Listen to this articleThe Pumi nationality is one of the nationalities with a long history and ancient culture in China. The national language is the Pumi language, which belongs to the Qiang branch of the Tibeto Burmese language family of the Sino Tibetan language family. There are South and North languages. There is no national language, and Chinese is commonly used.
Lansing County of Nujiang Prefecture, Ninglang County, Yulong County of Lijiang City, and Weixi County of Diqing Prefecture are the main settlements in Yunnan Province. The rest are distributed in Yunxian, Fengqing, Zhongdian, Muli, Yanyuan, Jiulong, and other counties in Sichuan Province.
With a population of 20000, the Pumi people believe in Bon, Korean Guijiao, and Tibetan Buddhism.
Family name
The word “Pumi” is a phonetic translation of Pumi, which originally means “white” and refers to the national self claim. The Pumi people in Lansing, Lijiang, and Yongsheng call themselves “buying”; the Pumi people in Ninglang call themselves “Pulimi” or “PEIMI”. In the Pumi language, the meaning of “Mi” is human, and “Pei”, “Buying” and “Puri” are all the same, which means “white”. Therefore, the meaning of “Pumi” is “white”. Pumi people call themselves “white”, which is related to their worship of white and its symbolization of auspiciousness.
Other nationalities have different names for Pumi, such as “Ba” or “Bo” for Tibetans and Naxi, wushu for Yi, and Liuliupa for Lisu. It is called Baju or Xifan in Chinese historical documents. In his name of Pumi, the word “Xifan” appeared in Jin Dynasty. In the early Jin Dynasty, Zhang Hua’s “natural history” Volume 3 “exotic animals” recorded: “in the mountains of central and southern Sichuan, there are macaques, seven feet long, capable of walking The Xifan tribe is always afraid of it. “It can be seen that there were Xifan tribal groups in the vicinity of Shujun at that time. Since the Tang Dynasty, the name Xian has also been used to refer to Tubo, or Tubo is another name for Xian. In general textual research of literature in the Song Dynasty, “Xian” and “Tubo” are recorded respectively. The Xian recorded in the literature includes several proclaimed ethnic groups with similar ethnic origin and language, among which the Pumi is only the most numerous. In addition to the Pumi nationality, it also includes a part of the Tibetan nationality.
In October 1960, the State Council officially named it the Pumi nationality according to the wishes of its own people.
Faith
The religious belief of the Pumi people is mainly primitive religion, and a few of them also believe in Taoism or Tibetan Buddhism. “Dingba religion” is the main form of the primitive religion of the Pumi nationality. The Pumi witches used to be called “dingbat”, so their primitive religion was called “dingbat religion”. But later, “dingbat” was renamed as “Han GUI” or “Chi Bi”, and “dingbats Jiao” was also renamed as “Han GUI Jiao”. “Ding” refers to the land, and “Ba” refers to the religion on the land of Pumi. The highest god of the “dingbat religion” is “Badinlamu”, which means “mother tiger god on the land of Pumi”. She is the embodiment of the “white forehead tiger” and the ancestor of the matriarchal clan worshipped by Pumi. “Badinlamu goddess” is a natural stone statue, located in the cave of a size mountain in Wujiao District of Muli County. Pumi people think that she is the goddess of Almighty, people go to worship her in groups, praying to bless people Ding Ping’an, everything is OK. “Han GUI” can only be assumed by some surnames in Pumi, which has a higher social status because they hold the theocracy. “Korean rules” are handed down from father to son. Every Pumi family has fixed “Korean rules”, and each “Korean rule” has its own followers. When believers want to engage in religious activities, they can only ask their own “Korean rules” to preside over them. “Han GUI” must be familiar with the genealogy and soul sending routes of various believers, to serve as a bridge for believers to communicate with God.
Other primitive religious beliefs are mainly manifested in nature worship, ancestor worship, and polytheism. The main religious activities include sacrificing Mountain God, sacrificing Longtan God, sacrificing Kitchen God, and sacrificing ancestors. In the concept of the Pumi people, all-natural disasters, human and animal life, and death, are considered to be dominated by the gods. Therefore, in case of such things, we should ask the wizard to sacrifice animals, recite scriptures and pray, to eliminate disasters and protect the peace.
Diet
The diet of Pumi people is mainly composed of corn, rice, wheat, and highland barley. There are few kinds of vegetables, such as vegetables, radishes, eggplant, melons, etc. The traditional way of eating includes baking Baba with stone, cooking meat with sheep stomach, and cooking in wooden barrels. Zumba noodles are a traditional food of the Pumi nationality. The method is to stir fry the grain, put it in the hand or foot pestle to make Zanba noodles, and wash it with cold or boiled water. It can be used as a snack when drinking tea and can be taken with you when you go out to work, hunt, or travel. There are two kinds of pasta: baking and cooking. All kinds of grain can be processed into flour. The common foods are baked Baba, baked thin flour cake, boiled noodles, etc.
The Pumi people like to eat meat, mainly pigs, sheep, cattle, and chicken, with the most pork. Pork has fresh meat, pork fat meat, and bacon-like to cook into Tuo meat and eat. When treating guests, if it is a feast, slaughter cattle, sheep, pigs, and chickens in front of the guests to show sincerity. When the guests leave, the host will give them a piece of pork fat, which is called “loose elements”.
