A Brief History of the Tujia—Folk Literature and Folk Art (Part One)
Chapter Seven: The Traditional Culture of the Tujia. Culture is the soul of a people. Over the long course of history, the Tujia people, with their diligence, bravery, and wisdom, created a rich and splendid culture with distinctive characteristics—for example, ballads, myths, legends, and stories in oral literature, and hand-waving song-dance and funeral dances in folk art...
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 Prices, business hours, administrative divisions, and statistical data mentioned in the text may already be outdated.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.
Chapter Seven: The Traditional Culture of the Tujia
Culture is the soul of an ethnic group. In the long course of historical development, the Tujia people, with their diligence, bravery, and wisdom, created a rich and splendid culture and displayed distinct cultural characteristics. For example, in oral literature, songs, myths, legends, and stories; in folk art, the Hand-waving song and dance, funeral dance, Haocao gongs and drums, Dongdongkui, Dajiahuo, and Hualuogu are all full of marvelous and varied ethnic color, while Xilankapu is a unique folk art treasure of the Tujia. In religious belief, the Tujia worship the Tuwang and believe in all things having spirits, and folk belief also interpenetrates with Buddhism and Daoism, showing strong ethnic characteristics. Tujia customs, such as celebrating the New Year early, the Daughter's Gathering, crying marriage, and taboos in daily life, also have distinctive ethnic features.
Section One: Folk Literature and Folk Art
1. Folk Oral Literature
(1) Songs
Ballads are a major component of Tujia oral literature, reflecting every aspect of Tujia social life, including historical events, class struggle, productive labor, customs of daily life, love between men and women, and social etiquette. "The Tujia people love to sing; the more they sing mountain songs, the happier they become." Inferred from historical records, these folk ballads originated from Ba songs. The "Bamboo Branch Lyrics" created by Liu Yuxi of the Tang Dynasty based on Ba songs were passed down through the generations, and their characteristics have been preserved in Tujia folk songs ever since. By the Qing Dynasty, in places such as Hefeng and Changle, during the Lantern Festival in the first lunar month, the Tujia still often sang "Willow" ("Willow" being a tune title of the "Bamboo Branch Lyrics"). In Tujia mountain villages such as Longshan, Yongshun, Baojing, Changyang, Lichuan, Xianfeng, Youyang, and Xiushan, singing competitions were held every year, with antiphonal singing flowing like a stream, songs coming forth spontaneously, and gatherings lasting all night. Through long-term cultural exchange between the Tujia and the Han, Tujia ballads were also considerably influenced by Han poetry. Because before the founding of New China most Tujia people in most areas could speak Chinese, or could speak both the Tujia language and Chinese, most mountain songs were sung in Chinese, though some were also sung in the Tujia language. In terms of content, Tujia ballads can be divided into mountain songs, hand-waving songs, hoeing-grass songs, narrative songs, funeral songs, bridal lament songs, and riddling songs.
1. Mountain Songs
Among folk songs, the one the Tujia love to sing most is the mountain song. Its form is simple and unadorned, generally with seven characters to a line and four lines to a song, though some have five lines to a song, and the number of verses sung is unrestricted. These mountain songs are numerous and rich in content. Almost everyone, men and women, young and old, can compose and sing them, giving voice to their feelings in response to the scene and singing impromptu. Solo singing, antiphonal singing, and choral singing—every style of singing is represented. In places such as Xuan'en and Hefeng, mountain songs are called "single call songs," "soft call songs," "winding songs," "linked eight-line songs," "matching-voice songs," "five-line songs," "four-line tunes," "shouting tunes," and "threading refrain songs," with a great variety of names. The themes of mountain songs are numerous, but they are mainly lyrical songs, narrative songs, spirit songs, and ballads with relatively ancient melodies. For example, a love song sung by young men and women in Tujia areas goes:
(Man)
Little girl, I call to you,
I call to you ten times, oh,
And you do not answer me even once,
When did I offend you?
Tell me, one sentence at a time.
(Woman)
My brother, you call to me,
But with Mother in the house, how can I open my mouth?
When my mother is not at home,
I will carry the pig fodder and come to see you.
Its lyrics are free, its syllables uneven, its vocal range not wide, plain and sincere, possessing the elegant style of folk songs.
