The history and culture of Changyang Tujia Autonomous County

Changyang is known as the "hometown of singing and dancing". Changyang folk songs, Changyang Nanqu and Bashan dance are known as the "three treasures of Changyang culture". Strange stones, bonsai and root art are known as the "Changyang culture". Three treasures of the industry."

Changyang Bashan Dance has won the gold medal of the "Stars Award" in the National Square Dance Competition, and the large-scale Tujia wedding custom song and dance drama "Tuliba People" has won the national "Five One Project Award".

In 2006, the Tujia people's "Sa Yeerhao" was selected into the first national intangible cultural heritage protection project, and won the Star Award in the 14th National Square Dance Competition in 2007.

Changyang Folk Songs, Nanqu, Changyang Grass Gongs and Drums, and Duzhenwan Story were selected into the first batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage protection lists.

In 2008, the "Miao Brothers and Sisters" group composed of "farmer brothers" Wang Aimin and Wang Aihua from Changyang County and Miao girls won the gold medal in the original singing method of the 13th CCTV Young Singer Grand Prix.

Changyang Folk Song

Changyang Folk Song, with its rich singing content, flexible singing form, high-pitched, enthusiastic and unrestrained singing style, is closely related to Nanqu, Bashan Dance is also known as the "three treasures" of Changyang culture.

Changyang folk songs mainly include labor songs, love songs, etc.

Labor songs are produced in labor and sung in labor.

Different labor methods and natural environments have formed different styles of labor songs.

For example, the boatmen and rowers in Qingjiang have majestic and powerful trumpet songs, and the field weeding has gong and drum songs.

When singing, two, three or four people sing in harmony with the weeders in the fields according to a certain tune. However, the content and order of the singing are flexible and there are no strict regulations. , mostly improvised.

Changyang’s folk songs include solo singing, duet singing, one person leading the crowd and other singing forms.

Five-sentence folk songs are a particularly developed style among Changyang folk songs and folk songs. They use seven characters and five sentences as the basic pattern, with five sentences forming a paragraph, and one paragraph forming an independent chapter.

There are also several five-sentence concatenations (the longest is 32 paragraphs), which are called "Five Sentences" or "Paizi Songs".

The fifth sentence of a five-sentence folk song is often the sublimation of artistic conception and the location of artistic interest. Therefore, there is a saying that "five sentences of five-sentence folk songs are simple, four sentences are easy and five sentences are difficult."

Therefore, the five sentences require that the fourth sentence should be able to end, and the fifth sentence should be the peak and the finishing touch.

Nanqu

Nanqu is also called "Silk Band".

It is an ancient local song in Hubei, with rich lyrics and beautiful music.

Before liberation, this music gradually declined. Many people only knew the name of Nanqu but never heard the sound of Nanqu.

From 1961 to 1964, the provincial, professional and county cultural authorities organized special teams to excavate and sort out Nanqu. They interviewed more than 60 old Nanqu artists and collected more than 140 traditional repertoires. (Excluding parts with the same repertoire but different lyrics), there are 32 tunes, including "Water Hyacinth", "Fire Hyacinth", "Shoulder Back Jade" and other tunes. Old artists only know their names, but the singing style has been lost.

Nanqu is mainly spread in Changyang and Wufeng. According to text analysis, it is similar to other types of music, but it has unique features. Although it is not native to Changyang, it is quite similar to the local language and folk songs of Changyang. The combination was first excavated and sorted out in Changyang, so it was named "Changyang Nanqu".

Now it has been included in the dictionary of folk arts.

Bashan Dance

Bashan Dance is also known as "Bayu Dance", and the local Tujia people also call it "Sayouerhao". Its characteristics are: beating drums to offer sacrifices, and screaming to The ups and downs, high-pitched singing and rough dancing reflect the simplicity and honesty of Tujia people; its form is: one person claps and everyone dances in pairs, with the drummer taking the lead in singing, and the dancers singing and dancing at the same time.

As far back as the Yin and Shang Dynasties, the Ba people supported the military and fought against each other, causing the Yin people to switch sides one after another.

Liu Bang, the emperor of the Han Dynasty, watched his dance several times and was impressed by its fierceness. He ordered the musicians to practice it and introduced it to the court, which was called "Bayu Dance".

In modern times, Bachu culture was excavated, refined and sublimated, and named "Bashan Dance" and "Mourning Dance", which became famous all over the world.

At the National Ethnic Minority Sports Festival held in Urumqi, Xinjiang in 1986, "Sayouerhao" was known as the "Oriental Disco".

Tujia Four Courses of Tea

The Four Courses of Tea have unique metaphorical meanings.

A tea dish - "cans of tea", is used to entertain daily visitors.

The second type of tea - egg tea, is used to entertain "Quack guests".

That is to say, after adding a child to the family, egg tea is only served during the "toast of rice wine".

The three-course tea, Yinmi tea, is consumed before the wedding banquet.

Si Dao Tea - crisp tea soup, used to keep warm in winter.

Xilankapu

Xilankapu can be traced back to the ancient Ba people period.

As the ancestors of the Tujia people, the ancient Ba people were not only engaged in agricultural production, they were also good at weaving, and their "silkworms and hemp" became tributes.

Therefore, "Yu gathered the princes in Kuaiji, holding jade and silk from all countries, and Bashu went to Yan." ("Huayang Guozhi·Bazhi") During the Qin and Han Dynasties, the textile industry in the Tujia area developed, and the people who worked there The "cloth" became a famous product for paying tribute.

