In the mythological story "Journey to the West", when the Tang monks and apprentices who went to the western region to learn the scriptures passed through the daughter country, they not only made a joke because of the mistaken drinking of the water of the Zimu River, the beautiful and infatuated daughter of the queen of the country, but also had a special love for the handsome and talented brother Xuanzang, and his courageous spirit of pursuing love made countless young boys and girls envious today.
Although the "daughter country" is a story made up by Wu Cheng'en with his wild imagination, in fact, in the history of our country, there has indeed been a similar daughter country, which is the East Daughter Country that once existed briefly in the history of our country.
(Ruins of the Queen's Palace of the Eastern Nükuni)
People can't help but wonder why the Dongnu Kingdom is called the Daughter Country, and after thousands of years of vicissitudes, what kind of life their descendants are living now.
I. The "Daughter Country" in History
According to the Old Book of Tang, volume 197 of the "Tale of the Southern Barbarians and The Southwest Barbarians", the Eastern Nü Kingdom, also known as the Western Qiang, borders Maozhou and Dangxiang in the east, and is adjacent to Yazhou in the southeast, and its territorial center is about 22 days from danba county to Daofu County in present-day Ganzi Prefecture, Sichuan, and the land area is about 22 days long from north to south, and 9 days from east to west, if calculated according to the 40 km per day on horseback, then the territorial area of the East Nü Kingdom is about 800 km long from north to south, about 360 km long from east to west, and there are more than 80 large and small cities in its territory.
According to the history books, the buildings of the Eastern Women's Kingdom are mostly watchtowers, and its queen lives on the watchtowers of the nine-story tower in the center of the country, while the general commoners live in more than four or five floors of watchtowers, and the queen not only wears pearls and gold ornaments on her head, but also shows her noble status.
Unlike other patriarchal tribes, the Eastern Women's Kingdom favors women over men, the king and officials at all levels are women, and there are queens and vice queens in the country, and the women in the tribe elect women with both moral integrity and ability, and after the queen's death, the throne is succeeded by the deputy queen.
(Traditional costumes of Higashi-Nükuni)
Men could not be officers, but only low-ranking soldiers who guarded or charged in the army, and as for the generals who lined up, women were also appointed.
In each large family, women are still in charge, and the mother has absolute authority, is in charge of the distribution of family property and dominates the coordination of the family's labor.
The demise of the "daughter state"
There is no long-term husband and wife relationship in the East Women's Country, they reproduce and implement the form of marriage, men and women of different ethnic groups use the assembly, after looking at each other, the man must climb the women's watchtower at night, undergo physical strength tests, in order to sleep with each other, until the next morning when the chicken crows, this relationship is not terminated until the woman is pregnant.
The records of the Eastern Nü Kingdom are the most detailed in the Later Tang Dynasty of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, and after the middle of the Tang Dynasty, due to the tension between the relations with the various Tu Clans, the war between the two sides lasted for more than a hundred years, and some smaller Tu Clan ethnic minorities could not withstand the war and had to surrender, and the Tang Dynasty moved 8 ethnic minority tribes from the Minshan Gorge to the Dadu River that was easy to manage and military protection, and the tribes led by the Queen of the Eastern Nü Kingdom were also among them.
(Ruins of the Ancient Capital of the Eastern Nun Kingdom)
After the relocation of the Queen of the Eastern Nüguo, together with other ethnic minority leaders, went to Chang'an to meet the emperor, and was crowned as the "Silver Qingguang Doctor", although it was a false title, but the rank was extremely high, equivalent to a provincial official such as Jiedushi. In the late Tang Dynasty, as the power of the Tu domain continued to grow, it was forced to the area around the Dadu River, and in order to protect itself, the remaining tribes of the Eastern Nü Kingdom had to adopt the attitude of wall head grass and show goodwill on both sides.
