Living in a cave, sleeping on a kang, riding a donkey, eating miscellaneous grains, wearing a white headscarf, wearing a crotch, wearing a red belt, having a loud voice, walking on a mountain road, having strong feet, being a lady-in-law, being a strong embroiderer, being a teenager, having sex, making waves, living in a prosperous family, pulling parents on a sunny slope, talking about the land, showing respect to cattle and sheep, praising young people and boasting.
1. Clothing, food and shelter
"In order to make history, people must be able to live. But in order to live, you need clothes, food, shelter and other things first. " Before the 196s, the basic costumes of the villagers in northern Shaanxi were white sheep's belly towel, plain old sheep's fur coat and crotch pants, white coat, red belly wrapped, and shoes with thousands of cloth soles. Some of them wore felt hats, legs wrapped and felt boots, which reflected the needs of people engaged in different livelihood activities such as farming and nomadism under the cold climate conditions in northern Shaanxi, as well as various nomadic peoples and farmers in history.
The Huns' Biography in Han Dynasty contains the Huns' costumes: "From the king down, they eat animal meat, dress their leather, and be cowed by the direction". The Tangut Biography of the Old Tang Dynasty contains the Tangut costume: "Men and women wear brown clothes together, but still wear big blankets". Pants with big crotch, legs wrapped and a towel with a sheep belly tied on the head are obviously evolved from nomadic costumes.
The cooking habits of people in northern Shaanxi are mainly cooking, among which hand-grabbed mutton, air-dried mutton, haggis, pickled sauerkraut, braised dishes, boiled beans, boiled potatoes, fried oil cakes, steamed buns in oil, pancakes, buckwheat noodles, etc., which are famous local traditional snacks in history, are mostly related to the eating habits of nomadic people living in northern Shaanxi. Such as fried rice, fried noodles, milk tea and cheese, are the same as Mongolian customs.
people in northern Shaanxi also like loose onions, garlic and leeks for seasoning, which is related to the introduction of eating habits of Qidan, Nuzhen and Manchu. Compared with the eating habits in the Central Plains, the traditional meat of people in northern Shaanxi is mainly mutton and chicken, and the meat of big livestock such as horses, mules and donkeys is rarely eaten. Fish food is also difficult to find in traditional recipes, and it has only been popularized among urban residents in modern times.
In the old days, people in northern Shaanxi lived in caves and had a strong primitive legacy. Cave dwellings are thought to be the most representative buildings in northern Shaanxi since ancient times. There are semi-crypt earth caves in northern Shaanxi, cliff-faced earth caves with buckles in Qin and Han Dynasties and blue brick caves that began in the late Ming Dynasty. Those who are slightly rich build kiln surfaces with stones or bricks (commonly known as interface stone kiln).
for those who are richer, the whole building is made of bricks and stones. The doors are carved with fine stones, or they are built with water-milled bricks. In front of the kiln, corridors and buildings are added, which is quite practical and spectacular. The doors and windows on the kiln are processed or various patterns are designed to increase the aesthetic feeling. There are even a few extremely rich families who combine empty buildings with courtyard buildings, squatting in front of the door with stone lions, repairing the gatehouse at the gate, and having zhaobi and wing rooms in the door. The courtyard is divided into two-entrance, three-entrance, three-courtyard and five-courtyard, which is loose with the main kiln and the lower house into a harmonious and orderly overall structure, making the cave room extremely practical and gorgeous.
The cave dwelling is the most characteristic residential culture phenomenon in northern Shaanxi. Its architecture is based on local materials, and it is warm in winter and cool in summer, which fully shows the harmony and unity with nature and surrounding environment, and embodies the peaceful, quiet and realistic aesthetic mentality of the people in northern Shaanxi.
Second, fertility, marriage and funeral
In the concept of fertility, many people in northern Shaanxi prefer to have more children and prefer sons to daughters. This is determined by the low level of social productivity in a long historical period in northern Shaanxi, the vast land and sparsely populated, and the amount of family labor force has an important impact on social life. It is also the same as the feudal traditional concept that human beings attach importance to self-continuation of life and family, reproduction and prosperity.
In many areas of northern Shaanxi, there is an old habit of "sleeping flat on the head", which is beautiful because the occipital bone in the back of the brain is flat. This habit is quite different from that in the Central Plains, and it is related to the custom that Manchu ancestors have been cautious about people and jurchen.
There is also a rural custom in northern Shaanxi to "keep a lock" for children. It is believed that dolls are not full of three souls and six spirits. In order to eliminate disasters and avoid difficulties, they ask a mage or Taoist priest to "keep a lock" for dolls. The lock has a fixed ritual agenda. The lock is generally a silver lock, and the lock is also equipped with colorful silk thread and magical note. When the doll reaches the age of 12, it is considered that the soul is complete, and then the original mage is invited to unlock it, that is, an unlocking ceremony is held for the locked child, which is obviously related to the long-term popularity of Shamanism in northern Shaanxi.
