■ Strange customs

Eat a hot meal: When you are a guest in the home of the Tujia mountain people, you are very particular about eating. After a while, before the rice in the guest's bowl is finished, the host takes the bowl from the guest's hand, throws the rice out of the bowl, and refills the hot rice, even on a hot day, to show the host's enthusiasm and family prosperity.

Funeral songs: In Shennongjia, it is a special ritual to mourn the dead. It is also known as "filial piety song", "yin luo drum", "dancing funeral drum" and so on. It is mainly used by relatives, friends and neighbors on behalf of the deceased's relatives to remember the merits of the deceased, wish the deceased ascend to heaven, and bless the descendants of the ritual song, which is a common funeral custom with a strong ancient national cultural tradition and superstitious color. In Shennongjiashan Township, whenever relatives and friends are at a funeral, the neighbors come to worship one after another, and invite the singer to beat the drum and play the song, and the funeral drum is played all night to "accompany the spirit" and "mourn" not so much to mourn the deceased as to send off the deceased, and the relatives of the deceased are also in this "mourning" atmosphere, alleviating the desolation and sorrow. Shennongjia's "Funeral Drum Song" has a long history, it is a colorful historical and mythological scroll, and it is the "Divine Comedy" circulated by Shennongjia folk.

Treat guests with chopsticks: When a guest first arrives in Tujiashan Township, the host must first please eat a bowl of glutinous rice sweet wine or sugar water to soak glutinous rice flowers, and only give the guest a chopstick, such food is collectively called "tea", or as "meeting tea", or as "supper", or as "evening tea" before going to bed, it is said that a chopstick means "half a seat", meeting tea, pressing hunger, indicating warm reception.

Drinking cold wine: Shennongjia Xiagu Township is a Tujia settlement area, if you go to the mountain people's house as a guest, the host first brings out a glass of wine and says "please drink tea", this custom of replacing tea with wine is called drinking cold wine. If you don't know how to drink, you should explain it to the host, taste it lightly, to show respect for the host, and drink cold wine, and then the host will make hot tea.

■ Xiongfeng valley

Shennongjia Mountain is huge, the mountains are majestic, the terrain is towering, there are many very characteristic mountains, such as Golden Monkey Mountain, Wushan Mountain, Songlang Mountain, Laojun Mountain, Yanziya, Tianmenya, Badongya and so on. In Songbaiping, where the capital of the forest area is located, the two mountains face each other in the north and south, and the south mountain is like a fierce lion, with its head and tail held high, and it is eyeing each other; Beishan resembles a tall ancient elephant with a trunk that roars and stretches out. Xiaotianmenya is also a strange mountain; The two peaks are similar in size, and they are juxtaposed like two slab-walled stone gates, blocking the clouds. There is a mountain peak in the middle of the two mountains, which happens to form a "mountain" character.

Shennongjia is not only famous for its majestic mountains, but also for its beauty in the vertical and horizontal valleys. Its thousands of canyons are all hung high on colorful screens, and the clear water flows, and people swim in the middle as if they were in the gallery. The valley landforms of Shennongjia are diverse, including long and narrow types, such as the 15-kilometer-long Hongping Gallery, which integrates the first line, two platforms, three waterfalls, four bridges, five pools, six caves, seven towers, eight villages, nine lakes, ten clouds and thirty-six peaks; There are also water types and sunshine types, and the most famous is the Dajiu Lake, which is known as the "Alpine Plain". There is a river like a silver thread that connects nine lakes and flows slowly from the southeast to the foot of the mountain at the north end, and suddenly disappears without a trace. It turns out that there are many natural stone crevices here, and even if there is a flash flood and heavy rain, the water in the entire basin can be drained in just three or two days.

The landscapes here are all like ghosts, a collection of ingenuity and magic in one place, each with its own mood but contrasting with each other. Climbing in the mountains of Shennongjia and exploring the valleys of Shennongjia, the unpredictable natural landscape all gives people a sense of mystery.

