The five-year-old speaker selection competition was not held in the end, and Ah Cai still had the power to decide on several major events in the village.
Ah Cai's apprentice, Ah Mao, has undergone some changes and has become particularly good at sleeping. From eight hours a day at the beginning, to more than ten hours a day later.
At its most severe, it would take three or four days for him to wake up for a few minutes. No one expected that Amao's condition would last for three years.
When Amao first became lethargic, he explained the reason to his master, which was because the Insect King wanted to completely merge with himself.
Although Ah Cai had never experienced such a process, he still knew clearly that this was the only hope for changing Xinmiao Village, so he simply sent people to guard Amao for three years.
Amao did not disappoint. After waking up, he became the most powerful being in Xinmiao Village. As long as there are animals and insects, he is the king of that place.
According to the records handed down in the village, Amao lived to be 160 years old and was the talker who had been in charge of the Miao Village for the longest time since the founding of the new Miao Village.
When he was fifty years old, he went alone to the ancient Miao tribe in the mountains.
After returning from the Gu Miao tribe, Amao ordered all the new Miao villages to move to the areas of Guizhou Chief Envoys, Yunnan Chief Envoys, Sichuan Chengxuan Chief Envoys and Hunan Chief Envoys, which is today's Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan and
Xiangxi region.
Amao spent the rest of his life doing one thing. Like his master, he began to study the inheritance of the Insect King.
Over the past few decades, although there have been many more intelligent animals in Xinmiao Village relying on their special abilities, they still have not been able to study how the two-color butterflies are inherited.
After learning about Amao's death, the next leader understood what was going on.
The respected people in the village were buried under trees. Amao's apprentice, according to Amao's request, found the largest tree in the village.
Put small tree strips side by side on the two branches of the big tree, and then spread the branches on top to build a platform just right for people to lie on. Then wrap Amao tightly with good white fabric and place it
on the platform.
In fact, tree burial is a burial custom passed down by the Yi and Tibetan people. Even now it is an important funeral custom of the Tibetan people.
There is a legend about "tree burial" circulating in the Yi area of Yunnan: "In the Han Dynasty, when Zhuge Liang was alive, the concubine of General Meng Huo, the ancestor of the Yi people, died. Meng Huo asked his subordinates to wrap the body in silk satin and bury it in
On the green pine tree. People sang and danced around the tree to mourn this beautiful concubine."
Local people also said that after tree burial, the bones fell from the tree and were difficult to deal with. So they packed the bones wrapped in silk satin in buckets or put them in the tree hole. Some said they put them in the spiritual chamber, which is called
"Ghost Bucket".
There are four types of tree burials. They are distinguished by their form and wooden frame structure.
The first is to hang the corpse on a tree: This burial method has many examples in Chinese historical documents and ethnological materials. The specific method is to wrap the corpse with rags or brown leather and put it in a bamboo basket; hang the bamboo basket on
The body was allowed to decompose naturally in the woods of the mountain.
The second type is to tie the corpse to a tree: This burial method is to tie the deceased directly to the tree with rattan or rope. Not much information is left about this burial method.
The third and most commonly used method is to place the corpse on the platform: that is, put small tree branches side by side on the two branches of the big tree, and then spread the branches on top to build a small platform, and then place the deceased on the platform.
Put it on the platform.
The fourth method is for babies who died young. Burial in a tree hole: dig a hole in a big tree and put the baby's body into the hole.
The burial custom of Wenshan Miao people that has been passed down to this day is special. After the death of an old man of Wenshan Miao people, the way to bury the corpse is to put it in the coffin or mount it on a horse.
The so-called coffin placement means putting the body into a wooden coffin and parking it; the so-called mounting means placing the body on a frame called a horse rack for several days, and then putting it into the wooden coffin on the day of burial.
When an old man dies, after bathing, changing clothes, and showing directions, he needs to be placed in a coffin or mounted on a horse according to the rules of each surname or clan.
When a family needs to mount a horse, the filial son has to ask someone to cut bamboo and wood from the mountains to make a frame. This frame is called "horse frame" or "neni" in Miao language.
The horse frame is ready and placed in the hall. First, the Lusheng hand plays the horse-sacrifice tune, then the body is placed on the horse frame, and then the horse frame is rolled into a tube shape, and the body is wrapped around the horse, about the same height as a human chest.
Early in the morning on the day of the funeral, the horse frame is moved to the open space outside the house. This is called "going out" by the Miao people.
On this day, cattle and pigs are sacrificed to the deceased. After noon, the funeral is held and the body is carried to the cemetery for burial.
