Children's Folk Dance: A Survey of Yao Folk Dance

Couple dances include abstinence dance, dragon dance, dragon dance and bronze drum dance.

Yao people in Yunnan are mainly distributed in Funing, Guangnan, Malipo and Maguan in Wenshan, Hekou, Jinping, Pingbian and Yuanyang in He Jiang, Mengla in Xishuangbanna, Jingdong, Jiangcheng, Mojiang and the master of Qujing in Simao.

Yao belongs to the Yao branch of Miao language family of Sino-Tibetan language family. Yao people in Yunnan speak "Huamian" and Chinese, but there is no Yao language. The so-called "Yao Shu" and "Wen Jing" popular among the people are actually words pronounced in Yao language by borrowing Chinese characters. They pronounce three sounds in one word, that is, one sound when they speak, one sound when they recite scriptures and one sound when they sing folk songs and love songs. Due to the age, most of the borrowed Chinese characters have been deformed, such as "girl" pronounced as "sand" in Yao language and "aunt" in written language; "Parents" read "Ji Fa". Even according to the characteristics of the mother tongue, re-created according to the structural method of Chinese characters.

According to the characteristics of language and dress, Yao people in Yunnan are divided into three branches, namely Indigo Yao, Yao Banyao and Guo Shanyao. Each branch has its own name. For example, a branch of Landianyao calls itself Xiumen, Jinmen and Jimen, while Xianyao, Shayao and Pingtou Yao in Hekou, Pingbian and Jinping call themselves Gengmen, Jianmen and Jingjiang. The Daban Kiln, Jiangtou Kiln and Jiaoyao of Yao Ban Branch call themselves "oil cotton"; Guo calls himself "Ya".

Yao nationality in Yunnan, according to local chronicles and their own stories, is a part of "Changsha Wulin people" recorded in Qin and Han historical books, and originally lived in Dongting Lake, Hunan Province (The Book of the Later Han Dynasty). Later, due to social reasons, it entered Yunnan in batches through Guangdong and Guangxi in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties. Some scholars believe that as early as the Tang Dynasty, Yao ancestors lived in Yunnan. Probably because the Yao nationality never moved to Yunnan once in history, but moved to Yunnan and continued to move around.

After entering Yunnan, Yao people are still on the move. For example, in Qing Daoguang's Biography of Talentang, it said: "Yao people moved from Guangdong and have no fixed place to live. Every time I go to the mountains to farm, Hou Tiantian is a little familiar, and I moved to other places to farm as before, not afraid of hard work. " After Yao people entered Yunnan, they still followed the migration route from north to south and from east to west. It was not until the founding of People's Republic of China (PRC) that the miserable life of the Yao people ended. It was that "the ancestors had no fields and no ponds, the mountains were plowed with fire, the fingers were raked, the mountains were poor and cold, the land was thin and the people were poor, the farmland was not rich, and they were extremely poor" (quoted from Xichou County, where the Yao people believed in the ancestral gods, believed in the natural gods and had a strong primitive religious concept. Influenced by Han culture, Taoism is very popular, and it is integrated with local beliefs, forming a unique folk religious system and style tradition. Sacrifice to Shennong, Fuxi, King Snake, Wang Lei, Land, Mountain God, Forest God, Sijing, Zhu Wen, Sanqing, Sanyuan, Huang Yu, Huang Dou, Laojun, Moody, Wang Long, Fengbo, Rain Lord, Girl, He Soul, Sishuai, Zhang Tianshi, Guanyin, jia county, etc. There are many traditional festivals and religious festivals, almost every month. Religious ceremonies include abstinence, fasting, Dragon Boat Festival, offering sacrifices to society, sweeping villages, offering sacrifices to gods, etc.