The customs and habits of various ethnic groups in Rongshui Miao Autonomous County can be said to have their own merits, but there are also similarities. After the reform and opening up, especially after entering the 21st century, the customs and habits of various ethnic groups have changed to varying degrees. The reason is that people have become more affluent, the content of festivals has increased, and the number and amount of gifts, wedding and funeral gifts, and festival offerings have increased. However, the residential areas within an ethnic group are not exactly the same, but there is a trend of convergence between different ethnic groups. For example, in addition to traditional gifts, all ethnic groups give wardrobes, electrical appliances, Simmons mattresses, motorcycles, etc. as wedding gifts. The following is a description of the traditional customs and habits of the Miao people. Residence. The Miao people live in villages on the mountains. Generally, there are more than 10 households in a small village and more than 500 households in a large village. Most of the houses are stilt wooden buildings with curved outlines. The stilt buildings have a compact structure and do not use iron nails. The pillars are connected to the beams and are linked together. The craftsmanship is very high. There are side buildings on both sides of the building, and the roof is covered with fir bark or tiles. There is a corridor upstairs, and the door leads to the fire hall. There is a heated bed on the fire hall, which is also the kitchen. The downstairs is a place for raising livestock and storing sundries. The whole building is made of fir wood. Food. The Miao people have always eaten glutinous rice as their staple food, supplemented with corn, cassava, sweet potato, taro, etc. The Miao people like to drink. They use rice sugar to make wine yeast and brew glutinous rice sweet wine. Generally, they drink it without boiling or filtering the dregs. It is called "water wine". Whenever entertaining guests or holding weddings, they must drink wine. There is a habit of singing drinking songs, changing wine, and shouting for wine. They like pickled and sour food. Clothing. The Miao people's clothing in the country is similar, and most of the fabrics are Tibetan blue home-woven cloth. Men's clothing is simple, while women's clothing is elegant. Men wear short jackets with real collars and long trousers with wide crotch. They wrap their heads with blue scarves, and the ends of the scarves are rolled into zigzag lace with green silk threads. The buttons are mostly solid, and some have as many as 13 cloth buttons. Women wear collarless and buttonless jackets with a ribbon at the waist and cross on the left waist. The lapels, hems and cuffs are embroidered with Miao brocade pattern lace. A prismatic chest is tied on the chest with very delicate patterns. The lower body wears knee-length shorts or a pleated skirt. The calves are tied with leggings, tied with a green silk ribbon about 6 cm wide, and the head is wrapped with batik flower scarves, or the hair is tied in a bun with silver hairpins. Since the 1950s, more and more young men wear Han costumes, but women still wear Miao costumes, especially during festivals, and the fabrics are diversified. The Miao people have exquisite embroidery, brocade, batik and silver ornaments. Women like to embroider various flowers, birds, insects, fish and the like on collars, cuffs, hems, chests and foot covers, which are lifelike. Among them, the strap cores commonly used by young women are the essence of embroidery and patterns. The Miao people weave brocade. The method is to put the light yarn shaft that has been pulled on the loom, and then use a smooth cow bone or bamboo piece to pick through one or several light yarns according to the needs of the pattern, and then introduce a weft. The brocade is wide and narrow, used as a winning bag, and the brocade of the strap core and the quilt cover are all woven with colorful silk threads. The patterns and designs are novel, the colors are bright and harmonious, and the imagination is rich and the skills are skillful. The "Hundred Birds Clothes" can be called the "unique" of Miao clothing. It is finely crafted and the production process is complicated. It takes half a year to make a set. The "Hundred Birds Clothes" collected by a woman in Gandong Village, Gandong Township, is a combination of embroidery, brocade and batik, and can be called a treasure of Miao crafts. Miao women are also good at batik. They spread white cloth on the table, put beeswax or rosin in a small pot, heat it and dissolve it into juice, and then use bamboo needles or wax knives to paint on the cloth. Generally, they do not make samples, but only paint according to their ideas. The various patterns they draw are symmetrical and appropriate, with flowers, birds, insects and fish, and the yarn is lifelike. After painting, they are put into the dyeing vat for dyeing, then taken out and boiled with clean water, rinsed to remove the wax, and the pattern of blue background with white flowers or black background with white flowers appears. Miao silver ornaments are all made by craftsmen of this ethnic group. Silver ornaments include silver headbands, silver crowns, silver collars, silver bracelets, silver medals, silver chains, silver feathers, silver hairpins, silver flowers, etc. The production is entirely manual, with many processes and great labor. For example, to make a silver headband, the silver must be pulled into silver wires slightly thicker