A-Mei Festival of Gaoshan Nationality

The day after the end of the New Year Festival is considered as the beginning of a new year. Traditional festivals are also related to agricultural activities. The first month of the Ami calendar is between August and September in the solar calendar. Sowing in August is about February and March in the solar calendar, and harvesting five months later is in1February in the American calendar, which is equivalent to July and August in the solar calendar.

The main festivals of the Amei people of Gaoshan nationality are praying for the New Year, sowing millet, harvesting millet, opening warehouses, offering new year's goods to worship ancestors and paying New Year's greetings.

The annual prayer festival is held on a day in the middle of one month before sowing, and the date is decided by the tribal elders of the male commune. This ceremony is a sign that Ah Mui predicted to God that agriculture would begin. After the ceremony, the cultivated land will be distributed to the members of the village community for sowing.

On the morning of the annual prayer festival, the festival was announced: "All work is forbidden today, and the annual prayer festival will be held." After that, the men of the village community were all concentrated in the Gongxie, and the village chief, with a glass in his hand, said to Tianchang Xu:

Sun God, Moon God, Creator God, Dominator God!

Here's your wine,

Today, there will be a New Year Prayer Festival.

As the ancients did,

Sages and ancestors, secular gods,

Here's your wine!

After the ceremony, a ceremony drink was held. Then, eligible male seniors and elementary school principals went to the tribal chiefs' home to hold a banquet, while others were busy preparing for their work in the fields tomorrow.

Three or four days before the full moon is the millet sowing festival. In the morning, the picket of Time Class boarded the watchtower of male sexual addiction and shouted, "Clean up today!" " "The so-called cleaning is to advise everyone to clean up the fishing gear so as not to violate the taboo of fishing during the festival.

The next day, the women of the big family sacrifice group went to the home of one of the members. They took the millet seeds from the barn to the ears of wheat, put them on the floor of the house and rubbed them off with their feet. It is forbidden to drink water, sneeze, urinate and make noise during the ceremony. Anyone who farts is considered unlucky. All the children were driven out of the house to avoid making noise. After completing the ceremony of one family, go to another family until all the millet seeds of the family members of the sacrificial group are ground off.

On this day, the man went up the mountain to close the camp and prepare for the sowing ceremony. In the evening, strong men and retired elders beat gongs and drums to patrol the club, symbolically killing insects.

Tonight, ten days later, there will be a wrestling performance at the Men's Expo to symbolize that millet seeds will stand upright and firm when they grow up, and the fruits will flourish.

On the third day, the line was broadcast from the beginning. The night before, the man was forbidden to share the bed with his wife and children, and he had to spend the night in the office. Before dawn, members of the extended family sacrifice group will have dinner at the heads of families and elders' homes, and then go home after dinner. Men and women should wear gorgeous clothes and dog bells to work in the fields. Some people beat gongs and drums from the village to the fields, and then from the fields to their homes. There are no strict rules for choosing the venue for the sowing ceremony. You can bring food to M, but you can't bring water. Community members first went to a member's home to sow seeds. Irrigation is prohibited after sowing. Holding the Great Xuan in his hand, the male elder congratulated the sky: "My millet is a big Cao, not like a fruitless millet, not like a millet without ears!" After the blessing, plant the big house in the field, and then go to another member's house for the same ceremony.

After the ceremony, they went home, undressed outside the house, went to the room naked and pretended to be asleep. Soon, I got up and said, "It's dawn!" It symbolizes that the days of premiere are over. Then put on your clothes and have dinner with your family. That night, there were wrestling competitions, gongs and drums teams and other activities in the village.

On the fourth day, the male and female members of the extended family sacrifice group held torches at night and went to the seaside to pick up shellfish until dawn.

On the fifth day, at dawn, everyone returned to the village community and gathered at the village head and elders' home for breakfast. Breakfast is made of shellfish picked up from the seaside and toasted the old man while eating. On this day, they rested and played all day.

The date of the millet harvest festival depends on the maturity of the ears in the field. Most of them are held when the first quarter moon is short. Contact with fish is also prohibited during the ceremony.

On the first morning, everyone went up the mountain to pick tung trees and rattan, and tore them into strips at harvest to plant ears of grain. A woman went to her own field and held the first ear-plucking ceremony.

This ceremony is to pick a bunch of millet ears in the field, put them in a basket and take them home. After going home diligently, I pulled out some newly collected ears. After mashing, I read a message while eating: "Today, a ceremony was held to pick the first ear and taste the new ear. Our millet is going to have a bumper harvest! My ears are excellent and rich! "

The next day, all the members of the extended family sacrifice group went to a field and stood side by side in a row to pick their ears. One or two people are responsible for tying the ears of millet, and there are paulownia or rattan in the waist.