Among Tujia mountain songs, the Sangzhi folk songs are the most famous, with concise lyrics, rich content, bright melodies, and varied singing techniques; in particular, the extensive and ingenious use of refrain words brings folk songs to a consummate artistic realm in heightening atmosphere and revealing the inner world of the characters, full of the flavor of life and of the countryside. "The Horse-Sang Tree Props Up the Lamp Stand" was sung by Song Zuying in the Golden Hall of Vienna; "A Good Man and a Good Girl Need No Matchmaker," "Four Seasons Flowers Bloom," "Cold Water Brews Tea Slowly,"Carrying Tea on a Shoulder Pole to Beijing" and other works are famous both at home and abroad. Two examples are listed here:
"The Horse-Sang Tree Props Up the Lamp Stand"
The horse-sang tree props up the lamp stand,
I write a letter and send it to my sister,
My man goes off to be a soldier, my sister stays home,
I will not be able to come back for three or five years,
You had better move the flower and plant it elsewhere.
The horse-sang tree props up the lamp stand,
I write a letter and send it to my man,
If you do not come for a year, I will wait a year,
If you do not come for two years, I will endure two years,
Until the key arrives, the lock will not open.
"A Good Man and a Good Girl Need No Matchmaker"
Good fields and good land, oh, need no fertilizer, oh,
A good man and a good girl, oh, need no matchmaker, oh.
One more matchmaker, oh, means one more mouth, ah,
From the matchmaker's mouth, oh, come troubles, oh,
Good fields and good land, oh, need no fertilizer, oh,
A good man and a good girl, oh, need no matchmaker, oh.
One more matchmaker, oh, means one more mouth, ah,
From the matchmaker's mouth, oh, come troubles, oh.
Before the founding of New China, because the Tujia people had long suffered cruel exploitation and oppression by the landlord class and the Kuomintang, living a miserable life without rights and in extreme poverty, and after being tempered by the people's revolutionary wars, they hated the Kuomintang and loved the Communist Party, and many revolutionary songs were produced. One of them is:
Chiang Kai-shek's heart is crueler than a wolf's,
He is the great enemy of the people.
Let all ethnic groups unite,
Strip his skin and pull out his sinews.
In the fifth and sixth months, we long for cool breeze,
In the tenth and twelfth months, we long for the sun.
The Tujia long only for the Communist Party,
Just like a child longing for its parents.
Not only is the language refined yet popular in style, but its use of metaphor, parallelism, contrast, and antithesis is extremely skillful and apt. Songs such as "The Farmhand's Twelve Months," "The Daughter-in-Law's Song," "The Red Army Song," and "The Liberation Song," popular in Laifeng and other places, all belong to this category.
2. The Weeding Gong and Drum Song
The weeding gong and drum song is a type of labor song, sometimes called the "digging song," "mountain gong and drum," or "harmonized gong and drum." It arose directly from productive labor and in turn benefited production. It is said that when the Tujia people settled in the border region of Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, and Guizhou and practiced slash-and-burn farming, they already had digging songs; beating gongs and drums could drive away wild beasts and also add to the fun. Later, specially assigned drummers led the singing and directed the work, and it evolved into a folk musical form. Whenever there was collective land clearing, digging, rice transplanting, weeding, or tea picking, the mountain gong and drum would be played. Among the Tujia of Laifeng County, "in the fourth and fifth months, when hoeing weeds, several households would gather at one household, sometimes as many as thirty or forty people; when one household finished hoeing, they would move on to another. One person beat the drum to boost their strength, another struck the gong to regulate work and rest, singing as they hoed, matching the rhythm themselves—this was called the weeding drum." "Gongs and drums do not leave the village"—every village had them, each with its own style. The weeding gong and drum song has always been a form of literature and art beloved by the Tujia people. The lyrics of the weeding song generally consist of three parts: the song head, the yang song, and the song tail. The song head and song tail have fixed lyrics, while the main content lies in the yang song section, "striking as one sees," improvised and sung on the spot, with each line having seven characters, mostly in four-line stanzas. When weeding, if someone slacked off, they would urge him on with a few lines; if someone worked energetically, they would praise him with a few lines. For example, in the "Song of Encouragement" it is sung:
Tighten your belt and muster your strength,
Dig it up and pile it into a bucket shape.
Brothers digging at the edges, muster your strength,
Step by step, move forward.
The lyrics are resounding and forceful, simple and generous, with the vivid and cheerful style of folk songs. During the yang song, besides singing about production and daily life, they also sang historical stories, novels, and folk legends, such as "The Yang Family Generals," "The Story of Selling Paintings," "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," "Flowers of a Hundred Fruits," "The Vicious Hen," "Dong Sanlang and Xi Sanmei," and so on.
