Cowherd and Weaver Girl, why are this couple popular in East Asian cultural circles?
Please forgive me. This flower cannot be squeezed.
Express the wrong feelings? What is this? Taking Valentine's Day in China as Valentine's Day is the product of forcibly transplanting Western Valentine's Day horizontally. Isn't it also a manifestation of wrong feelings? The logic behind it is full of nationalism:
What do you have in the west? We have been in China since ancient times.
Actually, there is no need to compete like this. On the contrary, it seems that we are very guilty, and even traditional culture must have a sense of existence in the West.
I dare not say my other hobbies, but the legend of Cowherd and Weaver Girl, which China relies on for Valentine's Day, has a great influence from ancient times to the present. At least in East Asia (including Southeast Asia), the pair of CP, Cowherd and Weaver Girl, is definitely a big IP that has been popular for one or two thousand years.
1 The earliest cowherd was a god, right? Pan? /span>。
The story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl is the earliest, the most widely circulated and the most influential one among the four major folklore in China.
The prototype of this story not only spread in Han areas of China, but also penetrated into minority areas, resulting in countless versions of similar legends. At the beginning of its birth, the legend of Niu Nv rushed out of the country with the strength and superiority of Chinese civilization, and took root in the Korean Peninsula, Japan and other places, thus affecting the culture of the Philippines, Indonesia and other places.
Cowherd and Weaver Girl are really a pair of magical CP (lovers).
At first, they were just two stars observed by our ancestors with the naked eye. It is written in the Book of Songs, but it is not personalized.
After the Han Dynasty, there were many written records about Niu and Nv. At this time, they have been clearly personified. For example, this famous Eastern Han literati poem:
Distant Altair, Jiao Jiao Hehan girl.
Skillful hands, make a loom.
There is no chapter all day, and tears are pouring down.
What's the difference between a clear river and a shallow one?
Between water and water, there are no words.
A sad and beautiful love story that can't be together for a long time is contained in the poem. This shows that the legend of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl has been formed in the Han Dynasty, and it will become the material of literary works and be frequently used.
Interestingly, the early legend of Cowgirl is very different from the version we are circulating now. The most obvious point is that the cowherd and the weaver girl all live in the sky, and no weaver girl comes down to take a bath. Pan Ke @ ≈≈? Is it true that you have a hot bed? Forced burial? P The myth of cowgirl recorded in Yi Shu Ji goes like this:
On the east side of the river, there is a beautiful woman. She is the son of the Emperor of Heaven and a sewing worker. She worked hard year after year and knitted clouds of silk clothes. She has no joy, and her appearance is too busy to clean up. God pitied him, married Penny in Hexi, and gave up knitting? The power of greed will not be returned. The emperor was angry and went to Hedong to meet once a year.
The "big river" here refers to Tianhe, the Milky Way in the sky. That is to say, at this time, the joys and sorrows between the cow and the girl are family matters between the immortals, not human feelings? Pan Ke cut the word very long? /p & gt；
However, legends are made up by people after all and always reflect people's needs. Over time, the plot gradually enriched, expressing the demands of more and more people. Just as we are now making up jokes, they all have other hopes.
For example, at that time, people added a plot to the legend of Cowgirl, saying that Penny married the Weaver Girl and borrowed 20,000 yuan from Heaven and Earth as a dowry. As a result, they were unable to repay, and the two talents were forcibly separated by the "creditors".
On the surface, this is the reason for the separation of cattle and women, but in fact it reflects the custom of giving a big dowry when getting married since the Han Dynasty. Which one must it be? Pan Ke that said in a barber screen nest official? Malaria nape hammer 57/p & gt；;
In a word, folklore is a bottle, and everything can be put in it. We can see that the variation of cowgirl legends of various nationalities and countries is also due to their unique national customs and culture, and the legends have changed according to their needs.
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, the stories of Yong Dong, the dutiful son and the Seven Fairies were separated from the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, and the story between gods became the story of the marriage between man and god. At this point, the main plot of the legend of Niu Nv has taken shape.
Cowherd stole Weaver's clothes and sang love songs.
