Historical introduction and legend of foot-binding village in Yunnan?

Although Yunnan province has been inhabited by ethnic minorities since ancient times, there is no custom of foot binding, but by the Ming Dynasty, a large number of Han people moved in and brought the custom of foot binding to Yunnan. Tonghai county was the transportation hub of Yunnan at that time, with developed handicraft industry and prosperous commercial market. Women mostly engaged in textile or housework at home, which led to the prevalence of foot binding. There is such a jingle in southern Yunnan: "Catherine with little feet, turn to the sea, don't eat big fish, eat crabs." This is the well-developed fishery in Tonghai, which also shows the universality of little feet here. Liuyi Village in Tonghai County is also called "Foot-binding Women's Village" because it is the village with the largest number of foot-binding women in China at present.

There was a beautiful legend in Liuyi Village: Every year on the sixth day of the sixth lunar month, carp, crucian carp, white fish and flower fish meet in Qilu Lake, one kilometer away from the village, and flow into the beaches and ditches in front of and behind the village along the stream, forming a magnificent "flowing fish". This village is also named after this beautiful legend-Liu Yucun. Later, because this village has a cotton yarn and homespun market, it will go to the market every Saturday. This big village consists of six natural villages, so it was named Liuyi Village.

Liu Yicun's ancestors moved from Liushuwan, Yingtianfu, Nanjing, and there are records in local chronicles that he entered Yunnan with the army. About 600 years ago, a group of Ming soldiers, surnamed Luo, Yang, Li, Fei, Hai and Xing, followed Mu Ying from Nanjing to Tonghai, Yunnan. They were assigned to the south bank of Qilu Lake, and built six villages with the image of military camp: Shangluojiaying, Xialuojiaying, Yanglijiaying, Feijiaying, Haijiaying and Wang Jiaying. They drove away the Yi, Bai, Dai, Hani and other indigenous peoples who used to live here by force, but the defeated indigenous people would not let them rest in peace and wait for revenge, so the village built a very defensive country castle with many tall towers. From the gable of the old house, you can clearly see the gun holes used for shooting, which is enough to show that these buildings were built to defend against counterattacks. 1970, there was an earthquake here, and many houses in the village collapsed, which not only made the ancient village a little dilapidated, but also killed more than 0/00 villagers.

The permanent population of Liuyi Village is about 6,000 people, including more than 840 elderly people over 60, of whom more than 300 are women with little feet. More importantly, Liuyi Village is only three kilometers away from Tonghai County, and Tonghai is only 130 kilometers away from Kunming. Being so close to the city, Liu Yicun can still maintain this custom. What is the reason? It turns out that in the Ming Dynasty, when foot-binding was the most prosperous, with a large number of Nanjing immigrants migrating to the frontier of Yunnan, the foot-binding custom of the Han people in the mainland was also brought to Yunnan, and this custom was firmly continued here because of Liu Yicun's seclusion and slow social development.

In fact, as early as 1909 1 1 year, Shen Bing, the envoy of Yunnan Province, mentioned Hu Siyi, the magistrate of Tonghai County, in an official document forwarded by Li Jingxi, the governor of Yunnan Province, and asked him to "set up a Tianzu Club" in the county. By 1933, the "Tianzu Committee" was established in Tonghai County to publicize the harm of women's foot binding, and it was clearly stipulated that all those who have bound their feet, regardless of their age, should let go of foot binding, and little girls who have not bound their feet should not bind their feet again.

Just when the voice of the "Tianzu Movement" was the highest, women in Liuyi Village were still secretly binding their feet. Xiang Xiu Jr. tied his feet at 1944 and put his feet at 1952; The skin should be wrapped in 1946, and the feet should be released in 1954; Li Cuifen bound her feet in 1948, released her feet in 1950, bound her feet again in 195 1 year and released her feet again in 1958. When asked why these old people bound their feet, they said: We just want to find a good husband. The smaller the feet, the better the husband; My feet are not small, so I can only find a lame man to be my husband; Bigfoot's wife doesn't marry at all, but at most she will marry in the mountains to find a husband (local dialect, referring to barbaric ethnic minorities). It can be seen that the main factors leading to female foot-binding are people's denial of bigfoot, fear of bigfoot and contempt for bigfoot.

From the ancient nursery rhymes and ballads, we can also see the shadow of denying Bigfoot, fearing Bigfoot and despising Bigfoot in Liuyicun culture:

Jin Fenghua/nail-wrapping/menstruation-wrapping/I also do it/menstruation marries/I don't marry/I carry a handkerchief for menstruation/I carry the 61st Street/I see an old woman/her feet are big/her mouth is crooked/she cries better than her voice/I asked her how she cried/she said that her feet are big/I said that there was an old blacksmith next door/I made him beat women and was forced to bind his feet halfway. The women in Liu Yicun are still entangled and released, which makes the streets and alleys of Liu Yicun, the front and back of the hall, and the deep courtyard of my old house full of women with little feet.

1985 August 12, the village spontaneously established a sports association for the elderly. According to the official of the National Sports Association for the Elderly, this is the first rural sports association for the elderly in China. Since then, the old people in Liuyi Village have had their own activities, and these little women with distinctive marks of the times have emerged, winning people's attention and respect with their vigorous skills.

These little girls formed a "three-inch golden lotus sports team" and actively participated in various competitions. 1989 beat the county team and won the first place in the county. The "little-footed throwing team" formed by them is even more remarkable-these little-footed girls, with their steady steps and standardized paddling, easily threw a ball weighing nearly one kilogram to a target five or six meters away on tiptoe, won the third place in the province's ground throwing competition, and appeared in the "China Senior People's Games" and won the ninth good result at the county level. With excellent skills and tenacious struggle, these women with little feet have achieved the goal of "encircling the city from the countryside and defeating the big feet with little feet".