A Comparative Study Of The New Year Customs Of The Hani And The Han

China has been a unified multi-ethnic country since antiquity.All ethnic groups have created a long-standing and colorful ethnic culture.Traditional festivals of various ethnic groups are a concentrated display of ethnic culture.Festivals are a common folk phenomenon as well as naturally formed in the development of the material and cultural life.It concentratedly reflects the various aspects of production and life,social structure,and religious beliefs of different ethnic groups.For the Hani and Han,October Festival and the Spring Festival are the most important festivals at the end of the year.They also contain a variety of folk rituals.These folk rituals have important cultural symbolic significance and carry different social functions.Exploring the cultural symbolic meaning and social functions of folk rituals is an important method to understand and protect ethnic traditional culture.This article takes the annual rituals of the Hani and Han as research objects,and participates in the traditional Hani village community of Bengzha,Xuande Village,Mengxian County,Pu’er City through participatory observation method,unstructured interview method,living and watching the various customs of the October Festival tradition of the Hani ethnic group,exploring the cultural connotation and symbolic meaning of the October Festival customs,and use the functional analysis method to analyze the functions of the October Festival customs,comparing them with the Han.This article divides the October Festival and Spring Festival customs from the theme and function into the details of eradication and purification,sacrifice and gratitude,reunion and sharing,exchange and communication.This article uses the naturalistic and historicist methods of cultural geography theory and cultural adaptation theory to analyze the roots of the differences between the customs.Judging from the needs of folk customs and the functions carried by folk customs,the Hani showed certain similarities in Spring Festival and October Festival,the function of physical and mental adjustment and rest,the function of displaying and inheriting the knowledge,wisdom of ethnic members,and the integration function of consolidating family relations,clan relations,or village community relations;the difference is October Festival manifested in the needs of seeking village security and demonstrating village military strength.But the differences in annual rituals did exist.To summarize this difference,October Festival is expressed as a collective festival in the village rooted in "nomadism-farming civilization",while the Spring Festival is based on the farming civilization of the Central Plains,from the family to the clan relations and geopolitical relations,and gradually spread to the entire Han society.The reason why the Hani annual custom is different from the Han and shows relative stability under the impact of modernization is because of the difference between the semi-nomadic and semi-farming culture and the farming culture based on different natural environments.As well as two completely different ways of social organization,village collectivism action logic and family-oriented concept.