Manchu customs and culture

 

Manchu customs and culture

 

Burmese musician Duoji told Yadan, Dawa and Xiangqima the artistic characteristics of shamanic dance, as well as the traditional festivals and ritual culture of the Manchu people. He turned around and chatted with Agudengba, Azhuo and Chu Sanxing about Manchu customs and culture.

Duoji began to talk about the residential culture of the Manchu people.

Dorje said:

When people talk about the Mongols, or the Jurchens, or the Manchus, people generally think that they are nomadic people who live in yurts on the prairie. In fact, with the changes of the times, their living environment and living conditions have changed, but their living habits have been retained.

Traditional Manchu houses are usually built facing the sun, with mostly thatched roofs and square chimneys with Manchu characteristics on one side. There are generally two construction methods for walls: earth construction and mud pile construction. There are Kangs on three sides of the room, like a "嚚" shape.

In Manchu houses, the courtyard is surrounded by a low wall, with a screen wall and a Sauron pole in the courtyard. Some families also have flower gardens, octagonal pavilions, etc. There are also Shangma stones in front of the courtyard.

The house is divided into three main rooms: the upper room, the lower room and the main room. The door is in the middle and there are three windows on each side. Manchus usually build houses with south and west windows, which keep them warm in winter and cool in summer.

There are generally three rooms in the room: west, middle and east, and two main rooms. The west room is called the west upper room, and the middle outhouse is the kitchen, where the pot and stove are placed. The east room is called Dongxiawu, with the door facing south.

There are three kangs in the back room, and the western kang is the most expensive. According to the Manchu custom, the west is the most noble, followed by the south. Manchu people are accustomed to enshrining gods, heroes and ancestors on the west wall, and there is an ancestral shrine on the west wall. and their own family tree. Therefore, the Western Kang is also known as the "Buddha Kang". Guests are not allowed to sit casually on the Western Kang or place debris on it when visiting. If they violate this, it will be regarded as disrespectful to the host's ancestors.

The northern Kang is larger and the southern Kang is smaller. Visitors to the family live on the west kang, the elders in the family mostly live on the north kang, and the younger ones can live on the south kang.

Duoji also talked about the food culture of the Manchu people.

Manchu food is also very distinctive, and has always been said to be "full of Chinese food". Nothing can best represent the integration of Manchu and Han food cultures than the "Manchu-Han Banquet". The ingredients, preparation and eating methods of the dishes all maintain Manchu characteristics. Most of the delicacies such as hericium, bear paw, ginseng, deer antlers, etc. come from the Northeast region. It is a fine fusion of Manchu and Han cuisine. It took shape during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty and has been circulated for more than 200 years. According to the "Yangzhou Painted Fang Record" during the Qing Dynasty, there are more than 100 dishes in Yangzhou's local "Manchu and Han Banquet" Got it.

In daily life, Manchu folk also have many snacks and a wide variety of snacks. He likes to eat millet, yellow rice dry rice and yellow rice dumplings (bean buns), and eats "Aijige dumplings" (dumplings) during festivals. Every Lunar New Year's Eve, Manchus' unique flavor foods such as boiled pork, roasted pork and "Saqima" which are still in the pastries are eaten for dinner. Today, dumplings, hot pot, sauerkraut, and Beijing-style pastries in northern China are all closely related to the Manchu food culture.

The traditional diet of the Manchu people is relatively particular. Except for not eating dog meat, many of their habits are similar to those of the northern Han people. The Manchu staple food is mainly cereals, usually pasta and sticky food, which tastes sour and sweet. Pasta is the main type of pasta, which is the collective name of the Manchus for lumpy pasta. The Manchus in Beijing Banner have the habit of eating a cake every day after lunch and before dinner. There are different flavors of pastry, and Saqima is the most famous one. The Manchus also take rice as their staple food, including sorghum rice, millet, barnyard rice and steamed rice.

In terms of dishes, pork is a common ingredient. The Manchus call pork "white meat" and "blessed meat", and it is traditionally a food for worshiping shamanistic gods. After the ceremony, it is divided and eaten. The Manchus in Northeast China use this to make the famous stew of "big pot meat". There is also a way of eating in the Jingqi barracks called "white boiled pork". They boil the pork in white water and then slice it and stick it with soy sauce to eat. ". Pig blood can also be mixed with seasonings and stuffed into the intestines to make "white meat blood sausage", which can be eaten with another traditional dish, stewed sauerkraut.

Venison is also one of the traditional Manchu dishes. It can be eaten in stewed or roasted ways. Manchus in the suburbs of Beijing have the habit of eating roasted venison during the Double Ninth Festival.

The Manchu people also have hot pot, which was developed from the picnic method commonly used by the ancestors of the Manchu people.

Like other northern ethnic groups, the Manchus also like to drink. At first, it was not only for entertainment, but also because it was cold in the north and wine could play a certain role in keeping out the cold. Traditionally speaking, Manchu people generally like to drink rice wine and shochu.

Duoji talked about the wedding customs and culture of the Manchu people.

In the old days, Manchus attached great importance to family status in marriage, and early marriage and marrying older girls were popular. This is related to the fact that men in the banner are serving as soldiers and hoping to have children early. In the aristocratic and official families, marriage by marriage is popular, and the court usually appoints the marriage partner. In general, bannermen also have marriages by clan leaders.