Clothes & Accessories
According to the records of the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the costumes of the Pumi people in history were braided, wearing Tibetan hat, knife, felt, earrings, sleeves, and barefoot. Women wear braided hair, jewelry, skirts, and barefoot; the traditional costumes of the Pumi people are mostly kept in Ninglang Area. Before the age of 13, regardless of gender, they all wear a right lapped linen long shirt. Men don’t wear pants and women don’t wear skirts. The girl left a braid in front of her hair ornament and tied red and green beads on it. For boys, there is a braid on the front and left and right sides of the head, without beads; for adult men, the clothing is almost the same everywhere, mainly wearing linen short clothes. Wear baggy pants. It’s a long sweater with an embroidered belt made of wool. Rich people wear long clothes. Under the knee with a cloth or felt the leg, waist knife, barefoot, or summer wear straw sandals, winter wears rough cow leather shoes; old men grow long hair, with silk thread wrapped in the top. Or shave your head, leave a pinch of hair on the top of your head, and wrap it around the top. In recent years, the top hat with basin edge is popular, and some are inlaid with Phnom Penh. Women’s costumes are the most colorful. The Pumi women in Ninglang and Yongsheng have long hair. Their braids are thick and they are wrapped in black cloth. The top has narrow sleeves and a high collar, a short coat with a big skirt, and a pleated skirt. In the spring and Autumn period, they wear sandwiched clothes, sewn with corduroy, and inlaid with gold and silver edges on the collar and hem, which is called “gold lace clothes”. It is the most expensive dress for women. Like to use wool ribbon waist, back wearing sheepskin, chest wearing a silver chain, wearing bracelets, rings, necklaces, earrings, jade pendant, and beaded headdress. The clothing of Pumi women in Lansing is deeply influenced by the local Bai nationality. They generally wear linen or woolen skirts. Unmarried women’s headwear is covered with multi-layer embroidered lace square scarves on the front, and their hair braids are mixed with silk thread. They wind up the cloth from left to right and wear black melon skin hats. Some have two braids on their heads. Before marriage, they wrap their heads with sky blue cloth with double-layer thorns and tie a redhead rope outside. After marriage, the head was covered with black cloth. A few women who pay attention to decoration weave their hair into 12 strands, with 12 pairs of red and white beads, silver rings on their ears, coral and agate beads on their necks, silver chains with “three or five whiskers” on their chests, and fancy shoes or homemade pig shoes on festivals and weddings.
After the founding of new China, the Pumi nationality, together with other nationalities, was more influenced by the Han nationality’s clothing culture, and the clothing tended to be simple. Women’s headdresses generally only use flower handkerchiefs, wear a long coat with collar, skirt edge and cuff edge, a red, black, and green coat, a black or white square apron with a color edge on the waist, and some simple accessories. In addition to rituals and festivals, most of the men wear Han costumes. With the deepening of reform and opening up, the younger generation of Pumi people has more and more accepted some Western clothing culture. Suits or jeans have become people’s daily clothing.
Festival
The Pumi has their own festivals. The main festivals are the Lunar New Year Festival, the 15th Festival, the rock cave Festival, the mountain party, and the new taste Festival. Some places also celebrate the Qingming Festival, the Dragon Boat Festival, and other festivals.
The Spring Festival is the most solemn festival of the Pumi people, which usually lasts from three days to half a month. In Ninglang, the seventh day of the twelfth lunar month is the first year, while Lansing and Weixi celebrate the Spring Festival in the first month. Lanpingyi has the custom of killing New Year’s pig and feasting relatives. No matter how many visitors are, they always present each person with a roast elbow and a bowl of bone soup to show the meaning of “kinship as flesh and blood” and “Brotherhood”. On the evening of December 30, the male parents worship the “door god” and “Guozhuang”, and then the whole family gathers around the fire pond to have a reunion dinner. On the morning of the first day of the lunar new year, each family offered sacrifices to Guozhuang and Longtan. The prayers mentioned the names of the dead ancestors of the same clan, the three generations of their ancestors, and the famous mountains and rivers in the same clan, which meant to welcome the new year and pray for a good harvest. On New Year’s Eve, the Pumi people in Ninglang first set off three guns, blow conch, and offer pig heads in Guozhuang. On the next day, he went up to the roof to offer sacrifices to the head of the house and take freshwater. If there are boys and girls over 13 years old in the family, a grand “wear pants” and “wear skirt” ceremony will be held. During the Spring Festival, people from the same clan of the Pumi nationality invite them to go up the mountain to graze and have dinner together. Each family brings rich dishes. Young men and women should hold various recreational activities such as horse racing, target shooting, running, and wrestling.
The 15th day is a festival celebrated by the Pumi people in Ninglang. On the 14th of December, people will go camping in bright new clothes and hold a bonfire party. The next day, young men and women sang, danced, and fell in love with each other.
In the Yongning area of Ninglang, the Pumi people hold the activity of “around the cave” on the Dragon Boat Festival, and burn incense in the cave to exorcise evil spirits and pray for more children and grandchildren. During the Zhongyuan Festival, I went to participate in the “Zhuan Shizishan Festival” to offer sacrifices to the goddess “Gan Mu”. This kind of festival is not only a religious festival but also a social and entertainment festival for young men and women. In the harvest season of Spring Festival and Spring Festival, it is necessary to celebrate the “taste new festival”. Every family makes wine to make new rice, and sometimes gives the first meal of rice ball to the dog to show respect for the dog.