The vocal structure of the weeding gong and drum song falls roughly into three types. The first is the stanza-form vocal style popular in Yongshun, Longshan, and Laifeng. It uses one basic tune, repeatedly sung to multiple stanzas of lyrics, with each line having seven characters and stanzas of two or four lines (Matizhai in Longshan has a three-line stanza form). The second is the two-section vocal style popular in Xuan'en, Baojing, and parts of Yongshun. It is composed of two sections with different tones and rhythms, representing a development over the stanza-form style. The third is the suite-form vocal style combining multiple folk songs, prevalent in Sangzhi, Hefeng, and Jianshi. This type generally combines 5 to 20 folk songs into a medley, and is the advanced form of the weeding gong and drum song. "In the sixth month of weeding, the hillsides are covered; amid the sound of gongs and drums, willows turn green again"—this is not a poet's embellishment, but a vivid and moving expression of the weeding gong and drum song, full of powerful vitality, rooted among the people.
3. The Hand-Waving Song
"Hand-waving" is a ceremonial song and dance originating from sacrifices to Tujia kings in the border region of Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, and Guizhou. After the policy of "replacing native officials with centrally appointed ones," due to the abolition of the Tusi system, it gradually evolved into a song and dance celebrating spring and the passing of the year. "Every year from the third to the seventeenth of the first month, men and women gather together, beating gongs and drums, dancing and singing—this is called hand-waving." Thereafter, the development of hand-waving song and dance varied from place to place; in some places song and dance separated, while in others they remained combined. The form of singing also varied: in areas where the Tujia language was prevalent, it was mostly sung in Tujia, while in some places it was sung in Chinese.
The hand-waving song, called "Sheba Song" in Yongshun, Longshan, Baojing, and other places, is led by a Tujia ritual master, and its lyrics mainly consist of two parts: mythological legends and scenes of past production and daily life. The masses then respond in chorus. Taking the Sheba song handed down in Matizhai, Longshan, as an example: the first part sings of myths and legends from Tujia history, such as "Yongni and Busoni, the Brother and Sister Who Mated to Create Humanity" and "Yongze Yongmienie Leads the Tujia People in Migration to Longshan." In the "Song of Human Origins," the flood is sung of thus:
Torrential rain,
Fell for seven days and seven nights;
The water in the well,
Soaked and seeped for seven days and seven nights;
Yongni and Busoni,
Crawled into the gourd window.
The water surged and rolled up gravel,
Tightly blocking the gourd window.
The water rose and burst the sky,
The sky collapsed down to the earth,
The earth rose up to the sky,
The sky turned over, the earth overturned.
The description is vivid and true to life, full of mythological imagination.
Another example is a passage from "Yongze Yongmienie Leads the Tujia People in Migration to Longshan," which sings:
They walked as fast as flying,
Pattering on without stop,
Like wood hawks soaring on wings,
Like a herd of muntjacs whose hooves never touch the ground.
O wood hawks soaring on wings,
Never slacken your wings;
O herd of muntjacs whose hooves never touch the ground,
Never let your legs pause.
The heroic image of the Tujia ancestors migrating to "Moyizitaizi" is depicted vividly and with great color, and the use of metaphor is graphic and lively.
The second part of the Sheba song's lyrics describes Tujia production and daily life, such as chasing monkeys in the forest:
Carrying the gun, he headed for the woods,
Went into the woods to chase monkeys,
Took the gun and chased monkeys for two whole days,
The monkey ran so fast its bottom smoked.
Male and female monkeys were scared out of their wits,
They ran to the rocky flat and started fighting,
They picked up the blunderbuss and lit the gunpowder,
The monkey died at the foot of the rocky flat.
Its lyrics are simple and lively, full of wit. Later, some folk legends and entertaining singing passages were incorporated.
4. Long Narrative Poetry
The Tujia people also have a rich tradition of long narrative poetry, embedded in forms such as spirit songs, mountain songs, and weeding gong-and-drum songs. The "Golden Pheasant," compiled and created from oral literary materials, is particularly beautiful. "The Golden Pheasant" has 7 chapters and 724 lines, telling the story of Brother Chun, who sold himself into servitude to bury his mother because he had no coffin. One day, Brother Chun killed a snake and saved the Golden Pheasant maiden. The Golden Pheasant gave him a feather as a token of love, and gave him a Ruyi Bell, which could turn into silver to redeem his freedom, into water to grow crops, and into wind to extinguish the fires set by the Tusi. When Brother Chun and the Golden Pheasant were reunited and about to marry, the Tusi forcibly claimed the "right of first night," but was trampled under the bed by the Golden Pheasant and turned into a footboard. This narrative poem fully reflects the bravery and wisdom of the Tujia people and their spirit of tenacious struggle against the Tusi system, and celebrates the happy life of free love. The verses are beautiful and moving, rich in content, and full of dramatic tension.
