The Tujia — Production and Daily Life
IV. Production and Daily Life. Mountain Production. Upon arriving at a Tujia village, one is first struck by the towering mountains and steep ridges; farmers head up the slopes at dawn and are still on the mountain at nightfall. In some places dense primeval forests remain. Everywhere are dry fields planted with corn and potatoes; even on small flatlands in mountain valleys, rice paddies are rarely seen. In some areas, the practice of extensive cultivation with meager returns is still...
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 Prices, business hours, administrative divisions, and statistical data mentioned in the text may already be outdated.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.
IV. Production and Daily Life
Mountain Production
As soon as one arrives at a Tujia mountain village, the first thing that meets the eye is high mountains and steep ridges. Farmers go up the slopes in the morning and are still on the mountain when it gets dark. In some places there are also dense primeval forests. Everywhere are dry fields planted with corn and potatoes; even on the small flat basins in mountain valleys, rice paddies are rarely seen. In some places people still farm by extensive cultivation with low yields. Farming households in more remote mountain ridges still use the method of 'kan huosha' to cultivate the hills. 'Kan huosha' was a relatively primitive mode of production once used by ethnic minorities in southern China. It is also called 'she tian,' 'slash-and-burn cultivation,' or 'fire cultivation and water weeding.' Before 1949, 'kan huosha' was fairly common in Tujia areas.
In western Hubei, as late as 1985, there were still 70,000 mu of slope land cultivated by cutting fire ash, and Wufeng also had over 10,000 mu of land planted by cutting fire ash each year.
The swidden fields of the Tujia had characteristics of their own ethnic group and region. Whenever the spring plowing season came, Tujia farmers living on mountain ridges and mountainsides, needing to open wasteland and expand fields, would often go up the mountain in groups of several households or more to dig the soil to the sound of 'beating gongs and drums.' On land where trees and weeds had already been burned clean, a song master directing the 'gong and drum beating' led the crowd, some beating gongs and drums, others singing soil-digging songs, working hard to open fields. In summer, when hoeing cornfields or weeding rice paddies, they would beat the 'weeding gongs and drums' and sing 'weeding songs'; beating gongs and drums and singing mountain songs were inseparable from the Tujia's long-term mountain labor. In ancient times the Tujia opened wasteland and planted fields in the Wuling Mountain range area. Because the forests were dense, the mountains high, the population sparse, and wild beasts roamed in packs, harming the crops, the Tujia beat gongs and drums to drive away birds and beasts, singing while working. At the same time, the rhythmic singing also played a role in arousing enthusiasm for labor. Because the sound of drums and gongs spread through the valleys, together with the singing, the atmosphere of lively and joyful labor was strong. Over a long period, this formed the traditional production custom of beating gongs, beating drums, singing, and hoeing all at once. After the gongs and drums sounded for a while, the song master led the singing: 'The sun comes out and the slope back turns yellow, the weeders are busy and bustling.' The crowd responded in chorus: 'The clamorous gongs and drums shake the sky, weeding has passed several ridges. The more the gongs are beaten, the louder they sound; the more mountain songs are sung, the brighter the heart. You chase, I catch up, no one falls behind, chasing until the sun sets below the hill.' Beating gongs and drums and singing while doing farm work in the mountains has become a traditional habit. In production they had a primitive mutual-aid character: several or a dozen households in a village formed a group, and every household came to join the gong and drum. Each township had its own musical tunes, hence the folk saying, 'Weeding gongs and drums do not leave the township; each township has its own tune.'
The ancestors of the Tujia were historically skilled hunters, and their self-made wooden crossbows and poisoned arrows, used to shoot tigers in packs, were very famous. Hunting was always their main sideline. The animal feet obtained from hunting were the best offerings for Tujia ancestor worship, and tiger skins and musk were indispensable tribute items presented to the emperor in the past. Now they are still good at hunting, driving away animals, and protecting forests, ensuring a bumper harvest of crops. Ordinarily, some Tujia households, either alone or in groups of three to five households, invite one another into the mountains to hunt, called 'chasing the hunt,' and what they catch is mostly pheasants, golden pheasants, hares, wild boars, musk deer, and barking deer, and other birds and beasts. Whenever the corn ripens or when guarding pigsties and cattle pens on the mountain, Tujia people build a thatched hut on the mountain to hide in, so as to drive away wild beasts.
