Lingnan culture·Lingnan folk culture·formation process and main characteristics

Lingnan culture·Lingnan folk culture·formation process and main characteristics

(1) Origin relationship with Han folk customs

Folk customs are produced together with human social life , formed and developed. Our country is an ancient country with extremely rich and colorful folk customs. Each ethnic group and each region has its own unique folk culture, which has always been an indispensable part of people's social life from ancient times to the present. Folklore reflects the differences in the cultural characteristics of our various ethnic groups, the people's spiritual outlook, psychological state, ethics and moral concepts, living habits and methods, production customs, etc., reflecting the spontaneity, originality, regionality and nationality of the generation of folklore. On the other hand, the overall folk character and spiritual outlook of the Chinese national family embody the main spirit and strong affinity of Han national culture.

In the history of the development of folk culture in our country, only the Chinese Han people were able to fully pay attention to the important relationship between folk customs and national politics and social life during the original period of folk customs, and therefore attached great importance to the understanding and promotion of folk customs. , in order to achieve the purpose of correcting customs, immigration sentiment, and stabilizing the order of social life. "The Rites of Zhou" says: "Etiquette refers to shoes. The people of the country practice the shoes and set their rules. The big ones are for weddings and funerals, and the small ones are for sight, hearing, speech and movement. They all have their own rules and regulations." The person who transforms is called the wind, and the person who is accustomed to it is called the custom. "Therefore, we must pay attention to "ask about the taboos when entering the country, ask about the customs when entering the country, and ask about the taboos when entering the country" ("Book of Rites·Quli"). "Hanshu Shihuo Zhi" records that the rulers of the Zhou Dynasty attached great importance to customs and folk conditions, and therefore established a system of collecting folk customs: at the beginning of every spring, full-time troubadours would go to the folk to collect poems (ballads reflecting folk customs and customs). (like folk poetry creation), and then summarize them and hand them over to the Wang family’s professional musicians. The musicians composed the music and presented it to the emperor. He Xiu's "Gongyang Zhuan" also has similar descriptions. "General Meanings of Customs" written by Ying Shao, a famous scholar in the late Eastern Han Dynasty, further emphasized: "There are different customs in a hundred miles, different customs in a thousand miles, different governments in each household, and different people." "The most important thing in government is to distinguish the right customs." It is the early advanced cultural awareness and values ??of the Chinese people that enabled Chinese-Han folk customs to receive the attention and intervention of the ruling class in their original period, transforming the disorderly customs that were purely spontaneous among the people into something meaningful. It is an integral part of social and political culture that is sequential and has certain legal binding force, but can become a relatively independent folk culture of its own system. It is also the systematic, social, and operable nature of Chinese-Han folk culture, as well as the authority and legitimacy formed through the conscious bottom-up and then top-down transformation of the ruling class, that make Han folk custom extremely valuable. Its strong vitality and its inherited inertial power can last for more than two thousand years in most folklore events. Since the Qin Dynasty, the folk customs of the original period of Lingnan have been directly impacted, adapted, transformed and integrated by such advanced Chinese and Han folk culture, and were eventually replaced. Therefore, when it comes to the origin of Lingnan folk customs, it can only be the Chinese-Han folk culture that has the most profound and significant relationship with it.

The culture of the Nanyue people, the main residents of Lingnan during the pre-Qin period, was a primitive regional culture. An important part of it, folk culture, was also in a primitive state: a spontaneous and disorderly culture with the value orientation of adapting to survival and development. , primitive, wild, and ecological environment features are significant, which are the main forms and characteristics of Lingnan folk customs in the original state in the pre-Qin Dynasty. Superstitious customs such as hair cutting tattoos, ghost worship, chicken divination and other superstitious customs caused by the primitive religious beliefs that combine totem worship and ancestor worship; the food customs of eating seafood due to living on water; the food customs caused by the ecological environment The social life of matrilineal and patrilineal clans remains because they are still in the transition period from patrilineal clan to slave society. In terms of concepts, lifestyles, production methods, etc., we do not know that there is a father, only that there is a mother, nose drinking (sucking water through the nose), grabbing food with the hands, father and son bathing together in the river, wearing a suit (huifu) that only opens at the neck , two front teeth must be chiseled out (chisel teeth) during the coming-of-age ceremony; one may even eat the first-born son to pray for more offspring (the custom of befitting younger brothers), capture people for food, and use human flesh as sacrifices; extremely primitive agricultural production Fire plowing, water plowing, etc.

