On both sides of the rich and beautiful Nen River in Northeast China, there lives a nation that mainly engages in agriculture and also engages in animal husbandry, fishing and hunting - the Daur people. The Daur people are famous for their bravery and fighting skills. Since ancient times, they have been good at riding, shooting, wrestling, and playing hockey. Hockey, called "Beiko" in Daur language, is a traditional sport of the Daur people with a long history.
A house is like its people. Most of the Daur villages are located near mountains and rivers, and the scenery is very beautiful. The buildings and courtyards are very neatly built. The tall "jie"-shaped thatched houses give people a generous and rough impression. Every household is surrounded by a fence made of red wicker with various patterns. The layout of the courtyard is rigorous. Horse stables and cowsheds are generally built far away from the courtyard and kept clean.
The traditional houses of the Daur people mostly use pine or birch beams as the frame, adobe or earthen walls as the walls, a few layers of yellow mud on the inside and outside, and a thatch roof, with two, three or five rooms. No wait. For two-room houses, the west room is the bedroom and the east room is the kitchen; for three- or five-room houses, the middle room is the kitchen and the rooms on both sides are the living rooms. Houses generally face north and south, with emphasis on lighting. The large number of windows is a major feature of Daur houses. There are three connected large kangs on the south, north and west sides of the room or on the south, east and north sides, commonly known as "manzi kang". Manzi Kang has good thermal insulation properties and is an indispensable heating facility for Daur people in winter.
The Daur people’s houses are more expensive than Western houses. The west room is centered on the south kang and is mostly occupied by the elders. The sons, daughter-in-law and their children mostly live in the north kang or the east room, while the west kang is reserved for guests. The kang surface is mostly covered with reed mats or felts.
Nowadays, with the development of the economy and the improvement of living conditions, the number of brick and tile houses is increasing day by day. However, living customs such as using fire pits are still deeply loved by the Daur people.
The morphological composition of traditional residences
my country’s traditional architectural heritage is very rich, including not only majestic and solemn palaces, temples, mausoleums, temples and other official buildings, but also residences, ancestral halls, Folk buildings such as guild halls and academies. Residential buildings are the most basic, most numerous, and closely related to people's lives. In order to distinguish it from the current new houses, we call it traditional houses or residential buildings. Residential forms include social forms and residential forms. Social form refers to the characteristics formed by social factors such as history, culture, beliefs, customs and concepts of folk residences. Residential form refers to the characteristics formed by the plane layout, structural method and internal and external architectural image of residential buildings. The characteristics of traditional houses are mainly reflected in three aspects in architecture:
1) Plane layout and environmental characteristics. It is the embodiment of social system, family organization, customs, beliefs and production and lifestyle in folk residences.
2) Structural and appearance characteristics. It reflects the impact of climate, geography, materials, construction techniques, etc. on architecture.
3) Decoration and detailed features. It is the expression of culture, customs and aesthetic consciousness in the interior and exterior art of residential buildings.
Chinese traditional houses are rooted in the farming culture that has been passed down for thousands of years. They represent China’s traditional agricultural civilization and have rich cultural connotations, human touch and local characteristics. These various and magnificent residential buildings are a valuable asset in my country’s ancient architectural heritage and are also a source of reference when building new residential buildings today. The formation of traditional houses is related to society, culture, customs, etc., and is also affected by climate, geography and other natural conditions. China has a vast land and a large population. Due to the disparity in climate, geographical conditions, and material resources, as well as the different customs, lifestyles, and aesthetic requirements of various ethnic groups, the layout, structure, and elevation of traditional residences have resulted. The exterior appearance and internal and external space treatment are also different, giving Chinese residential buildings distinctive and rich national characteristics and local characteristics. For example, in feudal society, blood ties, kinship, family systems and agricultural production methods determined the family organization and lifestyle of the Han people. The courtyard layout appeared in traditional residences. Most of the Han residences in my country belong to this layout. However, due to the climate disparity between the north and the south and the geographical differences between the east and west, courtyard-style dwellings are formed in the dry and cold areas of the north, patio-style dwellings are formed in the hot and humid areas of the south, and cave dwellings are formed in the loess belt of the Central Plains. In inland earthquake-prone areas, bungalow-style houses are formed.