In the section "Selling Oneself," it sings:
The steward only asked how many sheep,
The Tusi only asked how fat the sheep were.
Who cared about Brother Chun's hunger and cold?
Only the long-term hired hand asked after his warmth!
In "Redeeming Oneself," there are lyrics like these:
A piece of paper, a life,
Only today am I truly a free man;
The hired hand lit a fire,
The contract of servitude turned to ashes.
In "Reunion," it sings:
Sunshine in the rain is false affection,
How much of a matchmaker's talk is true?
With love and loyalty, heart to heart,
Why need a matchmaker to thread the needle!
In life I won't let go, in death I won't let go,
Like green vines entwining a pomegranate.
The green vines have wrapped around the pomegranate tree,
Though flowers die and vines wither, neither will let go.
5. Funeral Songs and Crying-Marriage Songs
During the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties, funeral songs were popular in the Qingjiang Prefecture area. The "Manzuo" people, "when a death first occurred, placed the corpse in a hall, and the young people of the neighborhood, each holding a bow and arrow, sang around the corpse, striking the bow with arrows to keep time. The lyrics told of the pleasures of the deceased's life, up to the final end.... After singing dozens of verses, they then dressed the body in burial clothes and placed it in the coffin, and sent it to the mountains and forests..." This funeral singing custom is still preserved in different forms today in the Qingjiang River basin and in Hefeng, Sangzhi, Fenghuang, Youyang, Xiushan, and other places. The lyrics mostly express praise and respect for the deceased, and also touch on their social activities, production, and daily life. Some sing with drum accompaniment, while others combine drumming, music, singing, and dancing. Therefore, in the above areas, it is called "jumping funeral drum," "stirring the mourning hall," "singing filial songs," "beating the night gong and drum," and so on. Funeral songs also have many different tunes and styles. "The singers gather in front of the mourning curtain, one person beats the drum and sings, sometimes the crowd joins in, taking turns singing. The lyrics are complex; apart from a portion with fixed lyrics, most are improvised on the spot. Each line has seven or ten characters, and each stanza has two or four lines." The "overt seven, hidden eight" form popular in Lichuan is unique: each line has eight characters, two lines per stanza, singing seven and hiding eight, with the crowd joining in and repeating the last three characters. Its lyrical pattern is as follows:
The bereaved family beats the drum tonight to make merry (warmth),
Relatives and friends all come to pay respects (worship).
Children and grandchildren fill the hall, wearing hemp and mourning (filial garb),
Sons and daughters weep and wail bitterly (loudly).
The first line ends on "yu," the second on "zhi"; one tune serves many uses, and the music is richly recitative, to express grief. Changyang has twenty or thirty tune titles such as "Ten Months of Pregnancy," which are gentle and moving, sung all night long, just as the Tujia poet Peng Qiutan's "Bamboo Branch Song" sings: "Whose family opens the road and adds a new ghost, the funeral drum is sung all night until dawn."
Crying-marriage songs were songs sung by Tujia girls before liberation as they cried and sang before getting into the bridal sedan chair. After the Qing Dynasty's replacement of native officials with appointed ones, the custom of crying marriage already existed. Some girls began learning to cry-marry from the age of eleven or twelve; if they did not cry movingly at marriage, they would often be laughed at. Three days, seven days, half a month, twenty days, or even as long as a month before the wedding, the girl would begin crying her marriage. Every dusk, young girls and women neighbors and relatives would gather at the bride's home, weeping together, and disperse only late at night. Over time, this crying-marriage song formed a special free lyrical song form. Crying-marriage songs include bidding farewell to ancestors, the daughter crying for her mother, the mother crying for her daughter, the younger sister crying for her elder sister, the elder sister crying for her younger sister, crying for brothers and sisters-in-law, crying for reunion with sisters, crying while combing hair, crying while putting on the dew clothes, crying while eating the parents' meal, crying for the many guests, and crying while getting into the sedan chair. Among them, "Scolding the Matchmaker" is a passage rich in thought:
The ill-fated matchmaker is a dog,
Coming to the bride's family to boast that the groom is good,
She can coax even the sparrows in the trees,
Pea flowers bloom, pod to pod,
The iron tree blooms eight inches long,
Eat from one end and it walks away from the other.