Since the Qin and Han Dynasties, the ritual and music education of the Central Plains has played an increasingly significant role in the transformation, integration and integration of the native folk customs of Lingnan. Among them, the aspect of ethics is even more prominent because of the authority and coerciveness given to criminal law by the ruling class. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty "deposed hundreds of schools of thought and respected Confucianism alone," the spirit of Confucianism permeated Han folk customs, and even brought Lingnan folk customs into the orbit of Confucian culture.

After Qin Shihuang unified the country, he went on many tours. Everywhere he went, he carved stones to commemorate them, and also included some laws about changing customs, forcing the people to abide by them. For example, in the thirty-seventh year of Qin Shihuang (210 BC), he visited Zhejiang, climbed Mount Huiji to offer sacrifices to Dayu, and carved stones and erected monuments to praise the merits of the First Emperor. Among them, it is said: If a husband abandons his son and marries, he betrays his husband and is unchaste and heartless. Distinguish between inside and outside with propriety, prohibit indulgence in lust and debauchery, and both men and women should be clean and sincere. The husband is having sex outside, and killing him is not a crime. Men must abide by the rules. If a wife abandons her husband and runs away from marriage, and the son does not recognize her as his mother, he must be reformed to be honest. Governance eliminates bad customs, the whole people are educated, and the world is bathed in new trends ("Historical Records: The Chronicles of Qin Shihuang").

Although Lingnan was the first newly established county, no one dared to disobey Qin Shihuang's severe punishments. Officials such as Ren Xiao and Zhao Tuo, who were the governors of Lingnan, would naturally actively enforce the laws.

In the early Han Dynasty, Liu Bang first established the world and issued a number of popular "imperial edicts" in order to win over the people. One of them is to promote respect for the elderly, which stipulates that all elderly people over the age of seventy can receive a crutch given by the emperor. The Kingdom of Nanyue, when Zhao Tuo was king in Lingnan, also followed the example of the Han Dynasty, and Zhao Tuo gave staffs to people over seventy years old to promote respect for the elderly. During the more than four hundred years of the Han Dynasty, many officials at all levels in Lingnan tried their best to promote Confucian education and change customs. For example, during the Guangwu period of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Wei Sa, a martial artist from Henan, served as the prefect of Guiyang (now the Yangshan and Lian County areas of Guangdong). He vigorously promoted official education and established marriage etiquette, which made the local area "educational" (Fan Duan'ang, "Guangdong Insights"). During the reign of Emperor He of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xu Jing, the prefect of Guiyang, felt that the local customs were fragile and the people did not understand etiquette, so he personally formulated a wedding and funeral ceremony system so that the people could act according to etiquette. Once, Xu Jing went to Leiyang County for a spring trip and encountered two brothers fighting for property. Xu Jing blamed himself on the two brothers and said: I bear the heavy responsibility of the country, but I failed to educate the people. This is my sin. He then ordered the civil servants to write a document of self-incrimination and submit a petition to plead guilty. Finally, the two brothers who were in the lawsuit were persuaded to reconcile on the spot and plead guilty to Xu Jing ("Book of the Later Han: Biography of Xunli"). During the reign of Emperor Guangwu, Ren Yan, the prefect of Jiuzhen, in view of the fact that the local Luoyue people did not have marriage rites and laws, the marriage relationship was chaotic, and people did not understand the nature of father and son, and the relationship between husband and wife, he wrote in each county, stipulating that men should be 20 to 50 years old and women 15 Up to 40 years old, all will be matched according to age. For those who are unable to pay the betrothal fee due to poverty, officials at all levels in the county will save their salaries to support them. Only later did the children born to villagers know their caste.

After the two Jin Dynasties, the first immigrants from the Central Plains to the south since the Qin and Han Dynasties, ***, brought with them the etiquette, education, customs and customs of the Han nationality, and the indigenous residents of Lingnan were deeply influenced by them. Officials at all levels stationed in Lingnan also actively promoted Confucian culture. Many officials also personally presided over the sweeping of tombs, banners, monuments, and temples for "filial sons", "martial daughters" and "virtuous women". This is a decisive change of customs. Just as Jiajing of the Ming Dynasty said in "Guangdong General Chronicles": "From Jian'an in the late Han Dynasty to Yongjia in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, many Chinese people fled to Lingbiao, and their descendants often went home. The legacy of their fashions, clothes, and customs are inspiring. Gradually, the old customs gradually changed and the customs became common in Zhongzhou." It can be seen that Lingnan folk customs, as a basic form of culture, are actually roughly in sync with the transformation of Lingnan's overall culture, and are based on Han folk culture. The profound origin of Lingnan folk culture and Han folk culture has a history of more than 800 years, starting from the Qin and Han Dynasties to the end of the split between the Southern and Northern Dynasties.