than hair, and then dozens of silver wires are gathered and woven into multi-faceted silver rings. The silver crown is more delicate, and the crown frame is decorated with silver flowers, silver sparrows, silver needles, silver butterflies, silver signs and other ornaments. After entering the 21st century, the Miao people, like other ethnic minorities, have been greatly impacted by foreign cultures. Most people usually wear ordinary clothes. Only during festivals and festive events, some people wear their own ethnic costumes. On the evening of November 8, 2010, the "China Miao Costume Exhibition" was held in Rongshui County. Marriage. The Miao marriage is simple and free. Generally, people with the same surname and clan or opposite sexes do not marry. There is a custom of aunt-uncle marriage, and aunt-uncle brother-sister marriage is prohibited. Many young men and women get to know each other during festivals and mutual labor, get to know each other in the village, and then establish a romantic relationship and exchange tokens of love. After that, they have more frequent exchanges. When both parties think the time is right, the man will send someone to the woman's house to propose marriage. If the woman's parents agree, the man will send someone to bring a chicken, a duck, and a few pickled carp to the woman's house, and then explain the purpose of the visit. The woman's family will write the daughter's birth date to the man. After that, an auspicious day is chosen to pick up the bride. On the day of the wedding, the groom selects a man and a woman, the man plays a small reed pipe, and the woman holds a red umbrella to go to the bride's house to pick up the bride. When the bride goes out, she brings two bridesmaids with her, and several young men play reed pipes to see her off until she meets the groom's bride-picking team. The bride must step over the threshold with her left foot when she enters the house for the first time. After walking around the fire hall three times, the bride sits on a special bride stool, facing east. Then an elder of the family presides over the ceremony, speaks a blessing, and offers the first bowl of wine to the bride with both hands. Then the bridesmaids and the groom's parents come. After three rounds of wine, the host takes out a big sour fish from a plate and ties it with hemp rope and hands it to the bride. The bride symbolically bites the fish head, and the wedding begins. Family members, relatives and friends rush in to greet the bride. After that, the bride and groom toast to their families. The bride usually does not stay overnight and returns after dinner. The groom's escort team has an odd number of people and simple gifts, usually 1 dan of glutinous rice cakes, a small jar of rice wine, a dan of cooked chicken, duck and pork, sour fish, a dan of colored cooked duck eggs, and a basket of candy. The escort team returns after eating a meal at the bride's house. The Miao dowry usually only includes clothes, quilts, hemp baskets, spinning wheels, looms, hoes, etc. The family is monogamous, with men presiding over the family. The husband and wife have equal status and different focuses in life. After brothers get married, they usually set up their own households. Before they separate, the brothers build a house together, with the eldest son living in the new house and the youngest son living in the old house, and they jointly bear the obligation to support their parents. Funeral. The Miao people practice wooden coffin burial. Normally, the deceased is washed and dressed in funeral clothes and placed on a temporary wooden bed. The deceased is a male adult. From the moment he dies, the family must keep asking for rest and firing three gunshots to announce the death. If the victim is a female, a wooden trough will be pounded to announce the death. Generally, the burial will be carried out on the same day or the next day. For those who died of unnatural causes, such as work-related injuries, falling off a cliff, drowning, or being killed by animals, the bodies that have become "unclean" cannot be carried home. Instead, they are buried outside the village and not buried for the time being. Instead, a secluded and clean place is chosen, and the coffin is propped up with wood. The bones are picked up and buried the next year. This burial custom has now been abolished. The gifts for mourning are mainly rice and wine. Relatives can also send a live rooster, and the son-in-law carries a pig or leads a cow. Worship. The Miao people believe in many gods and animism. They are superstitious about gods and ghosts, believe in spirits, and are good at divination. There are also taboos about ghost trees, ghost stones, ghost springs, and ghost mountains. During festivals, incense must be burned and sacrificed to seek blessings. Taboos. Women should avoid the crowing of pheasants and thunder when they get married, and they should choose to get married at night and in winter. It is taboo for two women to get married at the same time or walk the same road. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, no one is allowed to use an axe or knife, let alone quarrel. From the beginning of the February Festival to the New Grain Festival on June 6, no reed pipes are allowed. When hunting wild animals, everyone present is entitled to a share and no one can take it all by themselves. It is taboo to cook rice, hang clothes to dry, burn ash, or carry firewood into the village during the Shemiao Festival, otherwise it will offend the Shemiao gods and affect the harvest.