The mysterious tourist landscape also includes relatively well-preserved primeval forest communities. The pristine nature and the ancient and rare species of flora and fauna give people a sense of mystery. In the primeval forest, the ancient trees in the forest are towering, intertwined, the vines linger, and the thick moss is paved. Coupled with the singing of beasts and birds, it is more profound and ancient, and in summer you come here for sightseeing and lie under the soft meadow, look up at the blue sky and white clouds, and listen to the bursts of forest waves, which has a special interest.

■ The Mystery of the Savages

Shennongjia has many difficult scientific mysteries, such as the mystery of the "wild man", the mystery of albino animals, the mountain tide, the mystery of the ice cave in midsummer, the mystery of the donkey-headed wolf, etc., which further enhance her magical color. Missionaries from Britain and the United States were the first to become interested in the scientific value of Shennongjia's resources, and the various specimens they collected shocked the global scientific community.

Savage - is one of the world's four mysteries, the title of "savage" is a popular idiom, because no living individual has been captured, and no complete specimen has been obtained, so some scientists call it "strange animal".

The history of the Shennongjia savages has been passed down for a long time, and it has long been recorded in the ancient texts of 3,000 years ago. In the Shennongjia Mountains, there are hundreds of mass cadres who have witnessed the savages, and the masses have seen the most red-haired savages, and there are also hemp and brown hairs, and a few witnesses have even bumped into the white-haired savages, and from the information told by the witnesses, some saw the savages who were killed, some were beaten, some saw the savages captured alive, some were captured by the savages and fled back, some saw the savages weeping, and some savages clapped their hands to the savages to express friendship until May 14, 1976. It was only after six cadres from the Shennongjia Forest District saw a red-haired savage at the same time in Chunshuya that they attracted the attention of the relevant departments.

Since 1976, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the relevant departments of the Hubei Provincial People's Government have organized scientific expeditions to conduct many investigations on the Shennongjia savages. During the expedition, a large number of savage footprints were found, ranging in length from 21 cm to 48 cm, and several plaster casts were cast; Collected thousands of Savage Hairs; At an altitude of 2,500 meters, the expedition team also found a wild man's nest made of arrows and bamboos suitable for sitting and lying down. Shennongjia savage is a kind of strange animal that objectively exists in the Shennongjia mountain area, although it has been preliminarily understood that this animal activity zone and its activity law, but to uncover this ancient mystery, a series of scientific investigations are still needed, and the Shennongjia Tourism Committee has taken the wild examination as a tourism project.

Savage hairThe collected savage hair, scientists from optical analysis to mirror identification, from the study of hair trace element spectrum and microbiological testing, etc., the results of various research have shown that savage hair is not only different from non-primates, but also different from primates, with characteristics close to human hair, but not the same. The scientists who participated in the study believe that the wild man belongs to an unknown species of higher primates.

Savage footprints Scientists have observed and studied the footprints of savages, and the footprints of savages found in Shennongjia are no different from those of known primates, which are backward from human footprints and advanced with the hind feet of modern higher primates. Walking upright on both feet, one can be assured of the existence of an advanced primate that is close to human.

The largest pile of savage dung weighs 1.6 kilograms, containing residues such as fruit peels and insect pupae, etc., which can be inferred about its food structure, and the most amazing is the savage nest, which is twisted with more than 20 arrows, and people lie on it, with a wide field of vision, and are as comfortable as a chair. It has been verified in many ways that this is not the work of hunters, let alone monkeys and bears, and its manufacture and use are of course the strange animals between humans and higher primates. I don't know if the determination of this method of elimination is accurate, but it is best to find that the wild man lying on it is true and unquestionable.

■ Natural resources

Shennongjia is very rich in natural resources. First, water energy resources, there are four major water systems in the territory of Yuquan River, Dangyang River, Yandu River and Yinyu River, which are injected into the Yangtze River and Han River respectively, with a surface water runoff of 2.2 billion cubic meters, a large river drop, a fairly stable flow, and a theoretical reserve of 530,000 kilowatts of hydroenergy, which can be developed up to 270,000 kilowatts; The second is mineral resources, according to the preliminary investigation of the geological department, Shennongjia has more than 20 kinds of minerals such as phosphorus, copper, silica, lead and zinc, crystal, agate, etc., of which the prospective reserves of phosphate rock are about 500 million tons, especially silica, the reserves are large, the grade is high, and it is very valuable for mining.

festival

There are many ethnic minorities in the Shennongjia area, and the annual customs of each ethnic group are also different.

