Chapter 1646 The Name of the Yi People
Soon, the guards entered a familiar small road. There were meadows on both sides of the road. What grew on the meadow was not all green grass, but a more Thick lichen.
Only in some shady low-lying areas are traces of piles of grass.
This area used to be a vast virgin forest, and it also experienced severe soil erosion, and the vegetation has not been able to recover until now.
Due to the felling of a large number of forests, the humus soil that was once rich in organic matter was washed into the streams by rainwater, and then washed into the Meigu River by the streams. Today, the surroundings along the way are all the former underlying weathered soil. Barren and fragile.
On the hills along the way, you can see the country's great efforts to transform this land again. There are some low pine trees growing on these hills.
That is the result of aerial seeding afforestation year after year.
Aerial seeding has also made great achievements in afforestation, but it is not effective in all areas of the entire autonomous prefecture. In some places, dense forests have been re-formed over the years, and vegetation and soil have been partially restored depending on the re-formation of forests.
But in some places, such as where Zhou Zhi is passing now, due to the heavy wind and heavy rain, the soil layer is shallow. In addition to some woods growing in the valleys, most of the mesas, ridges, and mountaintops have only some very short trees. pine trees.
These pine trees are so small that they have been growing for many years and are still no bigger than a small bonsai in a flower pot.
In Zhou Zhi's previous life, she saw such a "natural bonsai park" for the first time. She couldn't help but be surprised. She thought that her efforts were not in vain. She just dug up a tree and put it in a flower pot. They were all trees that were more than ten years old. It's an old pile, and the tree shape is quite graceful. It can be played well until it sends itself away in the future.
After receiving education, I realized that every small tree here is precious. They carry the hope of improving this land, not to decorate the balconies of residents in big cities.
Thinking of this, Zhou Zhi couldn't help but smile.
Although the land is barren and the roads are crude, the sky is so blue and the air is so fresh. After turning onto the path, it seems like he is the only one left in the world, running all the way on the light green tundra. OK.
The vehicle drove for another six hours, and Zhou Zhi finally saw the rising smoke under the setting sun.
It was a small village. If it were placed in Jiachuan, it would not qualify as a village, but Zhou Zhi knew that this place was called Xiang, Lianhe Township.
This is the place where Zhou Zhi provided support back then, but now that he has arrived four years in advance, Lianhe Township is smaller and poorer than what he saw in his last life.
The Xinxiang Primary School that the secretary of the township proudly introduced to him in his previous life has no trace at all now. The largest building here is the large earth-walled building that serves as the grain depot and the township government.
The exterior walls of the building were once smeared with lime putty, but now this layer of lime shell has completely disappeared on the east and west walls. There are still some traces on the north and south walls, and there are still paintings on them. There are portraits of red flags and workers, peasants and soldiers holding the Red Book, and underneath there is a line of peeling art characters - Long Live the Great Communist Party.
In short, this is the place to shoot a period film or something. You don’t even need to change any scenes, you can just bring the team here.
The arrival of the yellow guard immediately attracted the children in the countryside. They ran behind the car in a hurry, until they ran to the earth wall of the old grain station, and then stopped with the car.
Zhou Zhi actually saw several familiar figures among these dolls. Although they are several years younger now, they can still recognize them.
"Muxia Laha! Be careful to burn your hands!" Zhou Zhi was immediately surrounded by children when he got off the car. He saw a child reaching out to touch the exhaust pipe of the Guard curiously. He was startled and stopped quickly.
The name culture of the Yi people is very complex, and its rigor and inheritance completely exceed the naming of Han people. Especially in the "ancestral land" like Meigu, traditional rules are basically strictly followed. Before modern times, the name structure of the Liangshan Yi people consisted of four parts, namely family branch, patronymic, real name, and the final syllable to distinguish male and female gender;
After that, based on the principle of convenience, the patronymic and name structure were omitted Change consists of three parts.
Every Yi person is born in a direction, which is somewhat similar to the Chinese horoscope. The Yi people call it the life palace and direction.
The life palace moves according to certain rules, and each year it is one of eight directions: east, south, west, north, southeast, northwest, northeast, and southwest. Among them, the male's life palace starts from the south and moves clockwise; the female's life palace starts from the north and moves counterclockwise, with a reincarnation every eight years.
Naming children according to the direction of the mother’s life palace when the child is born is one of the main ways of naming for the Yi people in Liangshan.
In addition, there are also names named after totems, blessings from elders, and rankings.
The names of the Yi people are also divided into first names and nicknames. The nicknames are more respectful and friendly, and the first names are more formal. This is just the opposite of the Han people.
Similar to the Tai Chi Bagua, the life palace system and the orientation system have also derived the system of pronouns, the system of unfavorable benefits, and the system of life and death.
This is the cosmology they developed.
For example, the Yi people here are located in the Hengduan Mountains. The direction of the river here is divided into two sections. One section is from north to south, from Mianning to Dukou City; the second section is from south to north, from Dukou City to Yi State and city.
So the Yi people named the south and north according to the direction of water flow. The south is represented by the tail of water, the north is represented by the source of water, the east is represented by the sunrise, and the west is represented by the sunset.
The remaining northeast, northwest, southwest, and southeast are similar to the "Four Phases" of the Han people, named after animals, namely cow, dog, sheep, and dragon.
So the life palace in the name is often replaced by these pronouns.
The life palace recorded in the name is very important. When you grow up, when you are planning to get married or choose a career, you will make choices based on the directions of the life palaces.
For example, southeast matches northwest and northeast, and northwest matches south, southeast, and north.
If there is a situation where the strong overcomes the weak or the weak overcomes the strong, then you need to ask Bimo to do something. For example, marrying your daughter to a mountain or river in advance is a ritual to prevent the woman from being cheated.
Many Yi people in Xichang don't care much about these things anymore. Many of them adopt Chinese names, or use both. However, the more closed and backward the rural areas are, the more careful they are in guarding these traditions.
Zhou Zhi didn't know this at all before, and he made a lot of jokes because of it.
The child who wants to touch the exhaust pipe is called Muxia Laha. This is a relatively affectionate way of calling him by his first name but not his surname. Muxia means the third child and Laha means wolf. Urine bubbles.
So Muxia Laha means the third child soaked in wolf urine. He also has two brothers, named Amulano and Mu Nailahei, which respectively means the boss of the wolf's spleen and the second child of the wolf's breasts.
Different from names such as tiger, leopard and bear, wolf is an evil beast in the Yi people's tradition, so it is usually named after dissection and adding the parts. It is a bit like the traditional Han people's meaning of "a low life and easy to feed". .”
The child was frightened when he heard that Zhou Zhi could call out his name, and he quickly took his hand back. However, his knowledge of Chinese was very limited and he didn't know what Zhou Zhi's words meant.