They have a set of ingenious methods for hunting wild boars, catching monkeys, and snaring birds. Especially during the annual slack farming season, when heavy snow seals the mountains, farming households often go into the mountains in groups for 'encircling hunts.' Before entering the mountains, they first hold ceremonies to sacrifice to the hunting god and to the guns. Then, in the Rongyang Tujia king's palace in Zhen (township), there was a green dragon that had been banished and, after being struck dead by lightning, was buried in the Longquan Well; beside the well was the Weifeng Terrace tea mountain opened by the Beijinka (that is, Tujia) people. At the foot of the mountain lived a tea farmer named Xiang Changsheng, who had a beautiful daughter named Chagu. They not only knew how to grow tea, but also had excellent tea-making skills; father and daughter made tea their livelihood and depended on each other. Around every Qingming, when the new tea garden opened, they picked new tea and, using wok-firing, hand-rolling, and foot-treading, made top-grade green tea. King Tian used boiling Longjing water to brew the green tea tribute from the common people, and the fragrance of the tea drifted very far. One year, this tea fragrance reached the nose of Taiyi Zhenren, who was tasting divine tea on Wudang Mountain, so he sent the White Crane Boy down to the mortal world to search for where the tea fragrance came from, and also to learn this tea-making skill. The White Crane Boy traveled east and west and with great difficulty learned that the place of origin was the home of Xiang Changsheng below Weifeng Terrace. Beside the Longjing well he shook himself and changed into a young tea farmer, went straight to the Xiang home, and insisted on taking Xiang Changsheng as his master to learn the craft. Seeing that the White Crane Boy was sincere and willing to learn, Xiang Changsheng accepted him as a disciple. Unexpectedly, this matter was discovered by King Tian, who sent his trusted retainer Qin Bazi to the Xiang home to interrogate them (because at that time there was a prohibition that barbarians must not leave the territory and Han people must not enter the caves). Qin Bazi saw that the White Crane Boy had extraordinary divine power and that force would not defeat him, so he said: 'If the tea you submit as tribute can reveal a white crane when brewed in a tea bowl, then you may be allowed to make tea here for a living.' The White Crane agreed at once, and only then did Qin Bazi leave. The White Crane then brought out all the skills he had learned from Master Xiang and made fragrant green tea. The next day, the three of them took this tea to the Tujia king's palace and brewed it with boiling Longjing water to present as tea. When King Tian lifted the tea bowl, a clear tea fragrance assailed his nose, and in the thick hot vapor a pair of white cranes stood floating, and the king was dazzled. He took a sip and cried out, 'Ten times more fragrant than osmanthus tea, ten times sweeter than honey tea, truly good tea, good tea.' Just as the king was about to taste a second bowl, he found that Xiang Changsheng and the others had already walked out of the palace gate. During the period of learning the craft, the White Crane Boy and Chagu fell in love, but after Qin Bazi discovered it, he demanded from Xiang Changsheng a debt of 18 loads of tea leaves. If the debt was not cleared, Chagu would have to be used to repay it, in an attempt to break the relationship between the White Crane and Chagu, but the goal was not achieved. Qin Bazi then devised another plan: taking advantage of the Dragon Boat Festival, when the two held their wedding beside the Longjing well, to kill the White Crane, so as to realize the Tujia king's scheme to seize Chagu. Therefore, when they married, they were pushed into the White Crane Well. Every year at the Dragon Boat Festival, Chagu flew back and rested on Bafeng Mountain, and so Sangzheping became Hefeng City; Hefeng is indeed worthy of being called the 'home of tea.' This legend shows that the Tujia had advanced tea-growing and tea-making skills and made contributions to enriching the lives of all ethnic groups.
Shizhu and Lichuan are both major counties in China for planting Coptis chinensis. In Muchanggou, Yulong Township, Lichuan County, a Tujia legend about worshipping Coptis has been passed down: more than seven hundred years ago, in a mountain gully several dozen li from Muchanggou, there was a Tujia family surnamed Tao. One day, a herb gatherer came to their home and begged to stay there for a few days to gather some medicinal herbs locally. When the herb gatherer left, he gave the Tao family a handful of medicinal seeds even smaller than rapeseeds and told the host that its name was Coptis; after it grew, from a distance it looked like a clump of grass, and up close like a stalk of mugwort. As long as people recognized it, it would surely become valuable. Relying on this handful of Coptis seeds, the Tao family cultivated it year after year (generally it takes three to five years to harvest), harvested a great deal of Coptis, and later became a 'rich household.' This place was also called 'Coptis Gully.' Later, several daughters of the Tao family married elsewhere and took the seeds with them, and other places also learned to grow Coptis. From that time on, the Tujia of Muchanggou passed down the cultivation of Coptis from generation to generation, and this was also their traditional path to wealth.