After digging the grave, assemble the loose wooden coffin boards brought by the funeral procession in the grave, untie the horse frame, move the body out and put it into the wooden coffin, close the coffin lid, cover it with earth, bury it, and build the tomb.
Finally, the horse frame was cut open with a knife, and the scattered wooden poles, bamboo strips, etc. were placed on the grave. Some Miao people's ancient custom of mounting horses to bury corpses has not changed to this day.
Having said that, on the morning of the Miao Year in the second year after Amao's death, people would put the delicious food on the stove next to the fire pond to worship their ancestors.
The Miao New Year is no less than the Spring Festival of the Han people, but it is in the autumn season. The new leader, Amao's apprentice, dressed in costumes and danced with the young men and women in the village before heading to the master's tomb.
Worship.
After arriving at the giant tree, the new leader saw that the stone platform where the master's body was placed was overgrown with weeds, and he easily reached the spiritual platform with a few jumps.
I saw an extra silkworm chrysalis on the white fabric wrapping the master's body, and the silkworm chrysalis emitted two black and white rays of light.
"It turns out to be like this."
The new leader has followed Amao to study the inheritance of bicolor butterflies for many years. At this time, when he saw the black bicolor silkworm chrysalis, he suddenly realized it.
After bringing the two-color silkworm chrysalis back to the village, another year passed. The silkworm chrysalis hatched into a two-color butterfly.
Amao once told his apprentice the process of a two-color butterfly recognizing its owner. The new leader reached out to the butterfly, but the butterfly flapped its wings lazily and did not crawl towards his finger.
The new leader tried all kinds of methods, but in the end the butterfly just crawled around in his hand and did not get into his arm, let alone leave a tattoo mark.
Things took a turn for the worse when the leader's daughter was born. The whole village came to the leader's house to celebrate the newborn. It was like celebrating the Miao New Year in the village that day, with everyone singing, dancing and getting drunk.
At night, the leader was looking at the infant girl smiling at him, when suddenly a butterfly landed on the baby girl's shoulder.
The leader instantly recognized that it was the insect king that had broken out of its cocoon and was reborn.
The two-color butterfly stayed on the baby girl's shoulder for a while, and a pool of transparent liquid appeared on the shoulder. In the blink of an eye, the butterfly disappeared, leaving a butterfly tattoo mark on the baby girl's shoulder.
"It turns out that the Insect King will choose the people he wants to fuse with."
The leader looked at the butterfly tattoo on his daughter's shoulder and murmured to himself.
The baby girl did indeed become sleepy as the master said, and it was not until she was three years old that her routine became the same as that of a normal child.
In the following years, wherever the baby girl appeared, there were always various butterflies surrounding her.
Through twenty years of observation, the leader discovered that the baby girl did not acquire as many abilities as his master. Especially after the daughter got married, her ability to sense insects and animals almost disappeared, and she could only follow animals at close range.
comminicate.
The leader recorded the information about the two-color butterfly in the notes left by the master, preparing to pass it on to his daughter as a legacy.
In this way, each generation of people selected by the Insect King will record information about the Insect King in this sheepskin manual.
As the manual became thicker and thicker, the people chosen by the Insect King had new names. The men were called "Gu Sheng" and the women were called "Gu Women".
At the same time, the voodoo girl has a disadvantage, that is, as long as she marries and loses her husband, she will lose most of the insect king's abilities.
For hundreds of years, the Xin Miao Village had almost no contact with the ancient Miao tribe. Until the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, when wars broke out, the ancient Miao tribe dispersed into many branches and began to migrate to the Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan areas. However, the ancient Miao village chose to stay further away.
In areas with large crowds, people still live in isolation.
During this period, the war affected the village, and people began to run around to avoid the war. Almost all of the sheepskin notes were accidentally lost, leaving only a note from the original leader of Amao: Do not have any conflicts with the ancient Miao village.
It was also during this period that the Gu girls in Xinmiao Village began to never marry again. Their only purpose in life was to maintain the peace and stability of the village.
In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the insect king experienced another mutation. Gu Sheng's apprentice removed the two-color silkworm chrysalis from the corpse of Gu Sheng a year after his death.
This time, it took three years for the silkworm chrysalis to hatch. What was different from the past was that in addition to a black and white butterfly, there was also a seven-color butterfly hatched from the silkworm chrysalis.
It didn't take long for the two-color butterfly to choose a new Gu girl. The other seven-color butterfly did not choose to merge with anyone. It just liked to stay in a small bamboo basket woven with bamboo. Occasionally it would come out and fly around the bamboo basket a few times, flying around.