The technical and artistic processing experience created by people in practice, such as ventilation, heat protection, cold protection, waterproofing, moisture-proof, typhoon protection, insect protection, earthquake protection and other aspects of residential buildings, residential buildings combined with landscape , topography practices, residential building decoration and decoration treatments, etc., are still of practical and reference value today and are worth exploring.
Traditional Chinese residential architecture is related to society, history, culture, national folk customs, and is also closely related to Confucian etiquette, Taoism, Yin-Yang and Five Elements and other ideas. For example, in rural areas where the family system is prevalent, the phenomenon of ethnic groups living together is very common, and houses are arranged together with family temples and ancestral halls. The concepts of destiny, family, hierarchy and the ideas of yin and yang and the five elements that were prevalent in ancient times had a significant impact on the site selection, location, orientation, layout of residential buildings, as well as the facades, gates, gables, wall peaks, roof ridges, decorations, etc. . At present, research on traditional dwellings in my country is generally conducted from a cultural perspective and a social perspective. The former is studied from the perspective of cultural characteristics and aggregates, while the latter is studied from the perspective of social relations and structures.
For a long time, the research on residential buildings in my country has mainly focused on the cultural perspective, while the research on the social perspective has not been fully developed. Therefore, there is an urgent need today to strengthen comprehensive research from a social perspective. After in-depth investigation of a large number of individual residential building materials, we should try to grasp the research on the overall residential building. For example, in the study of traditional folk houses in Fujian, it cannot be limited to the study of the plane, elevation, beams, and shape of a certain house, but must comprehensively integrate various buildings such as ancestral halls, temples, schools, theaters, shops, etc. in the village, combined with the history , geography, society, customs, culture and other factors, and explore the interactive relationship between them and traditional dwellings.
The most famous Qiang buildings are watchtowers, stone houses, cable bridges, plank roads and water conservancy weirs.
The Qiang language calls the watchtower "Qiong Cong". As early as 2000 years ago, there was a record in "Book of the Later Han: Biography of Southwest Yi": Ran people "lived close to the mountains and built houses with piles of rocks, some of which were more than ten feet tall". Watchtowers were mostly built next to village houses, with a height between 10 and 30 meters, and were used to defend against enemies and store food and firewood. Watchtowers come in four-corner, hexagonal and octagonal forms. Some are as high as thirteen or four stories. The building materials are stone chips and yellow soil. The wall foundation is 1.35 meters deep and made of stone
. The inner side of the stone wall is perpendicular to the ground, and the outer side is slightly tilted from bottom to top. There are no drawings, hanging wires, or column supports during construction, and it all relies on superb skills and experience. The building is solid and durable and will last for a long time. The ruins of an ancient castle from the Ming Dynasty, "Yongping Castle", was discovered in Yong'an Village, Qiang Township, Beichuan County, Sichuan Province in 1988. After hundreds of years of wind and rain, it is still well preserved.
According to an article by Du Lin and Li Binlin in "Sichuan Daily" on July 12, 2001: Among the existing ancient Qiang villages,
Taoping Qiang village in Li County is the most typical. According to historical records, the Qiang village was first built in 111 BC and has a history of more than 2,000 years. There are 8 gates outside Taoping Qiang Village, which is a Bagua layout. There are 31 passages in the village, extending in all directions, connecting each house. There are hidden holes for shooting outside, which is a symbol of the old times. Be prepared to prevent the enemy from fighting. Currently, there are only 2 stone watchtowers in the village, each with 9 floors and more than 30 meters. Because it was praised by UNESCO officials, preparations for applying for a human cultural heritage have begun.
The Qiang folk houses are square-shaped flat-roofed houses made of stone flakes. Most of them have three floors, with each floor more than 3 meters high. Roof
The bottom of the platform is wooden boards or stone slabs, which extend out of the wall to form eaves. Wooden boards or stone slabs are densely covered with tree branches or bamboo branches, and then covered with loess and chicken dung. The thickness is about 0.35 meters. There are gullies to divert water, which prevents rain and snow from leaking. It is warm in winter and cool in summer.
The roof platform is a place for threshing, drying grain, doing needlework, and playing games and resting for children and the elderly. Some buildings have cross-street buildings (arcades) to facilitate travel.