Most Tujia people live in mountain villages and townships, while few live in cities and towns, and few engage in commerce. In the past, there were very few rural markets for folk exchange in Tujia areas. After 1949, in larger districts and townships such as Chadianzi and Yesanguan, there were already several state-run shops or supply and marketing cooperatives. But some people still had the notion that selling things was undignified; there were also some Tujia living in mountain hollows who had never even been to a market, let alone engaged in commerce.
Mountain Life
Now, on the surface, Tujia clothing seems similar to that of the local Han, and only a few traces of ancient dress remain faintly visible. But the clothing of Tujia elders in high mountain areas and the garments they have preserved are not only very different from those of the Han, but also markedly different from the clothing of the Miao and Dong.
The Tujia once had a stage in which both men and women wore short jackets, tube skirts, went barefoot, and wore their hair in a mallet-shaped bun, dressing alike. Only after the Qing dynasty's 'replacing native officials with centrally appointed officials' did men's and women's attire begin to differ; by the early period of New China, apart from women changing from skirts to trousers, their clothing had changed little over 200 years. Before 1949, there was a fairly large difference in dress between rich and poor households; after 1949, there was no great difference.
Tujia women wrapped their heads with a ring-shaped black silk or cloth turban seven chi or fourteen chi long. Their upper garments were short jackets of hemp or cotton with low collars, left-side fastening with a large front, and wide sleeves, sewn from homespun, home-woven, and home-dyed Tujia cloth. Older women liked blue and black cloth garments, and some elderly people also wore collarless clothes. For festive dress, middle-aged women mostly preferred pink and blue patterned garments (ordinarily they wore plain-colored upper garments, embroidered with floral patterns only at the two lower corners). Women's garments had collars about five fen high, with three decorative bands on them, called 'three-strand sinew'; the shoulder yoke was on the outside, and along the outer edge of the shoulder yoke and the front edge below it was trimmed a wide blue border, below which were attached three more narrow bands of five-color plum blossom strips of equal width. The chest had hooked embroidery, and the cuffs and front edges were decorated with small floral borders. Ordinarily, women's upper garments were of two kinds, collarless and low-collared, and long-fronted (reaching below the knees) and short-fronted. On a plain-colored garment base, the shoulder yoke and front edges were both pressed with strips of cloth of another color. At the left and right corners or one corner of the front opening, some were embroidered with small flowers, and the cuffs were also trimmed with a strip of cloth of another color. Married women nursing infants had relatively large cuffs; they rolled up the sleeves to make it convenient for the infant to suckle. When working, women also wore an 'apron.' Women's 'eight-panel pleated skirts' had many pleats and were straight, and some were also embroidered with patterns, dignified and elegant; some women wore wide-legged trousers, and several inches above the trouser cuffs were often trimmed with two or three five-color plum blossom strips or plain-colored cloth strips.
Tujia girls went barefoot when young, and when grown all wore cloth shoes they made themselves. In the past, Tujia girls generally began learning to make shoes at eight or nine and to embroider at eleven or twelve; whoever embroidered prettier flowers on her shoes would be praised by neighbors and villagers.
Women had many ornaments, and they were quite distinctive. Besides silver hairpins in the hair bun, when in festive dress they also wore gold and silver hair flowers of various styles and silver earrings such as 'lantern,' 'melon seed,' 'single ring,' and 'double ring'; on the right-side fastening at the chest they wore a 'silver ring,' from which hung eight strings of silver chains, and on the chains were attached silver plaques, silver bells, silver teeth, and silver ear picks; on the wrists they wore bracelets; and on the fingers they wore rings.
Men's adornment was relatively simple. They wrapped their heads with blue-black or white Tujia cloth turbans in the shape of the character 'ren'; in the past they also wore earrings on the left ear, but this is now rarely seen. Young men liked to wear front-fastening short jackets with seven, nine, or eleven pairs of buttons, varying in number. Older men often wore collarless full-front short garments, and in the past also wore plain-colored cloth strips around the opening of the short jacket, wearing 'pipa-front' garments; over the short jacket they wore a black cloth single outer garment, commonly called a 'magpie jacket.' Men mostly wore white cloth waist aprons and wide-legged trousers of blue or black cloth, and wrapped 'cloth foot bindings' (also called 'leg wrappings') from the knee to the ankle. When farming they mostly went barefoot or wore straw sandals, and only when at leisure or visiting guests did they wear black cloth shoes.