Go to the in-laws' house to boast of how much dowry there is.
Even the monkeys on the cliff can be coaxed away.
The matchmaker ate and got a festering mouth.
The matchmaker ate and got a festering gut.
Two lines make one short stanza, each line has seven characters, the upper and lower lines rhyme, and the rhyme can change from line to line. When sung, there are two forms: solo and duet. In the duet, the two vocal parts appear in a regular interwoven pattern, creating a unique style—just as in the line "The song of the Ten Sisters is so sad… like the Ba women singing bamboo-branch songs."
Besides the several kinds of poetry mentioned above, there are also children's songs, Tima spirit songs, beam-raising songs, and so on, which will not be described one by one here.
(2) Legends and Stories
The oral literature of the Tujia people is very rich, and myths, legends, and stories are also an important part of it. Some are embedded in poetry, while others are passed down by word of mouth, gentle and pleasant to hear, and extremely beautiful.
Myths reflect the views of the ancient Tujia ancestors on natural things and describe scenes of humanity struggling against nature. Among those that have survived to the present day, the better known include "Zhang Guolao and Li Guolao," "The Flood Reaches Heaven and the Brother and Sister Marry," "Grandpa Eagle and Grandma She," "Meishan Fights the Tiger," and "Lu Ban Builds the Buddha Pool," among others.
Among the Tujia people of western Hunan and Hubei, there are myths about Zhang Guolao and Li Guolao creating heaven and earth. Their plots are not identical, but the main content is basically the same. When Zhang Guolao was creating heaven, he saw that there was too much water on the earth, so he created twenty-four suns, which shone day and night without distinction. Before long, the earth dried up. But the light of the suns was too intense, scorching the grass dry and cracking the earth, and only one mulberry tree grew as tall as the sky. To escape the scorching sun, a frog climbed up along the trunk. The frog hated the sun intensely, and opening its huge bloody mouth, it swallowed twenty-two suns in succession. When it was about to eat the remaining two suns, unexpectedly Guanyin Bodhisattva discovered it and, in anger, swung a club and bent the mulberry tree. The frog could no longer eat the suns, and from then on there were grass and trees on the earth, except that the mulberry tree could never straighten its waist again. Of the remaining two suns, Guanyin Bodhisattva let one shine by day and one shine by night; the one shining by day was called the sun, and the one shining by night was called the moon. The sun was a girl, and being shy about coming out in the daytime, she sent out five divine needles to pierce people's eyes so that they would not look at her. This myth reflects people's faith, strength, and wisdom in conquering nature.
Creation myths of the "Flood Reaches Heaven" type are commonly found among the ethnic minorities of central-south and southwest China, and are also extremely prevalent in the Tujia, Miao, and Dong areas along the borders of Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, and Guizhou. The Tujia call it "Yongni Busuoni," also known as "Old Man Dongshan and Little Sister Nanshan," "The Luo Brother and Sister," or "The Fuxi Brother and Sister," and their structures are largely the same with minor differences. It is said that long ago there were seven brothers who captured the Thunder God down from heaven and prepared to cook and eat him. Later, the Thunder God escaped back to the heavenly palace by a trick and in anger sent down seven days of torrential rain, drowning all the people in the world. Only a brother and sister hid inside a gourd and preserved their lives. After the flood receded, the brother and sister, after some twists and turns, finally married and gave birth to a great flesh ball. A great pair of scissors descended from the sky, cut it open, and scattered it in all directions, and all became human beings. What is worth studying is that in such myths the parts that differ in detail, in interpolation, and in ending often reflect their ethnic characteristics and regional features. For example, the ending in Longshan and Yongshun says that pieces of flesh mixed with mud and scattered out became the "Tujia," pieces of flesh mixed with seedlings and scattered out became the "Miao," and pieces of flesh mixed with sand and scattered out became the "Hakka," used to explain the origins of neighboring ethnic groups. Another example is that the ending in Laifeng, Hefeng, Xiushan, and other places says that the flesh ball split open, and what fell in the soil became the "Tujia," while what fell in the fields became the ancestors surnamed Tian, explaining both the origin of the ethnic group itself and the origins of its powerful clans and great surnames.
