Riding the wind of rebirth

A green shed had been built in the courtyard last night, and two pine trees similar to Christmas trees were planted in the middle of the courtyard. Pine needles were also spread on the ground, and symbols of the god of joy were placed above the main room and the green shed.

As the sound of firecrackers rang out, everyone surrounded the bride and walked into the courtyard. Two ceremonies were held before entering the door, one was called "combing her hair" and the other was called "giving her a wedding name".

Because of the Yi legend of the "tiger wife", the Yi people are very afraid of marrying a daughter-in-law who is a tigress. Therefore, there are customs such as the bride fasting and giving a wedding name before the wedding.

Shama Ricong was originally a beauty pageant contestant. Today, she wore the Yi bride's costume and the red nanhong jewelry and pendant given by Zhou Zhi. She looked exceptionally beautiful.

Wu Renzhong was wearing a new suit, which was a combination of tradition and modernity, both Chinese and Western.

After the two customs were completed, everyone gathered around the bride and groom and stood in front of the God of Happiness. The old Chiri began to recite the "Marriage Sutra", and then worshiped the heaven and earth, ancestors and elders. After the worship, Shama Ricong and the bridesmaid were led by Jilie Abi into the bridal chamber. After that, they would not show up easily; the bridesmaid would also stay with them tonight.

The bride was sent to the bridal chamber. The pork meat that had been cooked on the fire pit had been prepared long ago. It was then cut into pieces and served in a wooden helmet.

The guest took a piece of meat with one hand and put the red envelope containing the gift money into the wooden helmet with the other hand. By the time the helmet of meat was used up, the wooden helmet was already full of red envelopes.

There were so many guests coming that Duanmu Kui's relatives and friends had to go back and forth several times before they could collect all the red envelopes.

After that was the grand wedding banquet, which was held in a green tent. Like many ethnic minorities, they attached great importance to the uncle's family, so the uncle was the most important guest at the banquet.

Then the elders and relatives of both sides will split into two groups and sing "drinking songs" to each other. The content of the drinking songs is quite lively, and they are all praising each other, but also very playful, because the purpose of one party praising the other is to ask for a betrothal gift, jewelry, etc., while the other party praising is to let the other party be more generous and ask for less.

Of course, there is no singing in Wu Renzhong's family, but it doesn't matter. They can hire a singing group. However, the singing group he invited is too professional. They were found from the state song and dance troupe. Although they sang well, their ability to respond is a little worse. It is less interesting than the performance that Zhou Zhi heard in the village.

Young people have more ways to play. After dinner, they light a fire in the courtyard. Everyone sits around the fire playing string instruments, singing tunes, and doing the left-foot dance, and the fun continues until the evening.

When it is time for dinner, the bride will come out, but she cannot eat "two meals". At this time, she still eats the food brought from her parents' home. Poor girl, she has been hungry for a whole day.

Dinner is the most sumptuous meal, and it is no exaggeration to describe it as a grand banquet. Afterwards, the bride and groom can also join in the dance. Everyone sits in a circle, singing and dancing to their heart's content, and often dances until dawn.

After daybreak, the bride carries two buckets of water to the kitchen and lights a fire in the stove, indicating that she has started to make fire and cook at the groom's house and will live in the groom's house from now on.

However, there was no place to fetch water in this small courtyard, so the bride went to the faucet in the garden to get a bucket of water and brought it to the kitchen to cook a big pot of dumplings for everyone, thus completing the ceremony.

By now, only the closest relatives and friends are left in the family, and the marriage is officially settled, so the bride needs to return home.

Before returning home, the groom's family needs to prepare various gifts for the wedding team. The "bridegroom" in the wedding team has to sing the "bride-giving song", which roughly means that the parents-in-law should not treat the bride as an outsider and can order them around with confidence. The red envelope received yesterday should be handed over to the groom, who should give it to the bride. After that, the sister-in-law takes the wine offered by the groom, and offers one glass to the sky and one to the earth. She then puts the wine glass in her arms and leads the wedding team out and returns to the bride's home.

The original group must return in the same group and can only separate after dinner.

The bride can also return home at this time. If she does not return at this time, she will have to wait a month. Shama Ricong of course chose to return today so that she could complete the ceremony early and go to the beach for her honeymoon.

Only after the bride is escorted out of the house by the wedding procession can the "bedside fire" in the bridal chamber be extinguished, and the procedures on the husband's side are considered completed.

But as the royal photographer, Zhou Zhi couldn't sit idle. He couldn't favor one over the other, so he also went to the bride's house for a while.

Although Shama Ricong's family is a minority family, both of his parents are intellectuals. The process of returning to her parents' home is more like Han customs. They book a banquet in a big hotel to entertain guests and friends, but it is not as lively as that at her husband's home.

However, by that night, Zhou Zhi was so tired that he could hardly hold on any longer. Photographing a wedding is actually a job that requires a lot of skills and physical strength. He fell asleep on the bed as soon as he got back to the hotel.

The next day, Zhou Zhi and his friends took Lao Chi Ri to visit Xichang City.

The city of Xichang is not prosperous nowadays, but the pedestrian street is crowded and bustling, because everyone has nowhere to go and all gather on the pedestrian street.

Old Chi Ri walked a few steps and shook his head: "Why don't we go back? There are too many people here. It's better to see the scene once we've seen it all."

Zhou Zhi was a little hesitant as he looked at the pedestrian street that was too crowded to even enter: "How about we go somewhere else, and go to Lushan?"

"There's no point in shopping anymore, let's go back."

"It's not a mountain climb," Zhou Zhi said with a smile, "There's also a museum there with a lot of things you're familiar with to see."

The museum on the hillside of Lushan Mountain is called the Yi Slave Society Museum. It is not only the first ethnic museum in China, but also the only ethnological museum in the country that reflects the form of slave society. It is an important window for tourists to understand the history and culture of the Yi people.

There are eight exhibition halls in total in the museum, including the "Introduction Hall", "Hall of the Evolution of the Social History of the Yi Slavery Society", "Hall of the Yi Astronomy and Calendar", "Hall of the Yi Production Technology", "Hall of the Bimo Culture", etc.

There aren't too many exhibits here, not even as many as Zhou Zhi's own collection, which totals less than 5,000 pieces, and only about ten of them meet the first-level standard.

It usually takes no more than half an hour to visit here, and what they are interested in are usually the cold weapons of the Yi people, armor made of leather and bamboo, shields, fairly exquisite knives, tiger forks, and a crossbow with long arrows like small javelins. It is a real object with real war functions and is full of ferocity.

Or you can go and see the Yi ethnic costumes and gold and silver accessories.

But Zhou Zhi and Lao Chi Ri could not move at the door, because there were two treasures here, one was a bamboo slip and the other was an ox stock slip.

The bamboo slips are not old, they are from the Ming Dynasty. Rather than being bamboo slips, it is more like a small bamboo mat, because the bamboo slip used to record text is nearly one meter long, and each word on it is six or seven centimeters long.

The ox bone slips are amazing. They are the only ones that can be found so far. They are made of seven or eight of the longest ox ribs. The calligraphy on them is vigorous and simple, with a bit of the flavor of ancient Chinese characters, Zhongshan seal script, and some connected strokes and characters, with some hints of cursive script. Although Zhou Zhi couldn't understand the meaning of the text, he was attracted by its unique calligraphy charm. The old man and the child buried their heads in the glass window and refused to move. (End of this chapter)