In the past, the Tujia people mostly made a living by fishing and hunting, felling trees in the mountains, and slash-and-burn farming, with corn as their staple grain and rice as a supplement. In recent years, the areas where rice is the staple grain have increased, but many people still rely mainly on corn, potatoes, and buckwheat. The housewife grinds the corn into flour and steams it in a pot steamer on the tripod over the fire pit, or cooks it into cornmeal rice. In places such as Yongshun, Longshan, Laifeng, and Hefeng, people often mix rice and corn together to eat; that is, they add water to a pot, boil a small amount of rice, then stir in cornmeal and cook it through. The resulting steamed rice is both fragrant and filling, and is called 'gold-wrapped silver' rice.
In everyday meals, the Tujia people like to put all the dishes into a pot and boil them together, sprinkle on chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, chopped scallions, minced ginger, and other seasonings, and then each family member fills a bowl and eats around the fire pit.
On festivals or when guests come, the Tujia people like to make dishes from beans. They often grind soybeans into a slurry before the New Year; when serving with a meal, they bring the soybean liquid to a boil, add fresh green vegetables, and cook them to go with rice. The Tujia call this dish 'hezha' (in some places it is called 'lazy tofu'). The Tujia in the southeastern Chongqing area like to boil soybean liquid and curdle it into 'douhua' (tofu pudding), season it with wild pepper and salt, and serve it with meals; it is called 'douhua rice' and has a distinctive flavor.
Every Tujia household has a pickled vegetable jar and dried chili peppers, and no meal is complete without pickled vegetables and chilies. In the past, poor families had no money to buy salt and often used chili peppers for seasoning. Because the mountain spring water they drank was very cold in nature, they often ate chili peppers to warm the stomach and spleen and preserve their health. Therefore, the Tujia have a folk saying: 'Chili peppers serve as salt, and hezha for the New Year.'
The Tujia often use bamboo tubes as conduits to lead spring water into their homes for drinking. Along mountain paths in the wild, they often build simple 'half-sheds' or 'cooling shelters' against the mountain and beside springs, where people can rest briefly, drink water to quench their thirst, and cool off. Many Tujia also set up a special clay pot by the fire pit to boil tea; the tea is very strong and is called 'pot tea.' Some Tujia are skilled at roughly processing old tea leaves into 'laoyin tea'; when boiled in water, it is golden in color and mellow and fragrant. Drinking a small amount can lift the spirits, but drinking too much can make one drowsy, so the Tujia have a folk saying: 'Drinking tea can also make you drunk.'
Ordinarily, Tujia in places such as Xianfeng, Laifeng, and Hefeng also like to make 'oil tea soup.' The Tujia in the branches of the Wuling Mountains cultivate many oil-tea camellia trees. At harvest time, they not only pick the oil-tea seeds from the trees but also gather the seeds that have fallen to the ground, pressing them into tea-seed oil for consumption. To drink oil tea soup, they first heat the iron wok on the fire pit until red-hot, stir-fry tea leaves in tea-seed oil, then add water and bring it to a boil, and finally add sesame seeds, ginger, scallions, salt, and other seasonings, making oil tea soup to accompany meals. When there are guests or during festivals, the Tujia also deep-fry peanuts, walnut kernels, soybeans, puffed rice, puffed corn, and so on, crack in three or four eggs, and put them into the boiling oil tea soup; this is called 'egg tea.' It is delicious and full of mountain-village flavor. The Tujia in western Hunan like to eat fried rice, candied rice cakes, and tuansan. 'Fried rice' is made by first steaming glutinous rice in a steamer, taking it out and drying it in the sun, then frying it with sand until it puffs, which is called 'fried rice.' To eat it, put the fried rice in a bowl, pour boiling water over it, add sugar, and it is ready to drink. 'Candied rice cakes' are made by binding fried rice together with melted maltose, spreading it flat in a wooden frame, sprinkling peanuts, walnut kernels, and sesame seeds on top, and cutting it into pieces or slices to make 'candied rice cakes.' Before Liberation, the Tujia also used them as sacrificial 'offering fruits.' 'Tuansan' is made by first steaming glutinous rice, placing it in a round mold, spreading it out to dry, and forming cooked glutinous rice cakes; when deep-fried they are called 'tuansan,' crisp and delicious. They are stored in jars for the family to eat, to entertain guests, or to give as gifts.