The legend "Lin Jun Turns into a White Tiger" says that in Dong Village (present-day Yuxiakou in Changyang) there was an ancient temple. Later, an old man with white hair and a white beard fled into the temple and lived together with the monks. This old man had been very good at fighting in the past, and before long he died in the temple. The local people buried him at Dengxin Ridge. When he was buried, the old man turned into a white tiger and ascended to heaven, and from then on people called this place "White Tiger Hill" (present-day White Tiger Long at Yuxiakou). Later, the Qin clan moved their ancestral hall from Manjia Kua to Dong Village and built it at White Tiger Long. Because the white-bearded old man had been buried by the Qin family, in order to commemorate this old man, the Qin ancestral hall was also named "White Tiger Long Hall."
Folk legends are mostly based on historical events and historical figures and are formed by rendering them with exaggeration and beautification. There are also some legends concerning Tujia customs, place names, and the origins of festivals, such as "Guan Wang Battles Shi Wang," "Xiang Laoguanren," "Tian Haohan," "Qin Hou Wang," "The White-Nosed Tujia King," "Qin Erha," "White Crane Well," "Golden Pheasant and Baxi," "Seal-Dropping Pool," "Nine-Section Ox Horn," and "Eight-Ear Pot," among others. Many legends portray characters and things so vividly and true to life that they seem alive.
The legend of "Xiang Laoguanren" is the most widely circulated. It says that the Tujia king sent Xiang Laoguanren to the imperial court to pay respects to the Hakka king. The Hakka king asked him where he lived. He said, "A thousand pillars land on the ground, the wind sweeps the floor, the moon lights the lamp." The Hakka king then asked him how many people he had under him. He said, "Seventy people carry firewood, eighty people cook, three salt boats go down to the water, one was smashed on Moying Shoal, and for three days there was no salt to eat." When the Hakka king heard this he was frightened in his heart, thinking that Xiang had vast lands and many soldiers, and so he wanted to kill him. When Xiang returned home, the Hakka king gave him a bottle of poisoned wine and told him to take it back and drink it with everyone. Unexpectedly, he drank it on the road and was immediately poisoned to death, but his corpse did not fall; only after being carried on horseback back to his hometown of Shuiba Cave did it fall. In fact, what he had told the Hakka king was that he lived in a thatched house, had only three ducks, one duck had been killed, there were fewer duck eggs, and they could not be taken to exchange for salt. Later, the descendants of the Tujia all established shrines to offer sacrifices to him.
"The White-Nosed Tujia King" mainly accuses the Xizhou Tujia king of tyranny and cruelty. It says that the white-nosed Tujia king was dissolute and shameless, and took altogether forty-eight wives. His nose often itched, and whenever it itched he had to kill people; only after smearing the blood of the people he killed on his nose did he feel comfortable. He killed back and forth until he had almost killed off all his subordinates. But he also feared that the Tujia common people would rise in rebellion, so he issued an order to tear down the people's tile houses and put up wooden houses. When the wooden houses were built, the white-nosed Tujia king ran up to a high mountain and had people set fire below, intending to burn all the people's houses. In an instant the flames shot into the sky and the shouts shook the heavens, yet he laughed loudly instead—truly shameless to the extreme.
Some folk stories of the Tujia people, such as "Jia Yi Zhaozhao," "The Mother-in-Law Tree," "Yantou Slope," "Kani Zhaozhao," "The Carp Girl," and "The Clever Monkey," are all full of human warmth and artistic appeal.
"Kani Zhaozhao" tells of the tragic fate of a child bride. After this little girl was forced to commit suicide and died, she turned into a small bird called "Kani Zhaozhao," which every evening uttered mournful cries, expressing her accusation of her unfortunate marriage experience.
"The Mother-in-Law Tree" tells of a woman named A Da, who, in order to resist the Dragon King's insult, endured every torment yet remained firm and unyielding. The Dragon King turned her into a lone tree standing by the edge of the You River. Later, when A Da's husband saw this tree, he wailed loudly and was also turned into a mother-in-law tree with branches and leaves joined together. The Dragon King sent a flood to wash them away, but they still would never be separated.
"Yantou Slope" describes a herbal doctor who liked to treat the poor without taking any payment. When a landlord offered him half of his family property to treat him, he refused sternly and was tormented to death by the landlord, turning into a rock. The people forever revere and look up to him.