The Qiang area has high mountains and dangerous rivers. To facilitate transportation, the Qiang people created a rope bridge (rope bridge) more than 1,400 years ago. There are stone cave doors built on both banks. Stone foundations or large wooden pillars are erected inside the doors. On the foundations and pillars, there are dozens of bamboo ropes as thick as arms. The bamboo ropes are covered with wooden boards, and bamboo rope handrails more than 1 meter above the bridge deck are set up on both sides.
There are two types of planks: wooden planks and stone planks. The wooden stack is built in a dense forest, with wood paved as a road and mixed with earth and rocks; the stone stack is built on a cliff, with holes drilled in the edge rock and wood inserted into the bridge.
Qiang folk masons often go out to work in their spare time. The world-famous Dujiangyan Irrigation Project in Guanxian County, Sichuan has a history of more than 2,000 years and is still benefiting the people. It embodies the blood, sweat and wisdom of the ancient Qiang people.
The Bai people mainly live in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan. The state is located at the southern end of the Hengduan Mountains, with terrain high in the northwest and low in the southeast. The average altitude is 1200-2300 meters. Diancang Mountain, located in the middle, divides the area into east and west.
Two different natural geographical environments. The west has high mountains and deep valleys, while the east has a gentler terrain. Erhai Lake is located in the east of Cangshan Mountain.
It has beautiful scenery and is known as "Silver Cang Jade Erhai Lake". Most areas in Dali Bai Autonomous Prefecture have a mild climate, with four seasons
like spring, and the annual average temperature is 16°C.
The forms of Bai folk houses vary from place to place. In dam areas, they are mostly tile-roofed houses with civil structures, while in alpine mountainous areas they are "stacked wooden houses",
that is, houses with log walls. .
In order to adapt to the local terrain characteristics, most of the Bai residences in Dali area are backed by Cangshan Mountain and face the Erhai Lake. According to the local wind characteristics, the outer eaves of the roof are sealed with bluestone slabs to prevent the eaves from being damaged by the wind. There are no windows on the exterior walls,
creating a comfortable environment where the wind does not enter the house. The courtyard has large eaves with wooden frames to adapt to the rainy climate. There are many earthquakes in Dali, and the earthquake-proof measures for the house structure are extremely strict. Several vertical and horizontal passages are set up between the wooden frame itself and each other, forming a relatively complete building structure that is connected vertically and horizontally.
Most Bai folk houses are in the inner courtyard style, with two floors. Food and sundries are stored upstairs, and people live downstairs. Some
front corridors are in double-eaves style. The front wall is mostly made of wood with carved doors and windows.
The tile roof has larger wooden frames at both ends, forming a graceful and gentle roof curve, which is one of the characteristics of Bai folk houses.
The three-bedroom and one-screen house is a style that is deeply loved by the masses. Common layouts include "one front and two ears", "three rooms and one screen wall", "four in five patios" and other formats. "One main building and two ears" is a two-story building with two bungalows on the side; "Three rooms and one screen wall" is a combination of three two-story buildings perpendicular to each other and a screen wall ,
The main door is opened next to the screen wall; the "four-in-five patio" is a vertical combination of four two-story buildings, enclosing a large patio
The handover of the two buildings There is a small patio surrounded by a pavilion, making a total of five patios.
The foundation of the house is generally made of square stones, which is stable and solid. The gatehouse is mostly decorated with wood carvings and colorful paintings, with beautiful images and exquisite craftsmanship. The main hall door consists of six lattice doors. Each lattice door is divided into upper and lower sections. It is carved with 2-5 layers of transparent carving method and is engraved with relief patterns of characters, birds, animals and flowers. The shapes are various and lifelike. . The gates are mostly made of wood,
earth, marble, blue bricks and other materials. They are built into dougong flowerhouses with cornices and corners, which are symmetrical and harmonious, and very
magnificent. The walls of buildings are often painted with lime. There are many flower beds in the patio to plant flowers and trees. The screen wall has cornices and corners,
It is surrounded by corner bricks, and the top is covered with green tiles or glazed tiles. It is generous, decent and well-proportioned. The middle of the screen wall is painted white, and auspicious words such as "a thousand purples and reds", "colorful Yunnan appears", "dragon and phoenix present auspiciousness", "luck, longevity and health" are written on it, or just "luck" and "longevity" are written on it. There are single big characters such as "Lu", "Xi", etc., or they are painted on the screen wall, and they write poems and lyrics, each with its own style.