When there is a string in the ear picker's hand, tie it up for them.

From the third day, the harvest was actually comprehensive, and the whole society finished harvesting. Members of the extended family holiday group went to the seaside to collect food and cook, and the taboo of fishing was also cancelled.

After each family dried the harvested ears of grain, they put them in the barn, and the barn was closed after harvest. Then, the opening ceremony will be held on the 7th, 8th, 1 1 day,12nd,17th,18th,19th, 20th, 23rd and 24th.

Every woman attending the new tasting ceremony must get up before dawn to attend the meeting and be careful not to touch the water. When opening the warehouse, the toast was: "It's a beautiful day today. I'll open the warehouse." Then take out some millet ears, and then, you can open the warehouse freely.

Any day after opening the warehouse, you can hold a taste of your ancestors. Everyone will hold it in their own home, but members of the same family holiday group will hold it on the same day. We should make wine before tasting the new festival. The night before, we were very busy.

In order to taste new sacrifices, wizards should offer sacrifices to the ancestors' gods. The wizard leader led several teachers to sing together. Then, the wizard held a hip flask in his left hand and a bowl of "the whole animal" (pig's internal organs, ears and small pieces on the right side of its tail) in his right hand, shaking the bowl and hip flask. The assistant wizard held a bowl full of millet and shook it at the same time. Wizards took banana leaves and ginger and swung to the shrine, wishing: "Zu! Ah! I have finished harvesting the millet, come on! Here are meat and whole animals, dedicated to you! Next time we plant millet, please give us a bumper harvest and let us dedicate the meat to you with millet! " After the sacrifice, parents offered wine and meat to the wizard, which was abolished when the Japanese invaded Taiwan Province.

After the harvest, the Chinese New Year will begin next month 13 and 4. On the day before the ceremony, men and minors were released from the public, and people of all ages below tribal chiefs went to Nianwu (the place where the banquet was held after the New Year's Festival) to hold a new tasting sacrifice for the gods, and poured wine made of newly harvested millet as a sacrifice, which they would drink after the sacrifice. The lowest class and minors danced all day. Before midnight, they ran to the seaside hut and returned home the next morning.

In the Presbyterian class, people are sent to the society to collect some dried fish from every household and bring them back to the public for consumption.

The next morning, the old people set off for the seaside, and the social workers at the bottom had to carry their luggage for them. According to different classes, live in this camp and the camp separated by the sea. After sitting down in this camp, a stove was set up, and two classes, the public manager and the public servant, fished in the sea. The second tallest old class divided it into three parts and ate one third by themselves. The 1 1 class stationed in the sub-camp gave an order to walk to the seaside according to race, and arranged in groups according to each class. Then, according to the number of fish caught, the merits were evaluated and distributed to each class as appropriate, but some of them were detained for the senior students in the camp.

People at the bottom should patrol around the camp while eating fish, so people at the top are unnecessary. That night, they all stayed in a hut in the camp.

The activities on the third day are the same as those on the previous day.

On the fourth day, the lowest members lined up in full armed, and after three weeks around the camp, they broke up and came to the camp. Walk around the camp a few more times. At this time, the fish sent from the camp two days ago was cooked and divided into five or six piles. Start from the highest level and feed it to the members of the lowest level in order. After the ceremony, the lowest people toured around the camp again and finally left for the club. After arriving at the club, everyone went to the Men's Expo, the last three classes bypassed the Gong Bo Club, and the other classes went directly to the Gong Bo Club. The old man in the second senior class reported to his elders that the fishing had ended smoothly, and the elders ordered them to stop bypassing and everyone entered the public market. After reporting the fishing results, the second-ranked senior class rewarded the fishing champion to the fifth place with wine. Finally, Class Three of Senior High School gave a banquet in the guild, and the other classes dismissed and went home. The lowest class will still dance in the "dance house", which can be used for their dancing in the future.

On the fifth day, when the rooster crowed, the women got up and boiled millet and pounded it into big pine trees. Near noon, a minor class shouted "Relax!" When the women in every household heard about it, they took olives to the men's courtyard and distributed them to everyone. They can eat it on the spot or take it back to taste it slowly.

Unmarried young people at the bottom dance with girls. Starting this afternoon, the girls who danced on the eve of the dance began to dress up to visit the youth, and also pumped water and swept the floor for each family. This is also a marriage proposal ceremony. If a male mother and sister like it, they will keep her for dinner, and then the young man will send her home after dinner. On the way, they can freely tell their love. This marriage proposal ceremony can last for more than ten days.