Marriage customs occupy an important position in Shaanxi custom culture. Like the occurrence and development of everything, marriage customs have experienced a development process from scratch, from simple to complex.
during the slave society, there were such marriage phenomena as "group marriage", "inheritance marriage", "service marriage" and "transfer marriage" in northern Shaanxi, which were all reflected in relevant historical materials. In the middle of feudal society, influenced by the advanced culture of Han nationality's ethics, all ethnic groups in northern Shaanxi generally entered the monogamous marriage form (except a few rich people), and the marriage customs were similar, which was similar to those in modern times. However, some primitive and ignorant marriage concepts and some marriage customs of people who don't know what they are grazing are still preserved.
people in northern Shaanxi pay great attention to their family when choosing relatives, that is, to see if their family has a history of body odor, and think that "poverty does not take root and odor takes root". Secondly, pay attention to popularity and the prestige of the other family in society. Thirdly, we attach importance to birthdates, and there is a saying that "a man's wife's family is thirty-six, and a woman's husband's family is poor all her life". In addition, we also pay attention to the fact that Zhang Zi is not a woman, even if his aunt or aunt is a woman, it is not good. There is a saying that "my aunt is a woman, and the knives and scissors are worn out" and "my aunt is a woman, and I am not harmonious." As for kin, it is absolutely forbidden to get married, because few close relatives get married. In addition, all ethnic groups in northern Shaanxi live in a mixed place, which optimizes the ethnic groups in northern Shaanxi, so most people in northern Shaanxi are strong and handsome.
There are relatively complete procedures for marriage, no matter rich or poor. The six ancient rituals in the Central Plains (accepting gifts, asking names, accepting gifts, inviting invitations, and welcoming relatives) are simplified into three procedures: "speaking out", "betrothal" and "getting married". Wedding ceremonies are complicated and simple, and there are customs of noisy rooms and listening to rooms. After marriage, there are agendas such as "meeting relatives" (quite ancient "mothering").
In economically poor rural areas, the financial gifts required for marriage engagement are quite heavy, resulting in a de facto buying and selling marriage. The phenomenon of changing marriages has occurred from time to time, and weddings are often restricted by backward social concepts, resulting in unnecessary expenses and burdens.
The funeral customs in northern Shaanxi are also quite characteristic and universal. The traditional agenda is generally followed by the society, because people regard death not only as a biological event, but also as a social event. As far as its sanctions are concerned, the funeral customs in a region still show the humanistic connotation of the region.
Funeral can be divided into two parts: funeral and funeral. Burials in northern Shaanxi are generally buried with wooden coffins (with the exception of a few non-special deaths). In ancient times, cremation, wild burial and tree burial of nomadic people were not used in northern Shaanxi. Most of the burial methods are horizontal hole burial, that is, digging from the ground to form a pit, and then digging horizontally to form a cave tomb. Its shape and structure vary with the times and the identity of the tomb owner, including earth room, brick room, stone room, and direct burial in the pit. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, stone tombs were particularly popular among wealthy landlords and nobles. A large number of stone reliefs from tombs of the Eastern Han Dynasty have been unearthed in the Wuding River valley in northern Shaanxi. The production of stone reliefs consumes a lot of time and money. It not only reflects the social production and spiritual outlook of northern Shaanxi at that time, but also proves the popularity of the custom of thick burial at that time. In modern times, although the custom of thick burial has gradually declined, the legacy still exists, especially in economically poor areas, the bad habit of caring for thin and thick burial is quite deep.
in northern Shaanxi, families generally have family cemeteries (commonly known as ancestral graves), which are arranged vertically from top to bottom according to their blood seniority, while peers are arranged horizontally. Only after at least three generations can new cemeteries be established. The funerary objects are mostly articles for daily use and objects that the deceased liked before his death, and there is also the custom of "destroying utensils", that is, destroying the funerary objects and burying them with the deceased. All this reflects people's extremely complicated cultural mentality towards the underworld. They believe in the existence of the underworld, and people have souls, even objects have souls. It can also be interpreted as a moderate expression of mourning and nostalgia for the dead after the primitive and ignorant custom of accompanying the dead faded.
Funeral is the etiquette for the undertaker to hold a funeral and pay homage to various ceremonies. In northern Shaanxi, due to the close contacts between ethnic groups and the mutual influence of funeral forms, there are some similarities and differences in different places, but the funeral customs of Han nationality are still the main ones, mixed with some inherent customs of nomadic people.
the research on the characteristics of regional custom culture is a very important topic in the research of regional cultural characteristics. Only by making a wise understanding of the characteristics of northern Shaanxi custom culture can we understand the inner essence of northern Shaanxi culture at a deeper level and in a more subtle way.
the custom culture in northern Shaanxi is the accumulation of people's long-term life in the process of social life in northern Shaanxi, and all kinds of customs and events are all restricted by the historical conditions of the social environment at that time. In the development sequence of the times, each generation engages in activities on the basis of the social conditions created and accumulated by its predecessors, taking the end of the activities of the previous generation as the starting point of this generation's activities, and at the same time surpassing the social environment created by its predecessors and various formed habits, making innovations and endless.
every generation of residents has joined the endless historical river with their own new innovations, so that their living environment and cultural accumulation are constantly changing and updating. It is this historical process that truly records and reflects the spiritual outlook and conceptual situation of people's life in northern Shaanxi, and shows the pluralistic characteristics of regional customs in northern Shaanxi, which makes the regional culture in northern Shaanxi rich and full of personality.