There are also many Bai folk houses in Dali that use stone strips for walls, which are strong and durable; some also use pebbles from the Eighteen Streams in Cangshan to build walls. "Dali has three treasures, pebble walls." This is where the folk proverb "will never fall" comes from. The pebble houses of different shades, large
and different shapes, are simple and generous, solid and unique, fully demonstrating the superb architecture of the Bai
skilled craftsmen. skill.
Ganlan style dwellings
The Zhuang ethnic group is the ethnic minority with the largest population in China. The current population is more than 15.4 million people. Mainly distributed in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region
Wenshan Zhuang and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province, Lianshan Zhuang and Yao Autonomous County in Guangdong Province, Qiandongnan Guizhou
Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture in Guizhou Province and other places.
The Zhuang people’s houses are mainly stilt-style buildings. The Gaoshan people are community-oriented
The Gaoshan people are the oldest ethnic group in Taiwan and can also be said to be an indigenous ethnic group. "She" is the grassroots social organizational unit of Taiwan's Gaoshan ethnic group.
It was originally a clan organization based on blood ties, and later gradually developed into a social organization based on blood ties and geography, including one or several clan members living together.
The Gaoshan people are a people who are good at singing and dancing, and their houses are also endowed with the unique color of the Gaoshan people. The De'ang ethnic group is one of the oldest ethnic groups in the southwestern frontier of my country. Like many ethnic groups in the south, the Deang people
like to live in ganlan-style bamboo buildings. This kind of bamboo building mostly uses wood as the frame. Other parts, such as rafters, floor slabs, balconies, walls, doors, stairs, etc. are all made of bamboo, and the roof is covered with thatch.
The bamboo houses of the De'ang people are mostly built against the mountains, facing west to east, and mainly have two shapes: square and rectangular.
The more typical and common one is the square bamboo house with one household and one courtyard, represented by Dehong area. This kind of bamboo building is divided into two parts: the main building and the attached room. The main building is square in shape, with people living upstairs. It is generally divided into two parts: the bedroom and the living room, which are used for the whole family to live, receive guests, and store food and sundries. Livestock are kept downstairs. The attached rooms are mostly built on one side of the main building.
They are used for stacking firewood and placing foot hammers for pounding rice. This kind of bamboo building has a unique and elegant appearance, and is said to be very similar to the turbans and hats worn by Confucian scholars in the Central Plains in ancient times. Regarding its origin, there is also a touching story circulated among the De'ang people: Zhuge Liang led his troops on a southern expedition and came to the De'ang mountain village. One day, he was suddenly attacked and was injured and in danger. Fortunately, the brave and kind-hearted De'ang girl Arnold rescued him, and he was able to turn the danger into safety. In the brief contact, the two developed feelings. When Zhuge Liang, who had a heavy responsibility on his shoulders, had to say goodbye to his sweetheart, he left his hat to Arnold as a token. The infatuated Arnold has been waiting for 18 years, but what he has been waiting for is the death of his sweetheart. From then on, the heartbroken Arnold refused to eat or sleep. He stood blankly at the end of the village every day, watching his sweetheart's way to the east. On the 33rd day, there was sudden thunder and lightning and heavy rain. After the rain passed, Arnold disappeared. But where she stood, a house exactly like Zhuge Liang's hat appeared. This was the bamboo house where the De'ang people later lived.
The Jinuo people are an ancient nation. In June 1979, the ethnic group was recognized as the 55th ethnic group in my country.
Jinuo Mountain, where the Jinuo people live, is a tropical mountainous area with fertile land, abundant rainfall, and dense virgin forests everywhere.
It is rich in tea and is one of the six famous tea mountains of "Pu'er tea" at home and abroad. On the beautiful Beibu Gulf of the South China Sea, there is a treasure land where "the grass never dies in winter, it blooms even in non-spring, the fish are full of scales every season, and the branches are full of fruits." , these are the "Three Jing Islands" in Fangcheng City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region - Wutou, Wanwei and Shanxin. Here, the simple and kind-hearted Jing people thrive.
