Dong dietary taboos

During the period of worshiping the core gods, some branches are forbidden to eat meat and fish, working in the mountains is not allowed to use natural products without making offerings, and hospitality is forbidden to serve an odd number of dishes. Other taboos vary significantly from village to village and branch to branch, and there is no unified standard of right and wrong.

A few years ago, I went to the Dong inhabited areas to do fieldwork and stayed there for half a year. My most intuitive feeling is that if someone tells you "the Dong people don't eat anything," it's most likely that they have only been to a certain village and regard the local rules as the standards for the entire nation. The year before last year, I followed my Dong friend Xiao Wu from Chengyang Bazhai in Sanjiang to go home to celebrate the Sa Sui Festival. The night before, her grandmother dragged me and told me that in the next three days to commemorate Sama, even the lard jars in the kitchen must be moved to the woodshed and locked up. Only camellia oil can be used for cooking, and all meals are vegetarian. Glutinous rice cannot be dug with a shovel. It must be balled with hands. If you dig a gap, it is disrespectful to Sama. When I was looking up information later, I specifically asked a researcher on Dong culture in southeastern Guizhou. The other person said that the Dong branch there had to offer a whole black pig to worship Sa Sui. Because there was a great plague in the history of the Dong people in northern Guangxi. At that time, the clan elders set the rule of eating vegetarian food during the sacrificial period to ward off disasters. It has been passed down from generation to generation and has become a local taboo. It is essentially evolved from the living experience of different regions. There is no one who is more "orthodox".

In addition to the rules tied to sacrifices, most dietary taboos are actually tied to the Dong people's living habits of relying on mountains and eating mountains. If you go into the mountains with fellow Dong people, don’t just pick wild fruits and fungi when you see them. It’s not as simple as fear of poisoning. There are rules in many villages. Before entering the mountains, you must call the mountain to report that you are here. You must leave some of the wild vegetables and fruits you pick as an offering in the place. Fungi growing next to thousand-year-old trees and female animals that have just given birth must not be touched. The last time I was picking Ganoderma lucidum with a fellow villager in Congjiang Zhanli Village, I saw a few translucent red mushrooms growing under a Feng Shui tree that three or four people were hugging. As soon as I reached out and touched the cap, the fellow said, "You can't move. This is a ration left for the mountain god. If you eat it, you won't be able to find good things next time you go into the mountain." ”Later, I talked about this with the local inheritor of intangible cultural heritage. He said that in the early years, a greedy young man picked the red mushrooms there and had diarrhea for three days after eating them. The older generation naturally made this rule stricter. To put it bluntly, it was to protect the ancient forest in the village and not let people touch the surrounding vegetation casually. This is a very simple ecological protection awareness. Of course, some young people in the village don't take it seriously, thinking that they can eat it as long as they are sure it is not poisonous. The old people will say a few words at most when they see it, and they will not be really harsh.

If the taboos about offering sacrifices and entering the mountains are mostly for yourself, then the rules for entertaining guests at the dinner table are to prevent you from accidentally causing embarrassment. Last year, I went to visit the Dong village in Liping. My friend who was traveling with me didn’t understand the rules. When he saw the host serving four dishes, he said, “Why don’t you make one more to make five?” His Dong boyfriend jumped up on the spot and shouted to his aunt to add another fried egg. There’s another tip that many people are prone to tripping over: Don’t stick your chopsticks in the glutinous rice. The steamed glutinous rice of the Dong ethnic group was so shiny and sticky that it smelled so good when I ate it for the first time. I took it and inserted my chopsticks into the rice, freeing my hand to pick up the pickled red fish next to it. As soon as I inserted it in, the girl accompanying me slapped my wrist: "Hey, don't do it! Are you worshiping your ancestors? ”It made me blush and quickly took off the chopsticks. Of course, there are exceptions. The Dong branch near the Hunan Channel has long lived with the Han people, and has long lost the importance of odd-numbered dishes. As long as the food is delicious and satisfying, only the elderly in their 80s and above will still care about these details.

Some folklorists have debated the existence and abandonment of these dietary taboos before. Some people think that all the dregs of feudalism should be thrown away, while others think that the roots of national culture should be kept intact. But after staying for such a long time, I found that the Dong people themselves are not obsessed with this: the old people can keep it if they want, and no one will force the young people if they find it troublesome. If outsiders come as guests, they can just mention a few precautions in advance. After all, no matter what the rules are, their essence is to make everyone comfortable. If you make trouble just to adhere to the old rules, it will violate the original intention of the ancestors to set the rules, right?