the four cow legs to the mountain god. , the rest of the people returned home together, and then each family sent people to the village to collect the beef offered to the mountain god.

Among holiday entertainment activities, throwing flower bags is the most interesting.

Flower bags are made of various colorful fabrics and shaped like pillows, and are filled with rice bran, adzuki beans or cotton seeds.

The edge of the flower bag is decorated with lace and "whiskers".

When throwing flower bags, young men and women stand on one side, several meters apart, and throw them at each other.

The methods include right-side throw, left-side throw and overhead throw, but horizontal throw is not allowed.

It is required to throw far, fast and catch firmly.

The flower bags are flying around in the air, which is really beautiful.

If the young man throws the flower bag to his beloved, and the bag falls to the ground without reaching the shoulder, the girl will give the other person a gift, such as a necklace, ring, bracelet, etc. Considered a token of love, the young man will keep it for a long time.

The "June 6th" festival has a long history.

There are different legends about its origin from different places. One of them is that in the ancient prehistoric era, "Pangu", the ancestor of the Buyi people, accumulated experience in cultivating rice during his work, and had a bumper harvest every year. He married the Dragon King's daughter and gave birth to a son, named Xinheng.

Once the son offended his mother, the Dragon Girl was so angry that she returned to the Dragon Palace and never came back.

"Pangu" had no choice but to marry again. Pangu died on June 6 of that year. From then on, Xinheng was abused by his stepmother and almost killed.

He couldn't bear it anymore, so he went to heaven to accuse his stepmother and vowed to destroy the rice seedlings she cultivated. When his stepmother found out, she regretted it so much that she finally reconciled with Xinheng, and Pangu passed away on June 6 every year. On this day, pigs and ducks are killed, and cakes are made to offer sacrifices to Pangu. Therefore, the Buyi people hold sacrifices to Pangu on June 6 every year to offer sacrifices to their ancestors to show that their descendants will continue to have a good harvest. Year after year, they have formed a this national holiday.

March 3rd is a traditional festival of the Buyi people. According to legend, there was a family of three sisters who married in the same village and lived a good life.

One day, grandpa wanted to visit his grandson. After hearing about it, the grandsons from the three families all scrambled to ask grandpa to go to their home first.

Grandpa said that on the third day of March, you bring the best glutinous rice you have made to the intersection of Zhaizi. I will go to whose house tastes best first.

On this day, the eldest daughter’s family made fried dough balls, the second daughter’s family made glutinous rice cakes, and the third daughter’s family made five-color glutinous rice. Grandpa came to Zhaikou and opened the things from the three families. Five-color glutinous rice The bright color and fragrant taste were his favorite, so he went to his third daughter's house first.

From then on, every third day of the third month of the lunar calendar, every Buyi family would make glutinous rice to entertain relatives and friends. Over time, the annual March Festival was formed.

The Chabaige Festival is a traditional festival of the Buyi people in Xingyi area, Guizhou. The festival takes place from the 21st to the 23rd of the sixth lunar month every year.

Tens of thousands of people of all ethnic groups from more than 10 surrounding counties and even Yunnan and Guangxi will participate, which is a grand event.

Ethnic taboos

When visiting Buyi people’s homes, you are not allowed to touch the shrines and altar tables. It is taboo to step on the tripods by the fire pit.

The Buyi people are accustomed to toasting guests with wine, and guests should drink more or less.

No one is allowed to touch or cut down the mountain sacred trees and big arhat trees in Buyi villages.

The Buyi people must give even numbers when giving gifts.

When a child is frail and sick, parents have to find a godfather or godmother to protect him.

There are two ways to find godfathers and godmothers: one is to choose a day to wait at home, and the first person to come to the door within 3 days will be the child's protector; the other is to choose an auspicious day and let the parents take the child , waiting for the first passing pedestrian on the road, is the protector.

Ethnic Religion

The Buyi people used to believe in primitive nature worship and held sacrificial activities every festival. Among them, worshiping the old man Fang (the village god) was the most solemn. In the second month of the lunar calendar, rabbits were selected. When the festival begins on Tiger's Day, each household will sacrifice eggs and pork to the gods. After the sacrifice, the whole village has a dinner on the spot to pray for a good harvest and peace for the whole village.

The Buyi people believe in many gods and worship nature and ancestors. A few also believe in Christianity.

There are many festivals every year, to worship mountain gods, tree gods, etc.

Every family has a memorial tablet for its ancestors in the main hall, and sacrifices are made every year and festival.

According to legend, it is the birthday of the "Ox King Bodhisattva" and the cows are allowed to rest on that day.

In some places, black glutinous rice flour or white glutinous rice flour is dyed black and then mixed with water. The horns of the cow are painted black, and then the cow is led to the waterside so that the cow can see its own shadow and make it "know" The plowing work is coming to an end, and it’s time to rest after a little more work.

In some places, black flour is not used but lime mortar is used to paint the horns white.

According to legend, it is the day when the "Dragon King" hangs his dragon robes. On that day, wealthy people take their fine clothes to dry outside.

Most people make glutinous rice or glutinous rice cakes to eat. The elderly drink wine and tell stories, and the young people sing folk songs on the hillside grass.

"Yangba Scattering Festival" is a unique festival of the Buyi people in Xiliang Township. It is set on the Shen (Monkey) Day after the rice planting (Grain Rain) every year.

On that day, each family brings rice dumplings, wine and meat, incense and paper money to the fields to offer sacrifices to the "Bodhisattva", praying for good weather, the elimination of pests, and a good harvest.