The traditional housing of the Jing people is thatched cottages, which the Jing people call "fence houses". The walls are woven with wooden strips and bamboo slices, and some are pasted with a layer of mud, or bamboo strips sandwiched with thatch, straw, etc. are used as walls. The roof is covered with thatch, branches, leaves or straw. To protect against wind, the roof is covered with bricks and stones. The four corners of the house are made of wooden piers (mostly neem wood) or large bamboo or stones with a height of 20 cm to 33 cm as pillars. Wooden strips and thick bamboo slices are placed vertically and crosswise on the pillars, and bamboo mats or straw mats are spread on them. . The house is divided into three small rooms with bamboo sheets. The elderly live in the main room, and the children live in the left and right rooms. The "rail house" retains the legacy of Baiyue's "ganlan" style architecture.
After the founding of New China, with the continuous development of productivity, the living conditions of the Jing people have undergone fundamental improvements and changes. The obvious sign is the common appearance of "stone-roofed houses". This kind of house has walls built with rectangular gray-white stone strips. Each stone is approximately 75 cm long, 25 cm wide and 20 cm high. There are 23 stone strips laid between the ground and the eaves; 10 stone strips are laid between the eaves and the top of the mountain. Between the roof ridge and the tile rows are small strips of stone. The house is divided into three single rooms on the left, middle and right. There is a spacious corridor in front of the single rooms that runs through the whole house. Farm implements and tools are placed at the foot of the aisle wall. The two rooms on the left and right are bedrooms. The middle room is the "main hall". A shrine is placed on the main wall, which is called "ancestral shed". In addition to being used to worship gods during festivals, the main hall is also a place for receiving guests, eating, drinking tea, and chatting. It can also be used as a "living room".
This kind of house is sturdy, durable, wind- and moisture-resistant, and is very suitable for the climate and life in coastal areas. It is an outstanding invention and creation of the Jing people.
King people have the habit of planting flowers and trees around their houses. Surrounding the stone houses, holly, sisal, peony, cactus, pineapple, papaya, and jute trees are scattered and intertwined. They are lush and green, like a seaside park, beautiful and charming. "The Nu people live on the top of the mountain", "covering bamboos to build houses and weaving bamboos to build walls", this is how the ancients described the living life of the Nu people.
The houses of the Nu people are built on stilts, mostly built against mountains. There are mainly two types of wooden houses and bamboo strip houses. The Nu people in Gongshan area mostly live in wooden houses or houses with half earth walls and half wood. This kind of house is relatively spacious, usually with stacks of logs as walls and a roof covered with thin slates. The stone slabs are about one foot square and are laid from the eaves. The first piece is laid flat, the second piece is pressed on the top of the first piece, the third piece is pressed on the top of the second piece...all the way to the roof ridge. The Nu people in Fugong all live in bamboo strip houses. This kind of house is relatively short, usually made of bamboo strips as exterior walls and partitions, and covered with wooden boards or stone slabs. These two types of houses are generally two-story, and the upper floor is divided into two rooms. The outer room is for entertaining guests and has a fire pit. An iron tripod or stone tripod is placed on the fire pit for cooking and drinking. The inner room is a bedroom and storage room. Store farm tools and sundries or livestock downstairs. The floor slabs are made of wooden boards or bamboo mats and are laid on many wooden piles on the slope. These wooden piles and pillars, like thousands of feet, support the entire house. Therefore, people often call this kind of house a "house with a thousand feet on the ground."
This kind of floor-to-ceiling bamboo and wooden house of the Nu people has a simple structure, is easy to build and dismantle, and is suitable for the rainy and foggy characteristics of mountainous areas. According to traditional customs, when one family builds a house, the whole village comes to help, and the house can be completed in one day.
Nowadays, with the rapid socio-economic development in the Nu area, the housing forms of the Nu people are also developing in a diversified and modern direction.
The Pumi villages are mostly located on the gentle slopes of the mountains, and they live in groups based on blood relationships. The villages are very close to each other, so you can see each other's smoke and smell each other's chickens and dogs. Each family has its own courtyard and is a neighbor to each other.
