Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1646 The Name of the Yi People

Soon, the guards entered a small road that Zhou Zhi was familiar with. There were meadows on both sides of the road. What grew on the meadows was not all green grass, but a thicker lichen.

Only in some shady and low-lying areas are there traces of piles of green grass.

This area was once a vast primeval forest and experienced severe soil erosion, and the vegetation has not recovered until now.

Due to the large-scale felling of trees, the humus soil that was once rich in organic matter was washed into the stream by rainwater, and then washed into the Meigu River by the stream. Today, the surrounding area along the way is all the weathered soil that once was the bottom layer, which is poor and fragile.

On the hills along the way, you can see the tremendous efforts the country has made to change this land again. There are some low pine trees growing on these hills.

That is the result of aerial seeding afforestation year after year.

Aerial seeding has also achieved great results, but it is not effective in all areas of the autonomous prefecture. In some places, dense forests have been re-formed over the years, and the vegetation and soil have been partially restored by relying on the re-formation of forests.

But in some places, such as where Zhou Zhi is passing now, because of strong winds and heavy rains, the soil layer is shallow. Except for some forests growing in the valleys, most of the terraces, ridges and mountain tops have only some very short pine trees.

These pine trees are so small that even after growing for many years, they are still not as big as a small bonsai pot in a flowerpot.

In his previous life, Zhou Zhi saw such a "natural bonsai park" for the first time and was amazed. He thought his trip was not in vain. He dug up a tree and moved it into a flowerpot. They were all old stumps that were more than ten years old, and the shapes of the trees were quite beautiful. If he took good care of them, he would be able to enjoy them until they sent him away in the future.

Later, I was educated and realized that every small tree here is precious. They carry the hope of improving this land, not decorating the balconies of residents in big cities.

Thinking of this, Zhou Zhi couldn't help but smile.

Although the land was barren and the roads were simple, the sky was so blue and the air was so fresh. After turning onto the path, it seemed as if he was the only one left in the world, running all the way across the light green tundra.

The vehicle drove for another six hours before Zhou Zhi finally saw the rising smoke in the sunset.

It was a small village. If it were in Jiachuan, it would not even be qualified to be called a village, but Zhou Zhi knew that it was called a township, Lianhe Township.

This was the place that Zhouzhi had supported back then, but now he had come here four years earlier. Lianhe Township was even smaller and poorer than what he had seen in his previous life.

The small Xinxiang village that the village secretary proudly introduced to him in his previous life was no longer visible. The largest building here was a large earthen-walled building that served as a granary and the township government.

The exterior walls of the building were once coated with lime putty, but now this layer of lime has completely disappeared on the east and west walls, while some traces are still retained on the north and south walls, on which are painted red flags and portraits of workers, peasants and soldiers holding red books, with a line of peeling artistic characters underneath - Long live the great ***.

In short, if you want to shoot a period film or something in this place, you don’t even have to change any scenes, you can just bring the crew here.

The arrival of the yellow security guards immediately attracted the children in the village. They ran behind the car in a large crowd and ran all the way to the earthen wall of the old grain station before stopping with the car.

Zhou Zhi actually saw several familiar figures among this group of children. Although they were several years younger now, he could still recognize them.

"Muxialaha! Be careful not to burn your hands!" Zhou Zhi was immediately surrounded by children as soon as he got off the car. Seeing a child reaching out to touch the exhaust pipe of the guard out of curiosity, he was frightened and quickly stopped him.

  The naming culture of the Yi people is very complex, and its rigor and inheritance completely surpass that of the Han people. Especially in the "ancestral land" such as Meigu, they basically strictly follow the traditional rules. Before modern times, the name structure of the Yi people in Liangshan consisted of four parts, namely, the family branch, the father's name, the original name, and the ending syllable to distinguish between male and female;

Later, based on the principle of convenience, the patronymic was omitted and the name structure became composed of three parts.

Every Yi person is born with a direction, which is a bit similar to the Han people’s eight characters. The Yi people call it the life palace and direction.

The life palace moves according to a certain pattern, and every year it moves to one of the eight directions of east, south, west, north, southeast, northwest, northeast, and southwest. Among them, the life palace of men starts from the south and moves in a clockwise direction; the life palace of women starts from the north and moves in a counterclockwise direction, and a cycle is completed every eight years.

Naming children according to the direction of the mother's life palace when the child was born is one of the main ways of naming in Liangshan Yi people.

In addition, there are names based on totems, blessings from elders, and rankings.

The Yi people's names are divided into formal names and nicknames. The nicknames are more respectful and intimate, while the formal names are more formal. This is exactly the opposite of the Han people.

Like Tai Chi Bagua, the life palace system and the direction system have also spawned a nickname system, a profit and loss system, and a mutual generation and mutual restraint system.

This is the worldview they developed.

For example, the Yi people here live in the Hengduan Mountains. The river here runs in two sections. One section is from north to south, from Mianping to Dukou City; the second section is from south to north, from Dukou City to Yizhou City.

Therefore, the Yi people named the south and the north after the direction of water flow. The south is represented by the tail of the water, the north is represented by the source of the water, the east is represented by the sunrise, and the west is represented by the sunset.

The remaining northeast, northwest, southwest, and southeast are similar to the "Four Phases" of the Han nationality, named after animals, namely cow, dog, sheep, and dragon.

Therefore, the life palace in the name is often replaced by these aliases.

The life palace recorded in the name is very important. When you grow up and plan your marriage or career, you will make your choice based on the mutual generation and restraint of the life palace.

For example, southeast pairs with northwest and northeast, northwest pairs with south, southeast and north.

If there is a situation where the strong overcomes the weak or the weak overcomes the strong, then it is necessary to ask the Bimo to perform a ritual. For example, marrying the daughter to mountains or rivers in advance is a ritual to prevent the woman from bringing bad luck to her husband.

Many Yi people in Xichang no longer care about these traditions. Many of them have adopted Chinese names, or use both. However, the more closed and backward the villages are, the more carefully they protect these traditions.

Zhou Zhi didn’t know any of this before, and he made a lot of jokes because of it.

The child who wanted to touch the exhaust pipe was called Mujia Laha, which is a relatively intimate way of calling a child by his first name. Mujia means the third child, and Laha means the wolf's bladder.

So Muxialaha means the third wolf with wolf bladder. He has two older brothers, named Amurano and Munailahei, which respectively mean the eldest brother with wolf spleen and the second brother with wolf breast.

Unlike tiger, leopard, bear, etc., the wolf is considered an evil beast or demon beast in Yi tradition, so it is usually named after its parts after dissection, which is a bit like the Han tradition of "cheap life is easy to feed."

The child was frightened when he heard Zhou Zhi call out his name, and quickly withdrew his hand. However, his knowledge of Chinese was very limited, so he didn't know what Zhou Zhi meant by the following words.