During the New Year and festivals, the Tujia all like to 'make baba' (glutinous rice cakes) to eat, and this has become a traditional custom. For example, the Tang family Tujia in Zoumaping, Hefeng, must make baba to pay New Year calls. Every year on the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth of the twelfth lunar month, every household makes baba. On the prepared glutinous rice baba, they use molds carved from fine wood to stamp various patterns, making 'pattern-printed baba.' After the second day of the New Year, sons-in-law carry baba on shoulder poles to their parents-in-law's home to pay New Year calls. The eldest son-in-law should bring baba printed with the 'two dragons sporting in the sea' pattern. For New Year calls they give large baba, while their own children eat small baba. The more baba made for the New Year, the more it shows the family's wealth. Some Tujia in western Hunan also observe the rule of grouping five baba together as one 'stack.'
The Tujia also have the custom of 'zajiu' (sucking wine). The wine is brewed from glutinous rice, corn, or sorghum with distiller's yeast and stored in jars; generally it is stored for at least seven or eight months, or one year, or even several years. When drinking, they take out the jar, add cold water, insert a bamboo tube, and take turns sucking and drinking, adding water while sucking. It is sweet and fragrant. Today, zajiu is still popular in places such as Shizhu and Xianfeng. In other places, most people now use earthen bowls to hold stronger distilled liquor brewed from corn or rice. Because when the liquor is poured into a bowl, the foam raised by the pouring does not disperse for a long time, the Tujia named this liquor 'duihua wine' (piled-flower wine). The Tujia like to drink, and even without dishes to go with the liquor, they can still drink several bowls.
When relatives and friends come to the home, the Tujia always treat them warmly, and a cup of tea upon entering is indispensable. The Tujia have many kinds of tea for guests. If a distinguished guest or elder comes, egg tea is served; if a rare guest or distant guest comes, oil tea is served; if an ordinary or frequent guest comes, plain tea is served; during the first lunar month, guests are served rice tea; in the ninth and tenth months, chrysanthemum tea is served; at festive banquets, sugar tea is served. When distinguished guests come or happy events are held, the Tujia often hold banquets to celebrate. In the areas of Hefeng, Wufeng, and Changyang, there are generally two kinds: 'crispy steamed banquet' and 'chopped banquet.' The 'crispy steamed banquet' has main dishes such as crispy pork, steamed pork with preserved vegetables, and steamed meat. The 'chopped banquet' has main dishes such as covered-surface meat and stewed meat. 'Covered-surface meat,' also called 'bridge-crossing meat,' 'large-piece meat,' or 'large-chunk meat,' is fatty pork cut into thick slices, arranged in a bridge shape, covering the mouth of a lotus bowl; inside the bowl are fragrant seasonings, tasty lean meat, ribs, and so on. The covered-surface meat may weigh two liang, four liang, or even half a jin, showing on the one hand the host's generosity and hospitality, and on the other hand the host's wealth. The host earnestly offers meat to the guests; if the guests do not decline, the host feels extremely happy. At Tujia banquets, besides chicken, pork, and eggs, meat from wild birds and wild animals is also served as 'mountain delicacies.' After distinguished guests arrive, the host often goes hunting in the mountains to entertain them. In summer, they drink turtledove and golden pheasant soup to relieve heat; in autumn, they eat wild boar, river deer, and muntjac meat to nourish the body; in winter, they eat hare and wild mutton to ward off cold. Giant salamanders and pangpang (spiny-breasted frogs) are both edible 'wild freshness' growing in streams and caves, and hosts often use them to entertain guests.
Their most distinctive way of preserving food is cured and smoked bacon. Tujia households in the Wuling Mountain area raise a 'New Year pig' every year, and there are many kinds and sources of pig feed. They begin slaughtering the New Year pig in the twelfth lunar month and roast 'bacon.' First, fresh meat is salted in a vat, then taken out after being smoked over a slow fire of cypress branches and the like, and hung high in a place under the eaves that is both smoky and ventilated. The resulting bacon has orange-yellow skin and delicious meat, and some can be kept for several years without spoiling. The Tujia always like to steam or boil 'bacon' to entertain guests.
The foundations of Tujia houses were all chosen in high and perilous places. This was related to the fact that during the Tusi period, Tujia leaders relied on mountains and natural defenses to resist invaders. The location of houses mostly made use of mountain forms, either 'facing south with the back to the north' or 'facing north with the back to the south,' which could both avoid wind and cold and catch the sun for warmth.
Tujia villages are often inhabited by the same clan and surname, or by several surnames of the same clan living together. Therefore, many place names in Tujia areas are related to local mountain forms or surnames. In Tujia concentrated areas, at least the elderly are completely clear about which places are Tujia villages.