Most of the houses are of wooden structure. The main room is generally 6.5 meters long and about 3 meters wide. There are large pillars at the four corners and a square pillar in the center, called "Optimus Prime" (called "Samawa" in Pumi language), which is considered to be the place where the gods reside. The roof ridge is framed with "herringbone" beams, and the roof is covered with wooden boards or tiles. The surrounding walls are made of logs. This kind of house is commonly known as "Muleng house" or "Muleizi". It is generally divided into two floors: the upper floor houses people, and the lower floor houses livestock or piles debris. The layout of the living room has a certain pattern: the door faces east, and to the right of the door is the fire pit, which is built of earth and stone and surrounded by wooden boards, which is called the upper fire pit. There are wooden beds about 70 cm wide on both sides, which are the places where guests are received. Build a large bed with the same width as the house under the back wall opposite the door, about 70 cm high, and cover it with wooden boards. A fire pit is built in the center of the big bed, and a tripod is set up on it for heating and boiling water for cooking. It is customary to call it a fire pit. There are bunks around, with the men's bunk on the left and the women's bunk on the right, for the living of the whole family.
The firepit is the center of the house and the main place for family activities. You can sit next to it and warm yourself by the fire, chat, sing and sleep. The whole family would sit around it during meals, and the housewife would distribute the food, or everyone would bake cakes or barbecue on it while eating. The red fire reflected the faces of the whole family.
Whenever relatives and friends come to visit, the hospitable Pumi people will first introduce the guests to the table next to the fire pit, then serve tea and wine, and serve hot beef, mutton, pork fat and a bowl mixed with onions, garlic, chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, Hot and sour soup with Chinese toon and warm hospitality until the guests are full and even drunk.
The bones of cattle and sheep are hung outside the doors of the Pumi people. It is said that these are a symbol of family wealth and can also exorcise evil spirits and suppress ghosts.
Cave dwellings and courtyard houses are both distinctive residential buildings of the Han nationality.
According to research by ancient architects, more than 4,000 years ago, the Han people on the Loess Plateau in northwest my country had the custom of "digging caves and living in them." To this day, cave-style houses are still widely distributed in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River. Each province and autonomous region has a population of more than 40 million.
Cave dwellings are divided into three types: earth kilns, brick kilns and stone kilns. Earthen kilns are relatively primitive. It is made by manually cutting a section of the cliff according to the terrain, or on a natural vertical cliff, or on a steep slope, and then digging it out. The interior is arched, with door openings, aisles, housing, etc. The earth kiln is also very strong. When the Central Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi during its Long March, they dug caves in the mountains and lived in cave dwellings to persist in the resistance against Japan. Chairman Mao Zedong once wrote such glorious works as "On Practice", "On Contradiction", and "On Protracted War" in a cave dwelling in Yan'an, and led the eight-year war of resistance. Today, the cave dwellings are still there, and they tell countless Chinese and foreign tourists and guests about the legendary history that shocked China and foreign countries.
In a brick kiln, clay is usually fired into bricks first, and then cave dwellings are built on soft loess soil. Stone kilns are mostly made according to the texture, texture and color of local stone kilns. Generally built against the mountains, facing south. Stone kilns are often carved, chiseled, and carved with various patterns. Cave dwellings do not occupy cultivated land, do not damage the topography, and are conducive to ecological balance. Cave dwellings also have the advantage of being warm in winter and cool in summer. They are residential buildings of the Han people in the north that use local materials.
Siheyuan is a residential building of the Han nationality in northern cities in my country. It gradually matured in the Han Dynasty and was widely used in the Tang Dynasty. There is a courtyard in the middle, and houses are built around the courtyard to form a "siheyuan". Siheyuan varies in size. Large-scale courtyards have two entrances, three entrances, and east-west courtyards, or have garden pavilions inside. Regardless of size, symmetrical houses with large roofs and bricks and tiles are built around the central axis. Most of the courtyard houses have a closed layout, with strict layout, elegant and beautiful appearance, and the interior is warm in winter and cool in summer. The courtyard houses in Beijing are basically built along the streets and alleys. This is the kind of building where the major families in Lao She's "Four Generations Under One Roof" and Ba Jin's "Home, Spring, Autumn" live. The famous Grand View Garden of Prince Gong's Mansion is the essence of courtyard architectural art.
In the past, there was a proverb in the Guizhou area: "The seedlings in the high mountains live in the Dong family, and the Gelao live in the stone." This reflects, to a certain extent, the residential characteristics of local ethnic minorities.
Most of the Miao people live in mountainous areas, close to mountains and rivers. There are ten or one to two hundred households in one village, and large villages have more than a thousand households. The form of housing varies from place to place, but bungalows and buildings are the main types. Among them, "diaojiaolou" is the most distinctive and the most common.
