Mengpa: The Tujia People's Auspicious Charm
Mengpa: The Tujia People's Auspicious Charm. When a Tujia girl marries, she wears a red cloth over her head, romantically named 'mengpa'—the scarf that makes dreams come true. It embodies good wishes for the bride and carries its own legend, said to begin with a family who had only one child.
This article has been compiled from historical materials on 'Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network' (33519.com · Specialty Foods / Cuisine / Customs section). Prices, business hours, administrative divisions, and statistical data mentioned in the text may already be outdated. Before traveling, please refer to the latest announcements from merchants, scenic areas, and local competent authorities; the parts involving folk legends and folk customs are local historical and cultural anecdotes, provided for cultural reference.
Mengpa: The Tujia People's Mascot
When a Tujia girl marries, she must wear a red cloth kerchief on her head. The Tujia people give it a very romantic name, "Mengpa," meaning a kerchief that makes one's dreams come true. It can be seen that the Mengpa is a mascot embodying people's good wishes for the marrying girl. There is also a legend about the Mengpa. It is said that long ago there was a family that had only one boy. The child's parents doted on him very much. When the boy grew to seventeen or eighteen, his parents set about arranging a marriage for him. Who would have thought that the boy had a bad temper, and though matchmakers were sent to more than a dozen families in succession, he found none of them satisfactory. The father, angered, simply arranged for him a terribly ugly girl. This girl had only one eye and a head covered with ringworm. Her own family knew their daughter was not presentable, so on the wedding day they put a red cloth kerchief on her head. After the wedding ceremony was completed and she was escorted into the bridal chamber, the groom lifted the veil and saw, to his surprise, a woman as beautiful as a flower. The next day, when the groom's father saw this daughter-in-law who looked like a fairy, he felt very puzzled. Only later, when the girl told others of her strange experience, were the doubts resolved. According to this girl: "After putting on the red cloth kerchief, I vaguely entered a fairyland, where there are three thousand strange peaks and eight hundred beautiful waters, known as Zhangjiajie. I had a dream of exchanging heads with a fairy, and when I woke from the dream I had become like this." From then on, the custom of putting a red cloth on a marrying girl took shape. In fact, this custom was introduced from the Han people, and after being introduced to the Tujia people it gained new meaning and was attached to legends of this kind.
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