In the past, only Tujia officials and Tusi were allowed to build houses with wood, cover roofs with tiles, and carve various floral patterns and designs on pillars and beams. Even how high a house could be built was strictly regulated. Houses built by common Tujia people could only have two stories, and each story could not exceed one zhang and eight chi in height, so as to strictly distinguish them from the height of the Tujia king's palace. Ordinary farming households were only allowed to weave house walls from bamboo, branches, corn stalks, and the like, and cover the roofs with thatch, commonly called 'a thousand pillars landing on the ground'; the thatched houses were low and short, with fires burning inside and wind blowing through on all sides, so that from outside one could see the activities of the people inside. When Tujia officials built houses, they relied entirely on conscripting Tujia labor; when farming households built houses, they always exchanged labor and helped one another. They always chose dates with the number eight in the ancient calendar, such as the eighth, eighteenth, and twenty-eighth, to build and repair houses, so the Tujia have a folk saying: 'If you want to prosper, do not leave eight.'
Nowadays, houses in Tujia areas are generally mostly 'three pillars, four riders, three rooms' or 'five pillars, four riders, three rooms,' with wooden houses having board walls, and some with rammed earth walls. There are also large houses with six rows and five rooms or ten rows and nine rooms, but not many. The Tujia in western Hunan and Hubei have a three-room earthen house. The central hall is the place for ancestral worship and receiving guests. The left wing room is for living, and the right wing room has the 'huopu tang' for lighting fires and cooking, containing a fire pit, also called the 'fire pit room.' Around the fire pit, bricks and stones are used to build a pit frame, and in the center an iron tripod is placed as a stove for cooking food. Above the fire pit hangs a wooden drying rack for drying and roasting food. On some drying racks there is a 'chongdan gou' that can be raised and lowered, similar to a pulley, which can both hang objects and hold a pot for boiling water. Some households lay floorboards around the fire pit for people to sit and lie on. Some partition the interior with wooden boards, and the small room at the back is for sleeping and storing miscellaneous items. Their living quarters differ according to seniority, with men and women separated. Behind the house there is a half-sloping or fully sloping extension, enclosed with wormwood stalks, which can be used to pile miscellaneous items or as a toilet.
Most Tujia live in stilt houses; some have the pillars of a half-wing room suspended to form a hanging-foot building, with people living above and livestock pens for pigs and cattle below; others build one or two hanging-foot buildings connected to one or both sides of the main house, with women weaving hemp and spinning on the upper level,
making shoes and embroidering flowers, while below livestock are raised and firewood and grass are stored. Most hanging-foot buildings have an empty ground floor, without woven fencing, and some are enclosed with stone walls to prevent harm from animals. The hanging-foot buildings also have balconies enclosed with wooden railings. Wealthy families carved flowers and plants on the railings and window lattices, with an antique and elegant style and a distinctive character. The hanging-foot buildings avoid wind and cold, are well ventilated and dry, warm in winter and cool in summer, and comfortable to live in.
On the walls in front of Tujia houses and on the hanging-foot buildings, ears of corn or strings of tobacco leaves hang everywhere. In front of every house there is a relatively broad drying yard, and outside the drying yard stone walls are often piled up. Behind the house, bamboo grows densely and serves as a natural fence. This is the beautiful scene of a Tujia mountain village.
Before 1949, for the people of all ethnic groups living in the towering mountains at the borders of Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, and Guizhou, traveling to see one another was very inconvenient. When people went to market, they had to walk more than ten li uphill and more than ten li downhill, or even dozens of li. After reaching the market town and staying only briefly, they had to turn back. Therefore, many elderly people had never once gone to a market in their lives, and few visited relatives. 'You can answer a shout across the mountain, but it takes half a day to walk there.' They mostly went out to visit relatives and friends only during festivals.
Transportation in the mountainous areas of Hunan and Hubei was extremely inconvenient. Goods were mostly transported by animal power, and also by people carrying on shoulder poles or on their backs. The livestock were mostly short, small Sichuan horses, yellow cattle, and mules produced in the south. Each animal carried only a few hundred jin and moved slowly along rugged mountain roads.