The stilted building is a typical stilt-style building. Built on a steep hillside. During construction, a two-step roof foundation was excavated along the slope, with shorter pillars erected on the upper level and taller pillars erected on the lower level. In this way, after the house is built, the floor slabs in the front half and the ground in the back half can be at the same level. The pillars that stand directly on the foundation of the lower house from top to bottom form the stilts that support the front half of the house. This is why the "stilted building" gets its name.
A stilted building generally has three floors, with the lower floor mostly used for livestock, poultry, and storage of firewood and farm tools. The second floor is the main place for the family to eat and live, with a corridor outside and a long balcony-like curved railing chair in the middle. The third floor can be used as a bedroom and can also be used to store sundries.
The main material of the stilted building is fir. According to traditional standards, a three-story, three-bay stilted building requires 24 pillars, 40 to 50 sleepers, 39 purlins, 28 large and small beams, 135 rafters, 600 beams and 600 wooden boards, and It can be built with 15,000 tiles. But what is amazing is that in such a large building, except for a few iron nails used to fix the rafters, all other parts are constructed with mortise and tenon, which reflects the superb construction skills of the Miao people.
The Miao people have a lot of etiquette and attention to detail when building houses, and they cannot be careless at all. "Stepping on new houses" is one of them. That is, when a new house is completed, relatives and friends from the village or from other villages will come to congratulate them with gifts. When guests from outside the village enter the village, firecrackers are set off. After hearing this, the host goes out to greet the guests, invites the guests into the new house, sets out wine and sets a banquet, and gathers together happily. Everyone drank wine, sang the house-building song, celebrated the completion of the new house, and wished the host a happier life in the future.
"Mongolian yurt" is the Manchu name for the housing of Mongolian herdsmen, which began in the Qing Dynasty. "Bao" means "home" or "house" in Manchu. Prior to this, in ancient times, yurts were called "Qionglu", "Felt tent" or "Felt bag", etc.
Mongolian yurts are round in shape, ranging from large to small, but their basic structure is the same, consisting of a mesh wall "Hana", a wooden corrugated "Uni", a circular skylight and a door. When it is formed, cover it with felt and tighten it with a mane rope. The size of the yurt is determined by the number of woven walls used in each yurt (generally 1.56 meters high and more than 2 meters long), such as 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, and 18 fans. , 24 fans and so on. Ordinary herdsmen usually live in houses with 6 to 8 walls.
The erection of a yurt is very simple. Generally, the terrain is selected first, the ground is laid, and then the door is erected, the brackets are woven into the walls, the inner belt is fastened, the wooden dome is supported, the rafters are installed, the inner felt is covered, the wall felt is woven, and the blanket is covered. Lining the top of the bag with felt, covering the top with felt, tying a peripheral belt, hanging sky curtains, wrapping felt around the bottom of the wall, and finally tightening it with wool ropes.
The door of the yurt generally faces the southeast. In the center of the bag is a stove for cooking, drinking and heating, with a chimney extending from the skylight. Cover the stove with cowhide, felt or carpet. The front and west sides are the living areas for the elders, and the east side is the living area for the younger generations. The surrounding furniture mainly includes wooden cupboards, board cabinets, crates, square tables, etc., which are characterized by being small, low, occupying less space, easy to move, and not easily damaged. The yurt looks small in appearance, but the usable area inside the yurt is very large. Moreover, the indoor air circulation is good (in addition to the skylight, there is also a layer of felt at the bottom of the woven wall, which can be opened for ventilation in summer and put down to keep warm in winter). The lighting conditions are good, and it is warm in winter and cool in summer, and is not afraid of wind and rain.
The biggest advantage of the yurt is that it is easy to disassemble and assemble, and it is easy to move. When building, the hana can be opened to form a circular wall. When dismantling, the hana can be folded back to reduce its size. It can also be used as a carriage board for cattle or carriages. A yurt only requires two camels or a lele cart to transport it away, and it can be set up in two or three hours. It is very suitable for the residence and use of nomadic herdsmen who often move their livestock.
In recent years, there have been new developments in the structure and materials of yurts. In some areas, yurts with a steel frame structure have appeared, and windows have been added to the front and back of the yurts to provide better lighting and ventilation. Various modern daily necessities such as beds, televisions, and radios have also been added to the interior. The ancient Mongolian architectural art has regained its new youth.