The twelfth month of the lunar calendar is the wax moon, also known as the wax month.

Han Yingshao's "Customs and Customs" said that "Xia said Jiaping, Yin said Qing ritual, Zhou used wax, and Han changed it to wax." Waxers, hunters, Yantian hunted birds and beasts to worship their ancestors. ”

In the Xia Dynasty, the month of Layue was called Jiaping, and it was changed to Qing worship in the Yin Shang period, and it was called Dawax in the Zhou Dynasty, and it was not until the Han Dynasty that it was finally set as La.

The waxer, the pick-up, the new handover, so the big sacrifice to repay the merit.

This is a month of saying goodbye to the old and welcoming the new, the folk custom of the Han nationality since ancient times is to worship the ancestors with birds and beasts after hunting, and worship the gods because of the old and new friends, so the wax moon is a month of sacrifice.

The Black Seedlings are different, the disputes of the past have slowly dissipated with the course of history, but they follow the rules passed down from their ancestors. After his death, it was the coldest month in the Central Plains.

After the ancestors of Yan and Huang in the hometown of the Yellow River hunted birds and beasts in the mountains and fields, they executed Xue You. The descendants of the Jiuli tribe who traveled long distances to southern Xinjiang looked to the northeast and tearfully paid tribute to the ancestors of Xuyou who were separated from the corpses, and from then on, the month after the month of the Han Dynasty was taken as the beginning of the festival of sacrifice.

This is the New Year of the Black Miao people, bidding farewell to the past year old and ushering in the beginning of the new year.

The Miao people do not go into the mountains to hunt birds and beasts, and they only take a few carp in the Heishui River, vegetable leaves and other natural and simple foods as meals after the sacrifice. In this special way, they mourn this ancestor, and at the same time, they always remind future generations not to forget the hardships of primitive human beings in their struggle with nature, and to cherish every meal and night.

On this day, the fish school of the Heishui River was unusually active, and a carp covered by a Miao Min's fish cover was thick and fat, fluttering in the fish cover, and the festive atmosphere was active in the situation.

The men who cover the fish in the river have festive smiles on their faces, and there are more and more fish in the fish baskets, but every household will only take three tails at most, and the Miao people are very conscious that the ecological environment of the Heishui River has never deteriorated for thousands of years. They cherish this mother river, and the relationship between the Heishui River and the Miao people is like the relationship between the Han people and the Yellow River.

"Shichima, have you seen Beichen?" Han Qingxin found that he hadn't seen the big boy for a long time, and he was in a very good mood today, and he didn't know where to run for a while.

Both of them followed Hongliang to quietly quality tea in the bamboo building, but Zhu Beichen disappeared.

"I didn't see him, it must be that we were stunned just now and didn't know where to run." Shichima replied, a little confused.

Hongliang is resting with half-squinted eyes, the elderly man is easy to get sleepy after sitting for a long time, he is a full seventy years old this year, and his life has passed a mile.

"He sneaked after the three thousand, most of them went with him to cover the fish, and he will come back when the hour comes, you don't have to worry." Hongliang's eyelids were still drooping, and his keen hearing was attentive to all the sounds in the room.

In the corner of the living room, a large hourglass is placed to calculate the time on a specific day, and the fine sand and gravel fall into the drain plate bit by bit, symbolizing the passing years of human beings, a simple and natural time measurement container. Scales are engraved in the drain at the bottom of the hourglass, and when the sand and gravel accumulate to a certain scale, it represents a certain point in the time of day.

At six o'clock, the time for the sacrificial ceremony is approaching.

Hongliang, who was squinting and resting, slowly opened his eyes, and his eyes full of vicissitudes of wisdom revealed a rare spirit of the elderly.

"The hour is coming, will you stay here, or will you come with me?"

Hongliang's voice was like a bell, and he asked the two of them.

Qijian and Han Qingxin looked at each other, and bowed their heads to each other, "We are old with you." Han Qingxin replied.

"But what about Beichen, he hasn't come back yet." Han Qingxin asked again.

"Don't worry, he and Sanqian will pass by themselves." There is a distinction between respect and inferiority within the black seedling, but unlike the secular view, the more the elders and elders with status and status, they often have to arrive before ordinary people during important sacrificial festivals. As the high priest of the clan, Hongliang naturally had to take the lead in setting an example.

Outside the bamboo building in the southeast corner, the bluestone road has long been crowded with Black Miao people, and the mighty procession extends from the street to the end of the alley, and there is no end in sight. The gorgeous national costumes and silver ornaments seem to show these two foreigners an unprecedented grand ceremony in Miaodi.

Hei Miao's high priest Hongliang traveled, and unlike the clan witch, he did not have a solemn entourage of witch guards, and only two young men dressed in Han costumes stood on either side, looking out of place in the gorgeous costumes everywhere.

The Miao people on the bluestone road in front of them took the initiative to avoid both sides of the road, and a clean walkway about two meters wide was vacated in this way, perhaps this is the privilege of the high priest of the clan, Hongliang is deeply admired by the neighbors, and he deserves such a special treatment.

The two young people near Hongliang were in the spotlight of the dignitaries who belonged to the Miaodi dignitaries, and Qijian and Han Qingxin looked a little uncomfortable.

He smiled and beckoned to the people on the side of the road, and the figure with a cane was slightly smaller, and his back was already a little rickety. The sweaty atmosphere in the crowd was so oppressive that it made people gasp, and the long bluestone road was endless.

Their final destination was a large altar in the southwest corner, made of expensive marble bricks and white marble balustrades. About 100 meters in front of the three luxurious bamboo buildings in the southwest corner, there is a large square for sacrifice, and the altar stands in the center of the square.

The whole Heishui River Miao Village covers a vast area, from the northeast corner to the southwest corner, and the distance between the two sides is fifteen miles. And even if it is from the nearby southeast corner, it still takes about half an hour to walk eight miles. What's more, today's roads are full of Miao people traveling.

In front of the altar square in the southwest corner, there were already circles of Black Miao people, who gathered in all directions of the altar, waiting for the clansmen who came from all directions and those priests and witches with high status.

Now, Zongzheng Qingrong, as the elder wizard of the clan, has walked one step ahead of everyone to the central altar. He was accompanied by three priests and a team of 50 clan witch guards, and more than 500 guards and witch guards on the periphery who were responsible for maintaining the order of the ritual ceremony, all holding special scimitars close to the clansmen on all sides.

Tens of thousands of people were silent in the square, they waited silently, and the ceremony was sacred to all the tribesmen, and there was no room for laughter and noise.

The ram and the cosy walked with slow steps, step by step from the road that was avoided behind the crowd.

His mental state was even older than a year ago, and the clan witches and clansmen who had not been masked for three hundred and sixty-five days had reunited, and the steps of the ram clan witches had become heavier and heavier.