Guiyang Trip, Day 3, Oct. 4, 2017. Funeral and Short Skirt Village.

Wednesday, October 04, 2017

We met at 8 am today so we could hurry and get to a Miao village that was further up the mountain.  This tribe of the Miao are called the “Short Skirt” Miao.  The guide was starting to show us parts of the village and he finds out that there was a person that died last night, so they were going to be dancing in the village square.  We were told that we were lucky to come and see them today because they celebrate the death of someone as passing into a better life.  

Two of the older women of the village.  They all wear that "top knot" on their heads with flowers and or silver decoration.  Some of the hair is the woman's own hair, some is hair of an ancestor (mother, grandmother that they honoring) and some is thread.  It was interesting to see the way the knot was wound into the hair piece.

The women were busy getting dressed in their costumes and the men were busy preparing a feast.  We saw the freshly slaughtered pigs waiting to be cooked.  They were in the process of bringing the body down from the house he died in and we were told to not take pictures of the body because of what they believe about it. 

As they were preparing the body and bringing it down the mountain side, these men played and played.  

While the women were busy getting ready to dance for the dead, the men were busy preparing the food for the feast after the burial.

David and I started down the steps to go to an area that we thought would take us back to the village square when a woman (I think she was about 30 or so) encouraged me to come down to her.  When I reached the step next to her, she took my hand and led me through some narrow paths and between houses to an area and then indicated that I should go up to the home up there.  After she showed me where to go, then she left.  David was with me and one of the other men in our group had followed us. 

This is the area that the woman was leading me to.

The house at the top of the hill that she wanted me to see.

The walkway that eventually led us to the village square.

After we looked around a bit, we went down and wandered the village to try and find the Square.  A Chinese man and his wife, who were touring here, were coming in one of the entrances.  He knew a little English and wanted to speak with us.  We had a nice visit and then we needed to go find the rest of our group.  

We passed by these granaries.  They put the buildings on stilts above waters so that the rats can't get into the grain.

That water didn't look too good.

We waited in the square for quite some time, and it looked like they were almost ready, so we stayed a little longer.  We enjoyed their dance.  After they sang a song, each of the women were given a little bowl and had something poured in it.  I thought it might be water, but our guide warned us that it was rice wine.  The women came out into the crowd and offered a bowl to each of many of the people, us included, and almost all the people there, even the Chinese, turned them down.

After that, we hurried to the bus and went to the larger Miao Village where they did performances from several fractions of the Miao Minority people.  There are about nine million Miao in China and they are related to the Hmong people that migrated from China to southeastern Asia.  We only got about 15 minutes of the performance.  

Once again, we found ourselves sitting at small tables in tiny stools to eat our lunch at a restaurant there.  We also purchased some of their local wares. Women would come up to us and invited us to go see what they had for sale either on a table that had been set up with some things to sell or some even had a small building they could sell from.  It was fun to go and see what they had and then barter with them to get the price we wanted and they could live with.  

This woman is part of the "Long Skirt" Miao. When they were classifying the different minorities, they couldn't successfully make the distinctions until they started making the distinctions by their dress and culture differences.

Some of the women had bought tapestries or needle work and the guide wanted to take us to someone who collects them and had some for sale.  It was nice to see some of the work that was in some cases almost a lost art among the people.

This is a baby carrier that was made by the grandmother for a grandchild.  They usually start working on it after their child is about to marry.  Because of how intricate some of the designs are it would take them several years to finish one.  The child goes on your back, the top part is put around the child and then the straps cross in front and tie in back of you under the child's bum.  The long part on the bottom adjusts to the size of the child.

We drove three hours back to Guiyang and got checked in at the same hotel we had stayed in before.  It is a pretty nice hotel

.  We went to the local KFC for supper and then back to the hotel for time on the computer and bed.