Tujia: The Tujia people celebrate the New Year one day earlier than the Han people, which is called "catching up with the New Year". It is said that during the Jiajing period (1522-1566), the Tusi of western Hubei was dispatched to the coastal areas to resist the Japanese. In a battle at the end of the year, in order to prevent the enemy from taking advantage of the New Year's sneak attack, the Tujia warriors celebrated the New Year one day earlier, and it gradually became a custom in the future. When the Tujia people celebrate the New Year, the hall is covered with green cloth, and the sacrificial rice is filled with bacon, glutinous rice cakes, pine branches, plum blossoms, and a small bamboo basket with chopsticks. It is said that the green cloth means the barracks, and the chopsticks mean arrows, which means that the enemy should also be protected from sneak attacks during the New Year. After the Chinese New Year, some families put on clothes, quilts and other things on their backs, and ran and hid all over the hillside.

Miao people: In addition to the 30th lunar New Year, the Miao family also celebrates the New Year of their own nationality. Generally, the thirtieth month of the lunar month is "sending the year", the first month is "noon" over the "sacrifice year", and the seventh day of the first month is the "year of people". It is said that when the Miao people were driven away by a liuguan, the Miao people scattered and fled, and they did not gather in the big cave until the first month. During the festival year, it is forbidden to whistle, go to the vegetable garden to find vegetables and carry water, and the door is closed when eating. You can't talk about blood at night, you can't talk when you sleep, and you can't cry when you sleep. The Miao people believe that "people" are seven, so they are scheduled to celebrate the "Year of People" on the seventh day of the first month.

Dong nationality: The Dong people have a popular "heavy year", which is to eat two New Year's meals a day, the first time to eat white rice or green vegetable porridge, and the second time to eat "rice" and hearty wine and meat rice. There are two origins: one is that in a certain year, the imperial court arrested the Dong people, and each family ran away after eating a few mouthfuls of rice in the Chinese New Year's Eve, and only settled down when it was dark, but found that the vegetables and rice brought were mixed together, so they made a meal of "combined rice" and ate it; It is said that the ancestors of the Dong people were poor, and there was no rice to cook in the Chinese New Year's Eve, so they could only eat some green vegetable porridge, and only after digging bracken on the mountain did they have a slightly hearty New Year meal.

Scenic spots

■ Dajiu Lake Scenic Area

Dajiu Lake Scenic Area is the starting point of the western end of the Shennongjia Mountain Range, 3 kilometers away from Songbai Town, which can lead to Shennong Creek in Badong; It is a scenic spot dominated by alpine meadows, wetlands and pastures, and Tujia folk customs sightseeing and vacation.

The intermountain basin of Dajiu Lake covers an area of 36 square kilometers and is 1,700 meters above sea level. The hot summer is not hot, and it is suitable for escaping the heat; Ice and snow tourism can be carried out in winter, and there are peculiar glacial landforms and exotic animals and plants for scientific research. The main attractions are: alpine plains, sika deer captive farms, etc.

■ Muyu Scenic Area

Muyu Scenic Area is in the south of the forest area, 1200 meters above sea level, the temperature is cool, the water source is sufficient, only 100 kilometers away from the Three Gorges Water Conservancy Project Zhongbao Island, 112 kilometers away from Songbai Town.

The scenic spot takes Shennong culture as the connotation, integrating a simple town and rare and endangered ancient trees. The main attractions are: Shennong Altar, Xiaodangyang, Xiangxiyuan, Shanshuping primeval forest.

■ Shennongding Scenic Area

Shennongding Scenic Area is in the nature reserve in the south of Shennongjia, and the peaks are all above 3,000 meters above sea level, which can be called the "roof of Central China". It is a forest eco-tourism area with the theme of beautiful green subalpine natural scenery, diverse animal and plant species, and harmonious coexistence between man and nature. The main scenic spots are Shennong Peak, Scenic Pass, Banbi Rock, Lookout Tower, Xiaolong Pond, Big Dragon Pond, Golden Monkey Ridge and so on.