(2) The main characteristics of Lingnan folk culture

Lingnan folk culture has the main representation and connotation of Han folk customs, but it also has a distinctive and unique style, and is unique in every aspect. characteristics.

First, the beautiful and colorful Lingnan style. The land of Lingnan has evergreen vegetation all year round, fragrant flowers all year round, and charming scenery. There are Hakka villages with steep and majestic scenery and folk songs, as well as the Chaoshan Plain with crisscrossed rivers and rolling rice waves; the Pearl River Delta with fish ponds and mulberry fields and red litchis like fire; and overseas Chinese with a slightly exotic atmosphere and various customs. There are also harbors like crescent moons and busy fishing villages in the South China Sea with fishing boats coming in and out; there are not only bustling and famous southern cities, but also the Pearl of the South China Sea with swaying coconut trees and fragrant betel nut... It can be said to be colorful, full of style, and contains infinite Poetic and romantic feelings exude an alluring charm that is different from the mainland.

The second is the sentiment and temperament of ancient Nanyue folk customs. Although the Nanyue people have long since disappeared in the process of ethnic integration, certain elements of folk culture can still be preserved to varying degrees through invisible channels such as inheritance, variation, and evolution, and even continue to this day. They are not only reflected in daily life and production. It has also penetrated into the subconscious of Lingnan people, creating the temperament and character of Lingnan people who are brave, open-minded, uninhibited, not easily restrained, pragmatic and trustworthy. This feature makes Lingnan folk customs often significantly different from Han folk customs, and is more often manifested as a "deviant" tendency towards Han folk customs dominated by Confucianism, which is more rebellious and flexible than Han folk customs.

The third is the compatibility and openness of diverse folk customs. During the formation process of Lingnan folk culture, it not only accepted Han folk customs with an open and compatible attitude, but also accepted Chu folk customs, Wuyue folk customs and Fujian folk customs with the same attitude. What should be more noted is Lingnan’s long history of exchanges with overseas countries. Since the pre-Qin Dynasty, Lingnan people have been exploring the vast sea and achieving cultural exchanges with residents of Southeast Asian island countries. After the Qin and Han Dynasties, Lingnan's overseas exchanges became more and more frequent, and the areas of exchange became more and more distant and wide, from the Indochina Peninsula, Southeast Asian islands to India, Arabia, the Mediterranean, and even East Africa. During the Han and Tang dynasties, it was obviously influenced by Indian and Arabic culture, including folk culture. After the Ming and Qing Dynasties, with the rise of the Western capitalist world and the spread of colonialism, Lingnan was the first to bear the brunt, and therefore took the lead in Western trends. Western folk customs also penetrated silently first in Macao and Hong Kong, and then in coastal areas. In addition, more and more returned overseas Chinese returned to their hometowns to settle down. Some living customs and even values ????of Western folk customs have gradually penetrated into China since the 1930s. Among Lingnan folk customs, Lingnan folk customs have a more or less exotic "foreign flavor".

The diverse compatibility and openness of Lingnan folk customs make Lingnan people more receptive to new folk customs, thereby giving Lingnan folk customs a more active and powerful vitality.

As a result, Lingnan folk customs are more variable and pioneering, often abandoning the old and embracing the new.

Lingnan folk culture has both its essence and its dross. Overall healthy. Most of the folk customs are the accumulation and sublimation of the long-term social life of the Lingnan people. Among them are epic legends and relics that record the founding and entrepreneurship of the ancestors of Lingnan; some reflect people's ideal feelings of infinite love and yearning for a better life; some leave behind struggles and resistance full of blood and tears; some fully express the people of Lingnan as dragons. The infinite loyalty and pride of the heirs. The most distinctive ones are the daily customs and customs that reflect the Lingnan style and the fashion and hobbies that express the pioneering, adventurous and innovative spirit of the Lingnan people: the world-famous food culture, "crying marriage", "child bride", "crying marriage", "child bride", etc. formed to resist the feudal marriage system. Disharmonious marriage variations such as "Don't leave home", "Self-combing", etc., various unique customs, ancient architectural legends, deifications of historical figures, and romantic legends formed to remember the historical contributions of outstanding figures in Lingnan and the Central Plains. Festival activities and commemorative methods...all these constitute the richness and variety of Lingnan folk customs, which are full of southern romantic sentiment and legendary color, and have strong beauty of life and human feelings; they constitute the most attractive overall characteristics of Lingnan folk customs. We will extract its highlights and briefly introduce them in the following sections.