The outline of the popular legend of Niu Nv in Han areas is basically like this (I believe everyone is familiar with it):
Once upon a time, there were two brothers. The younger brother herded cattle and was called the cowherd. He was abused (even nearly killed) by his brother and sister-in-law. After the brothers split up, my brother got an old ox (or a broken car) and lived with it. The cow is actually a fairy falling from the sky, telling the cowherd the way to marry. The cowherd stole the clothes of the weaver girl who bathed in the river and married the weaver girl. After marriage, have children. After the Weaver Maid was taken back to the Heavenly Palace by the Queen Mother or the gods, or fled to the Heavenly Palace in fairy clothes, the Cowherd rushed to the sky with his children according to the instructions of the ox, and was separated from the Weaver Maid by the Queen Mother with golden hairpin. Since then, we have met once a year on July 7th.
The problem is that many minority areas in China also love this pair of CP. However, compared with the stories of the Han nationality, the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl, which they passed down from mouth to mouth, has been localized and nationalized on the premise of keeping the characters consistent with the outline of the story. This makes the story of every minority cowgirl sound very ethnic.
In Miao nationality, what do men and women use to express their love? Sing love songs! Therefore, the legend of Niu Nv of Miao nationality has such a plot:
After the Cowherd took away the clothes of the Weaver Girl, he sang a beautiful flying song-
Clear sky Wan Li needs picturesque clouds,
The crops in the field need the nourishment of rain to thrive.
Love is a necessary condition for poetic life.
Girl, who did you give the most precious gift to?
Seeing that the Weaver Girl was fascinated, the Cowherd continued to sing hard and tried to tease: "As long as brother and sister are affectionate, it doesn't matter what the distance between heaven and earth is thousands of miles!" Thus successfully captured (cheated) the heart of the weaver girl who had never been involved in the world.
Testing the son-in-law is a common plot in the legends of cattle and women of all ethnic groups. After the Weaver Girl returned to the Heavenly Palace and the Cowherd chased her father-in-law to see the emperor, the emperor tried or persecuted his dissatisfied son-in-law for various reasons, and the Cowherd could reunite with the Weaver Girl through the test or persecution.
These thoughts of trial or persecution are usually abnormal. For example, in the Zhuang nationality, the old father-in-law had a problem (that is, the cowherd), including asking him to go to Nanshan to borrow a gong from the summer hillside, which specializes in eating people, and to catch a live tiger in Xishan. In the Miao nationality, the old father-in-law Tian Gong came up with many poisonous schemes to persecute the cowherd, including taking him to cut Chinese fir and trying to kill him; Take him to burn the fence on the mountain and try to burn him; Give him poisoned wine, try to poison him, and so on.
Of course, adding these plots is not only to add stories, but also to reflect the characteristics of slash-and-burn production in these ethnic minority areas. It is undoubtedly a necessary character for a married man to test his father-in-law's labor skills and fighting will under harsh production conditions.
The endings of the legends of cowherd girls of some ethnic minorities are quite different from those of the legends of cowherd girls of Han nationality. For example, Miao and Buyi, their cows and daughters finally passed the test of life and death and got a permanent happy reunion. This seems to be the consciousness of a soap opera writer. Happy endings always have higher ratings than tragic endings.
3 "Cowherd" retakes "Weaver Girl" through duel.
Cowherd and Weaver Girl are not only popular in China, but also first-line online celebrities abroad.
The Korean Peninsula, Japan and Vietnam have been influenced by Chinese civilization since ancient times, and many customs have penetrated into the bone marrow and still remain today. Tanabata and Niunv legends still have strong vitality in these places.
The legend of female cattle spread to the Korean peninsula before Wei and Jin Dynasties at the latest. The legends of cowgirls circulated in North Korea are basically the mode of fairy falling in love. To be sure, they copied the version written by China's literati in the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, and only changed the identity of cowgirl into a prince and princess in the sky. The only connection between the Korean version and the world is that on Qixi, the prince and princess met and cried, and the tears turned into rain.