The "draft show" of the Qing Dynasty court was to select concubines for the emperor and princes, and was generally limited to the internal selection of third-rank officials of the Eight Banners.

Men and women in the Eight Banners can be engaged when they are sixteen or seventeen years old, and men may be engaged and married at a younger age.

The marriage is arranged by the parents, and the man invites a matchmaker to come to the woman to propose marriage. He goes there three times. Carry a bottle of wine each time and you won’t know until the third time if you’ve succeeded. Therefore, there is a saying that "it depends on three bottles of wine". If it succeeds, the girl's parents will ask the boy for betrothal gifts, such as pigs, wine, cabinets, clothes, jewelry, etc. All betrothal gifts given by the man are regarded as the girl's property.

In the old days, the Manchu marriage process was quite complicated, including the marriage proposal, the small wedding ceremony, the final wedding ceremony, the wedding ceremony, the wedding date, the unlocking, the dowry delivery, the marriage ceremony, the sitting in the tent, the marriage ceremony, the wedding ceremony, the wedding ceremony, and the marriage ceremony.

When getting married, the bride has to sit on the Kang in the bridal chamber for one day, which is called "sitting on the bed". In the evening, a table is placed on the ground with two wine bottles and wine cups on it. The bride and groom hold hands and walk around the table three times before drinking. A pair of candles are lit on the kang and kept on all night long. One or several people outside the house sing a happy song called "Lakongjia", or someone sprinkles black beans on the windows of the new house. The excitement disperses after an hour or two.

Three days later the bride and groom return to their parents' homes. The traditional marriage custom of the Manchu people is mainly monogamy, and the upper class has always had the habit of polygamy (equal wives). After the Qing Dynasty entered the customs, polygamy gradually transitioned into the Han patriarchal system of monogamy and multiple concubines.

Manchus pay great attention to family status when getting married, but they do not care about wealth or poverty, and rarely marry on the fingertips. In the early days, there were still marriage customs of northern ethnic groups such as robbery marriage, wife-sister marriage, and stepmarriage. Starting from the Tiancong period, stepmarriage was gradually banned, but wife-sister marriage continued until the end of the Qing Dynasty.

In addition, like the Han people, the Manchu people also insist on not marrying those with the same surname. In the early days, women still had the custom of dying and being buried. After entering the customs, they gradually changed to observing the festival under the influence of Han culture.

The status of women is almost equal to that of men before entering the customs. After entering the customs, due to the influence of Han ethics, her status declined, but it was still much higher than that of Han women. Manchu women do not feel subordinate to men and always have a greater say in family life.

Although there was a saying during the Qing Dynasty that bannermen and Han people did not intermarry, marriages between the garrisoned Eight Banners and local Han people were still very frequent. In fact, since the Kangxi Dynasty, the Qing court has allowed bannermen to marry the daughters of the people. The main prohibition is the marriage of Manchu banner girls and civilian men; as for the marriage of Han bannermen and Han people, in the Qianlong Dynasty, After that, he always adopts a resigned attitude.

Manchu wedding customs vary slightly in different regions. The steps of Manchu marriage in Beijing Banner are usually divided into marriage negotiation, meeting, marriage ceremony, settlement, dowry, marriage, entrance, worship, separation, entering the bridal chamber, eating wine, returning home, and living in the moonlight. The steps of the Manchus in Northeast China are asking for names, making a small decision, asking for a date, accepting gifts, cutting, sending dowry, welcoming the bride, packing cigarettes, returning home, etc.

Duoji talked about the funeral customs of the Manchu people.

Manchu funerals also have an evolutionary process. Affected by factors such as the natural geographical environment, the funeral rituals of the Manchu ancestors were relatively simple and rough. There used to be sky burials, earth burials, animal burials, tree burials, water burials, cremations and other forms.

Before entering the customs, the Manchus mainly practiced cremation. Since the late Shunzhi Emperor, influenced by the Han culture, the Manchus have generally changed to coffins for burial. Combined with the characteristics of their own nation, they have formed the unique burial customs of the Manchus.

Before Qianlong's reign, the bannermen stationed in various places wanted to send the deceased and his family members back to the old banner in Beijing, so they still insisted on cremation and buried the ashes back to Beijing. After the Qianjia period, the garrison bannermen were allowed to be buried locally, and they were also buried in the ground.

In the early days, the Manchu aristocrats had the custom of sacrificing themselves, but later it was changed to slaves who cut their hair and burned paper bindings.

In rural areas, it is not allowed to die in the western and northern Kangs, because the doors are where living people can enter and exit. Therefore, after the dead are put into the coffin, they can only be carried out through the window.

After a person dies, a pole is erected on the west side of the yard, about one foot and five feet high, and a cloth flag is hung on it. The flag is nine feet long and made of red cloth and black cloth. The head and tail of the flag are black cloth, and the four middle strips are red cloth.

During the funeral, relatives and friends will grab the cloth from the flags and make clothes for their children, thinking that it can ward off evil spirits and prevent nightmares.

Dorje sang "Our Love" excitedly:

 

every nation

Everyone has their own customs

every nation

Everyone has their own character

 

our nation

Belief in the power of love

our character

Just fight for love

 

Just around

Have a pair of loving eyes

We can face life with a smile

 

give up resentment

to get sincere and passionate love

Heal all the scars in the soul

 

The world is a family of nations

We are all residents of the global village

To make the soul true, kind and beautiful

Then let love nourish your spirit