For manual transport, people mostly used bamboo woven back baskets, wooden single-wheel carts, long-handled bamboo winnowing baskets, and 'horse clips' made of wooden frames. In particular, back baskets were the most commonly used. 'The person never leaves the basket, and the basket never leaves the back' is a true portrayal of Tujia carrying. Men and women in Tujia mountain villages relied entirely on back baskets to carry home grass cut in the mountains, firewood gathered, and harvested grain. Before 1949, their unit of calculation for carrying grain and corn was called a 'yun'; one 'yun' was 120 to 140 jin. When Tujia women went out, they always put their children in a back basket, placed some food inside, stuck in a paper umbrella, and carried it on their backs as they walked.
There are many large and small rivers and streams between the Wuling and Dalou mountain ranges, so the Tujia used boats as transport tools. The mountainous border area of Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing, and Guizhou is rich in bamboo and timber. They used bamboo rafts and wooden rafts to float logs downstream and transport large quantities of bamboo and timber to other places. There are many skilled rafters in Tujia mountain villages. The rafting chants of the Youshui, Qingjiang, and Wujiang rivers each have their own style. Changes in Production and Life
The production and way of life of the Tujia people, with social changes, especially after the founding of New China, have not only changed greatly compared with before, but also rapidly.
Before 1949, the Tujia areas where 'one foot treads on three provinces' or 'one foot treads on four provinces' could truly be called 'poor and remote places.' At that time, warlords and bureaucrats ran rampant, local despots acted wildly, and bandits kidnapped people everywhere. These three acted as one and colluded with one another, harming the Tujia people. Even passing merchants were unwilling to come here to trade, and social production stagnated and declined. With the founding of New China, great changes took place in Tujia concentrated areas, especially the relatively rapid development of industrial and agricultural production.
Before the founding of New China, there was no industry in Tujia areas. Processing relied on some handicrafts and workshops. In a county town there were at most two or three semi-mechanized, semi-handicraft factories making socks, towels, and the like. Yongshun was a relatively large county town in western Hunan, but it had only one factory that used an automobile engine to generate electricity. Most towns had no electrical machinery at all; in the vast Tujia rural mountain villages, farmers walking at night relied on 'fire sticks,' and at home they lit pine torches. Being able to light a 'tung oil lamp' or 'rapeseed oil lamp' was already considered good. After the founding of New China, modern industry, mining, and energy industries rose in the towns of Tujia areas. After more than fifty years of construction, industries such as electric power, electronics, agricultural machinery, building materials, and ethnic crafts sprang up like bamboo shoots after rain. Among them, hydropower construction was especially prominent. Changyang and Jianshi counties have joined the ranks of the nation's one hundred hydropower counties. Therefore, the industrial output value of the border area of the four provinces and municipalities has grown several times or even dozens of times. Xiangxi Prefecture had only more than 30 handicraft workshops and workshops in 1952, but by 1985 it had 949 modern industrial and mining enterprises, with a total industrial output value of 476 million yuan. Enshi Prefecture had only 44 small industrial enterprises in 1952, but by 1985 industrial enterprises had increased to 994, with an output value of 455 million yuan. The other seven autonomous counties each had roughly 200 industrial and mining enterprises. By 2001, the total industrial output value above designated size was 4.2 billion yuan for Xiangxi Prefecture and 3.4 billion yuan for Enshi Prefecture; Hubei's two Tujia autonomous counties: Changyang 875 million yuan, Wufeng 240 million yuan; Chongqing municipality's four autonomous counties: Shizhu 223 million yuan, Xiushan 248 million yuan, Youyang 86 million yuan, Pengshui 151 million yuan; Guizhou Tongren Prefecture's two autonomous counties: Yinjiang 44 million yuan, Yanhe 49 million yuan. The industry of all prefectures and counties made considerable progress compared with before reform and opening up. Some Tujia villages, with the establishment and development of modern industry, have become newly emerging small cities, and there is more than just one or two towns of this type; they are twinkling like stars in the night sky.
Before 1949, in the remote deep mountains and old forests where the Tujia lived, there was at most an 'old main road' paved with stone slabs. In some places there was not even such a road. Transport mainly relied on people carrying on shoulder poles, carrying on their backs, and oxen, mules, and horses carrying loads. There were not many places where large wooden-wheeled single-wheel carts could be used. The Sichuan-Hunan Highway in the border area of the four provinces passed through southeastern Sichuan and entered western Hunan. Within western Hunan, the highway was 178 kilometers long, and only one automobile ran on it. Western Hubei had only one Bashí Highway, more than 300 kilometers long, from Badong to Shimenkan. Transportation was so isolated that 'you could not get in, and you could not get out.' After 1949, the transportation situation in Tujia mountain areas changed greatly. From Wuhan to Enshi used to take at least three days and three nights; now by plane it can be reached in one hour. Dayong had long since built an airport, and it has become Zhangjiajie City, a tourist city open to domestic and international visitors, with flights to major Chinese cities. The road network in Tujia concentrated areas has already been built. Provinces, prefectures, and counties are all connected by roads, and 95% of townships have bus service. The postal and telecommunications network was built long ago and has modern communications equipment such as radio facsimile. Transportation can be said to reach in all directions, changing the condition of being 'isolated from the world.'