During the Three Kingdoms period, under the decision of Zhuge Liang of the Shu Kingdom that "the people are poor and the country is weak, and the enemy has no resources but to rely on Jin Er", the people in the Tujia area gradually mastered the advanced dyeing technology of the Han people and woven Colorful "earth brocade".

During the Tang and Song Dynasties, with the increase in economic exchanges between the Tujia area and the Han people, the textile industry in the Tujia area developed further, and a social custom emerged that "women are diligent in weaving, and there are many households with machines making noise". .

After the Tujia people returned to their hometowns, the weaving skills of Xilankapu of the Tujia nationality were further improved. Especially the Tujia girls never had the inconvenience to follow their mothers to learn the weaving skills. When the girls grew up and got married, they still It is necessary to have Xilankapu work woven by oneself as a dowry, so this craft can be carried forward.

Filling in a house

"Filling in a house" is a popular remarriage custom in China. However, in western Hubei, there are several special relationship customs of filling in a house: one is "uncle" "Sister-in-law" means that after the death of a biological brother, his single brother (sister-in-law calls his brother "brother-in-law") can marry his biological sister-in-law.

In the Houhe area of ??Changyang, there are different customs, which regard the marriage custom of "uncle to sister-in-law" as improper; the second is "bo to brother", where uncle refers to the uncle, and brother refers to the sister-in-law, that is, the younger brother. After death, the single brother can marry his sister-in-law; the third is "sister's death and sister's succession", that is, if the married sister dies, her sister can marry her brother-in-law.

There is no big deal in the three days of wedding

On both sides of the Qingjiang River, father-in-law and daughter-in-law, brother-in-law and sister-in-law are usually wary of each other. They eat at different tables, walk on different roads and sit on different stools. , Don’t answer the question, otherwise it will make people laugh.

However, within three days of the wedding, there is no such taboo. Father-in-law and uncle can participate in the wedding party, beg for cigarettes, sweets, and wallet from the new girl, tell each other jokes, and bicker with each other, without restraint.

This is the so-called "three days no big or small" rule.

The new daughter-in-law must not do housework or go out to the kitchen for three days. She is like a guest. After "three days in the kitchen", she cannot act casually and act according to the tutor she received in her mother's house.

This custom still exists in western Hubei.

The Xianglu Stone Site of the Cuban Kingdom

The Xianglu Stone Site is located on the north bank of the Qingjiang River, 0.5 kilometers southeast of Yuxiakou Town, Changyang Tujia Autonomous County, Western Hubei, 97 kilometers east of Changyang County, and located on the Qingjiang River midstream.

The terrain of the site is high in the northeast and low in the southwest, with a slope shape. It faces the Qingjiang River in the southwest and is about 30 meters away from the Qingjiang River.

The geographical environment is very unique and it is a typical riverside mountain village cultural site.

The site was discovered in 1983 and covers an area of ??more than 30,000 square meters, but the area where more relics are exposed is only more than 700 square meters.

Archaeological excavations were conducted three times in 1988, 1989 and 1995. More than 400 square meters were excavated in the central area of ??the site, and stone tools, pottery, bone tools and bronze wares from the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties were obtained. There are nearly 10,000 cultural relics and a group of Ba people’s tombs from the early Shang period.

A large number of oracle bones from the Shang and Zhou dynasties and two pottery seals (seals) from the late Shang and early Zhou dynasties were also discovered.

Related series

"Batu Culture Series" (Second Series) and "Tujia Literature Original Series" have 20 volumes and more than 4.5 million words. These vivid words, It tells the story of the hardships and twists and turns experienced by the ancient "Changyang people" to the Ba people and then to the modern Tujia people, and reveals a number of "eternal mysteries".

"Batu Culture Series" covers ancient and modern times, involving the history, cultural relics and development of Tujia people in Changyang. It is a comprehensive interpretation of the history and humanistic spirit of Tujia people.

The complete set of "Series of Books" contains about 3 million words, consisting of "Lin Jun", "Study on the Origin and Origin of Changyang Tusi", "Research on Ba Region", "Study on the Origin and Origin of Ba People", "Village Space and Folk Narrative Logic", It consists of 10 volumes including "Modern Military History of Changyang", "Biographies of Celebrities in Changyang", and "Tujia Sa Yeerhao".

Among them, "Changyang Literature and Art Collection (Initial Edition)" and "Changyang Literature and Art Collection (Sequel)" are a comprehensive collection of cultural and artistic materials in the history of Changyang since the Ming and Qing Dynasties.

"Tujia Literature Original Series" is a "literary history biography" that records the living conditions of the Ba people's descendants from multiple angles and deeply expresses the Tujia people's spirit of the times.

From "Old Bazi", "The First King of the Ba People", "The Story of Huang Xueru", "Tianheping Files", "Wang Yangzhuang", "Dearest Love", "Follow the Sun", It consists of 10 volumes including "The Silent Scream", "A Promise as Scheduled", and "The Child and the Kite", with about 1.5 million words.

Among them, the Tujia long-form narrative epic "Old Bazi" created by Xiao Guosong, the "King of Tujia Fables", has 23 chapters, 14,000 lines, and about 700,000 words. The content covers the origins of the Tujia people and historical heroes. , major festival folk customs and origin legends, etc.