Compared with North Korea's lack of imagination, South Korea's "screenwriter" has always been very powerful. The Korean version of Cowgirl Legend has changed a lot. Their version is called The Fairy and the Woodcutter. The first half of the story is roughly the same as the Chinese version of the legend of Niu Nv in China, except that the cow is replaced by a deer.
In the second half, they said that the woodcutter had reunited with the fairy in the Heavenly Palace, but he wanted to go home when he thought of his lonely mother on the ground. The fairy gave the woodcutter a pony to return to earth to reunite with his mother, but warned him never to set foot on the ground, otherwise he would never return to the sky. When the woodcutter saw his mother, he forgot the taboo as soon as he was happy, stepped on the ground and never returned to heaven. The woodcutter longed for his wife and children, hoping to cry until his tears ran dry. After he died, he became a rooster. Roosters always fly to the roof to crow, and it is said that they are looking up at the heavenly palace in the distance.
Seeing this, the favorite gentleman can only say: Korean dramas can be popular and have traditions. Koreans really know how to make up!
The weirdest thing about the Japanese cowgirl is "cutting melons". In the plot where Mick Lang was tested by his father-in-law, his father-in-law took out a wax gourd. Mick lang didn't cut horizontally in the way of the goddess, but cut vertically in the order of his father-in-law. As a result, the water of wax gourd turned into Tianhe, which separated him from the goddess. The man became a dog star and the woman became a weaver girl. This story tells us that winter melon can't be cut vertically in the sky. )
The Japanese version of the legend of Niu Nv, like the ethnic minorities in southern China, has the plot that the father-in-law tests the son-in-law. It is suspected that it was first spread to Japan from southern China by sea.
In Japan, the morning glory is called the dog star, and in the legend of the cow girl, the cow has also been replaced by the dog. Dogs are indispensable animals in hunting society, and their functions are equivalent to cattle in farming society. It can be seen that the legend of Niu Nv spread to Japan very early. It is estimated that Japan had just entered the farming society from the hunting society, and there were still many traces of the hunting society.
Similarly, the Vietnamese version of the legend of Niu Nv has no image of a cow, which is estimated to have spread to Vietnam long ago.
Incredibly, there are also legends of cowherd and weaver girl in the Philippines and Indonesia. The legendary stories of Niu Nv in these two countries are similar to those of Han nationality in China, but the local or western characteristics are more obvious, and the Qixi factor is also seriously weakened.
For example, in the Philippine version of The Legend of the Cowgirl, the fairy returned to heaven and left a ring for her and the child of Prince Zhu Lamri ("Cowherd"); Juram chased the sky, won his rival in love through a duel, and finally held a grand wedding with the fairy again.
Look, strong western color, very fashionable. The custom of giving rings originated from the keepsake given by Austrian Grand Duke Maximilian to French bride Princesse Marie in the15th century. Dueling is also a popular way for individuals in western society to reach an agreement after15th century. It is not difficult to understand that the Philippines was colonized by Spain for nearly 400 years from 1565.
Cowherd and Weaver Girl went abroad and finally merged with western cultural customs, which is similar to how we forcibly interpret China Valentine's Day as Valentine's Day according to the western model today. Walking around, the evil couple left with hoes and looms in their hands and came back with roses and rings. I just want to ask you, are you surprised?
refer to
1. Yu Changmin: "A Comparison between the Legend of Japanese Cowherd and Weaver Girl and the Prototype of China", published in Japan Research Forum No.2, 1999.
2. Metallography: A Comparative Study on the Genealogy of Swan Virgin Legends among China, Japan and Korea, published in Social Science No.6, 1994.
3. Tang Lin: The Variation of the Legend of the Cowherd and the Weaving Girl of the Miao Nationality in Qingshuijiang, Journal of Nanning Normal University, No.4, 1984.
4. Ethan: Classic of 20th Century China Folklore (Legendary Story Volume), Social Science Literature Publishing House, 200 1 edition.
5. Long Yong: The Inheritance and Evolution of Cowherd and Weaver Girl in Ethnic Minority Areas and Other Asian Countries, Master's Degree Thesis of China Ancient Literature, Northwest Normal University, 2008.
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