Agriculture in Tujia concentrated areas has also changed greatly. In the past, it was extensive cultivation with low yields, relying on heaven for food. Now, many places have adopted intensive cultivation and scientific farming. In the past, the agricultural structure was single, planting only grain; now, adapting to local conditions, they engage in diversified operations and are changing the industrial structure. In the past, everything relied on human and animal power; now electric machinery is used, and they are developing toward agricultural modernization. Places such as Hefeng and Lichuan in Enshi Prefecture are already piloting and promoting 'computer agriculture.'
After 1949, the total agricultural output value of the Tujia areas increased year by year. Compared with before 1949, the annual growth rate is generally around 4%–5%, which is a fairly rapid pace of development. By 2001, the total agricultural output value was: 3.556 billion yuan for Xiangxi Prefecture in Hunan, 7.761 billion yuan for Enshi Prefecture, 938 million yuan for Changyang, 554 million yuan for Wufeng, 782 million yuan for Shizhu, 900 million yuan for Xiushan, 1.008 billion yuan for Youyang, 1.029 billion yuan for Pengshui, 708 million yuan for Yinjiang, and 727 million yuan for Yanhe.
After the founding of New China, with the development of socialist economic construction, industrial and agricultural production underwent great changes, the living standards of the Tujia people improved markedly, and their way of life changed as well. When the author visited Tujia elders in the 1950s, they described life in the old society: "Eating corn mush, wearing palm-leaf clothing, covered with corn husks, living in thatched huts." This was indeed a true portrayal of their lives at the time. In Caoguo Township of Xichehe in Longshan, there were 153 Tujia households; in the early days of New China, 123 of them lacked grain, and more than 70 had never worn cotton-padded clothes. In Yueliang Township of Laifeng, 70% of Tujia farming households could not eat their fill or dress warmly.
After the founding of New China, more than 80% of farming households in Tujia-concentrated areas solved the problem of food and clothing, and the lives of the vast majority of Tujia people improved. Their staple food was no longer corn but mostly rice. In the past, Tujia people in Longshan, Yongshun and other places, during the slack autumn
and winter farming seasons, ate only two meals a day; now this has changed to three meals. Although Tujia people still like chili peppers, they now grow vegetables beside their houses and in their gardens. Farming households near towns even have surplus vegetables to sell, and some go to trade in distant small and medium-sized cities. The annual meat consumption of each household is no longer just a few jin or a dozen jin, but several tens of jin — "every household slaughters a pig for the New Year"; their finely made cured meat and ham are also sold at market.
Thatched huts resting on "four posts" have almost disappeared. Between 40% and 90% of Tujia farming households have built single-story houses and multi-story buildings of earth, wood, brick and tile. In the past, entire villages were often made up of stilted houses (diaojiaolou); now, most are new-style rural buildings rising from the ground.
In the past, Tujia daily necessities were not only few in quantity but also limited in variety. Now many Tujia farming households have begun to use high-grade and durable goods. In the 1980s, home appliances reached not only the towns of Tujia areas but also farmers' homes. In Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture, every hundred households had 3 television sets; in Hefeng County of Enshi Autonomous Prefecture, because Tujia people had so many televisions, a satellite television ground receiving station was established to give full play to the role of television.
By 2001, thanks to the relatively rapid development of agriculture and the rise of diversified operations and courtyard economies, the income of Tujia farmers had increased greatly. Per capita net income of farmers: 1,293 yuan in Xiangxi Prefecture, 1,467 yuan in Enshi Prefecture, 1,790 yuan in Changyang, 1,464 yuan in Wufeng, 1,236 yuan in Shizhu, 1,354 yuan in Xiushan, 1,358 yuan in Youyang, 1,428 yuan in Pengshui, 1,312 yuan in Yinjiang, and 1,162 yuan in Yanhe. It can be seen that the per capita net income of farmers in the various Tujia autonomous areas has increased severalfold or even tenfold compared with before 1978. Many Tujia farming households have shaken off poverty and become well-off, their lives have improved, and life continues to develop in a better direction, advancing toward a moderately prosperous society with each passing day.