Miao nationality with long horns in Suojia, Guizhou: the mysterious custom of long horns on the top of the head

In the mountains of Guizhou Province in the west of China, at the junction of Liuzhi Special Zone and zhijin county, there is an ancient and mysterious seedling-long-horned seedling, with only 4,600 people. From 65438 to 0997, the Royal Norwegian Government cooperated with the China Government to build the first ecological museum in Asia, which made this strange nation known to more people.

Witness the mysterious custom of long horns on the top of the head

After nearly two hours of bumps, our car drove directly to the entrance of Longjia Village in the central area of Liuzhi Suojia Ecological Museum.

As soon as I got off the bus, my eyes were immediately attracted by a group of long-horned Miao women and children with huge steamed buns on their heads. They wore homemade batik embroidered clothes, carried trumpets filled with rice wine and sang a toast to welcome the guests in a low voice. A few well-dressed little girls stood by the side of the road watching the excitement. Maybe the headdress was too heavy and they kept holding the bun in their hands.

1993, when a reporter from le figaro, a French magazine, came to this village for an interview after three days' trekking, he thought that the women here were short in stature, but their headdresses were huge, which made them look like "Your Highnesses". Nowadays, this hairstyle with the style of "Your Highness" has been carried forward here. Mr. Xu Meiling, curator of the Soga Ecological Museum, said that the history of the Soga people is written in their hair. When women comb their hair every day, they will weave the fallen hair with twine and pass it on from generation to generation as a dowry for their daughters.

The most precious bun in Suojia Ecological Museum has accumulated five generations of hair and weighs 6 kilograms. Women first put their hair on the back of their head with an angular wooden board about 2 feet long, and then put the wig in a huge "∞" shape on the corner of the wood. The headdress is about 15 cm high, with both ends hanging under the ears and shoulders. In order to make the hairstyle look bigger, in recent years, women with long horns have put wool in their hair bun.

Xu Meiling said that in the past, Miao men with long horns made wooden horns on the back of their heads, and then wrapped them in marijuana and hair. Now men no longer wear horns, but generally wear blue headscarves.

Why do long-horned seedlings use "long horns" as headdresses? There are different opinions about the origin of this sign. One theory is that after the death of the Miao King War, the Miao people held a grand farewell ceremony, and they inserted bow and crossbow backwards.

After thinking, I vowed to avenge Wang Miao. Later, Miao people used wooden horns instead of weapons as decorations and passed them down from generation to generation.

Nowadays, Suojia has become one of the important destinations to attract domestic and foreign tourists because of its peculiar long horn custom.

The unique marriage customs have been preserved to this day.

Long-horned seedlings live a life of male farming and female weaving, with little contact with the outside world, and their living environment, economy and culture still maintain a relatively complete and simple style. Customs and habits are rich in content and connotation, among which weddings, funerals and jumping out of the field are the most unique.

So far, they have basically maintained the custom of getting married within their own nation rather than within their own families. Marriage and consanguinity firmly linked 12 village and never broke off.

The annual Spring Festival, the fourth to fourteenth day of the first lunar month, is a good opportunity for young people of the Miao nationality in Changjiao to fall in love, and it is also the most grand festival of the year. During this time, young men have to walk from village to village and sing with young women. They take bamboo flutes, harpsichords, bamboo flutes, or pick a few leaves of wood and come to the door of their favorite girl's house to sing a song.

If the man wins, the woman can open the door and let him in. The young man kowtowed to the old man first, and the old man said a few words of hope and blessing to the young man, and then gave a banquet to drink. After singing for two or three days, if the two sides have feelings, the young man will stay at the woman's house for a few days.

A long-horned Miao girl who has seen the world

Dressed in ancient costume, Xiong Huayan is about 1.6 meters tall, with thick eyebrows and big eyes. She stands out among a group of Miao women with short horns. Facing the reporter's camera, she is natural and graceful, and she looks like she has seen the world. As soon as we talked, we knew that she had worked in Guiyang, the provincial capital, and had also been abroad. This is unique among the long-horned Miao girls.

Xiong Huayan still clearly remembers that two years ago, she traveled to Norway on behalf of the long-horned seedlings, staying in Norway for 8 days and staying in Beijing for more than 20 days. This is her first time to travel far away.

Xiong Huayan, like all Miao girls with long horns, studied embroidery and batik since childhood, and is a famous skillful hand among girls. She said that she felt very cordial when she found that the embroidery patterns in Norwegian ethnic villages were almost identical to those of long-horned seedlings. "The ethnic villages in Norway are beautiful, clean and tidy, and people live well. If only our stockade were like that! " Xiong Huayan said. Xiong Huayan, 22, is almost five years old. After getting married, she went to work in Guiyang and sold products in a company. Two months later, Xiong Huayan returned to Suojia Miao Village and put on beautiful long-horned Miao costumes. "When the tourists pointed the camera at me, I was proud of being a long-horned seedling!" She said.

Now, Xu Meiling, director of Suojia Ecological Museum, has trained Xiong Huayan and Yang Guangliang, the only secondary school graduate in Longjia Village, as the first batch of administrators of the Ecological Museum, and intends to let them take on the management, explanation and collection of national cultural relics he is now responsible for.

"The real owner of the Ecological Museum is the owner of the Long-horned Miao culture-the local Miao villagers." Xu Meiling said.

Magical ecological museum

197 1 year, the world's first ecological museum was born in an industrial town on the outskirts of Paris, France. Up to now, there are more than 300 ecological museums around the world. There are four in Asia, all concentrated in Guizhou. Ecological Museum regards the whole village and its residents' customs as a "site" completely, and takes certain protective measures to preserve and display it.

Norwegian museum scientist John? Jay Strong believes that the viewpoint of the Ecological Museum is of great significance to the protection and continuation of ethnic minorities surrounded by majority or dominant cultures and their cultural essence. The ecological museum provides the society with the whole environment, economy and culture of a living community, and is a living specimen of a living society. At the same time, he also believes that from the moment of its birth, the ecological museum should consider economic issues, and only by linking it with the lives of ordinary people can it get the support of the government.

"In short, the Eco-Museum is not a story of sunshine, but a life, and life is life after all." John? Jay Strong said.

Suojia Ecological Museum was built in 1997 and opened to the public in 1998. Up to now, Changjiaomiao Community has received people from more than 20 countries and regions such as Norway, France, Japan and the United States for investigation, sightseeing and tourism, and has received more than 80,000 Chinese and foreign tourists. While people appreciate the ancient and unique customs and culture of the Longjiao Miao people, they are also deeply impressed by the poverty and backwardness here. With the increasing contact with the outside world, the Changjiao Miao people have a strong sense of change about their living conditions. Now, many long-horned Miao girls who go to school have changed into Hanfu. "No, people will laugh." Many of them know this very well.