Since then, with the continuous decline and division of the Tang Dynasty, the Tu domain has also quickly collapsed, and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, which was once ruled, has returned to the tribal era, and in the third dynasty of the Song, Yuan, and Ming Dynasties, the central plains have more limited rule and influence here, and ethnic minority tribes such as the Eastern Women's Kingdom have never appeared in the historical materials again.
3. Matrilineal clans in the Grand Canyon
After entering the Qing Dynasty, the toast system into the Sichuan-Tibet region, most of the remaining tribes of the Eastern Women's Kingdom, due to their location in the transportation hub, were constantly affected by the impact of foreign cultures, after the death of the last queen, the custom of maintaining matriarchal rule ended, and the former daughter country gradually evolved into a patrilineal society, only some tribes located in deep mountains and valleys, due to information blockage, still retain the customs of the matrilineal society, and have been passed down to this day.
(Tonomi Traditional Culture Festival)
According to the field investigation of experts, the tribes of the Eastern Nüguo that migrated during the Tang Dynasty were mainly distributed in the area of the Yalong River and the Dadu River tributary of the Dadu River where Sichuan, Yunnan and Tibet meet today, and Zhaba, located in the deep mountains, is one of the remnants of the tribes that have preserved their matriarchal social customs the most completely.
Today's Zaba, a total of seven townships, five of which are in the territory of Daofu County, two townships in the territory of Yajiang County, the total population of about 10,000 people, and the history of the East Nüguo, the women here are the center of the family, in charge of the distribution of property and labor affairs, some families as many as 30 people, adult women as the mother in the family, men as uncles, the oldest mother dominates everything in the family, it is obvious that although after the influence of modern civilization, the social structure here is completely different from the era of the Dongnu Kingdom. However, in terms of family status and the form of marriage, they still retain some basic characteristics of matriarchal society.
Fourth, a family that has been married for thousands of years
To this day, the Zaba people still practice the marriage system, in the gathering of marriageable young people, if the man sees the girl he likes, he will snatch the handkerchief, pendant and other relics from the other party, and if the woman does not pursue and ask, then she agrees to accept the marriage with the man.
(Woman on the Watchtower)
At night, the woman will light an oil lamp next to the window of her own watchtower to tell the other party the direction of the room where she lives, at this time, the man must use both hands and feet, just like climbing, climb the watchtower more than ten meters high, lean sideways through the narrow window into the boudoir, exchange heartfelt words with the sweetheart, and then wait for the chicken to crow the next day, and then return the same way.
This process not only tests physical strength and endurance, but also has higher requirements for the flexibility of the body, and once the man cannot climb into the tower smoothly, or falls down halfway, not only the desire to marry is disappointed, but also the shame of the clan, it is difficult to have a girl look at him from then on, which is actually an inevitable choice for the survival of the fittest in the tribal race.
Successful marriage of men, known as "Jiayi", he can go once after marriage and never go again, or go every day, most of the men in Zaba have climbed through the towers of several women, and those marriageable women can also have a lot of "Jiayi", once the relationship between the two parties to the marriage is broken, it will end the marriage with the man no longer going to climb the stairs, or the woman refuses to open the window.
After the woman gives birth to a child, "Jiayi" generally does not recognize each other, nor does she have to bear the responsibility of raising the child, and the maintenance obligation of the child is borne by the uncle in the family, but it is puzzling that although there is no recognition, those children who grow up in the mother's family generally know who their father is.
(Married men and women)
Because they are far away from the worldly valley, the women of Zaba are beautiful as flowers, they have long followed the marriage customs left by their ancestors to maintain the reproduction of the tribe, of course, there are rules for marriage, such as no close relatives within three generations, and then both sides are willing to get permission, and for those men who climb the wrong building or forcibly break in, they will also be punished by the ethnic group.
In recent years, with the continuous improvement of education level, as well as the influence of the fever of migrant work and external factors, the young people of Zaba are no longer obsessed with marriage, they have begun to love freely, freely form families, raise children together, and use their own hands to create a better tomorrow.