The cult to the door between Miao Floridos

Before the arrival of the missionaries was transforming forever the life and culture of Miao Floridos, some of them registered for the posterity some of the most peculiar characteristics of his culture. Between them he emphasizes the cult to the door, of which W gives news. H. Hudspeth.

According to this author for Miao Floridos there is no religious ceremony more important than the cult to the door. So important there is for them this ceremony that does not allow itself to any child to touch the door to which a sacrifice has been offered.

"This ceremony keeps certain resemblances with the Rites of Step. A fortune teller must determine a propitious day for the sacrifice, but he will not be allowed to attend to him."

The ceremony is, in fact, a familiar ceremony directed by the head of the family, about which there are not informed the neighbors, who of course are not authorized to assist.

The development of the same account Hudspeth:

"Towards the end of the day, the very dirty house, it is usually swept and cleaned. To the dusk the door closes, after which, up to the dawn of the following day, nobody is authorized to enter or to go out of house. A young age sow places herself close to the door, the neck cuts him, and one leads his blood to a hole under the pivot hole by which the door hangs. The hair and the blood, and the water with which the glutton washes herself, are buried in this hole. Also any other dirt is buried there, without throwing anything it was. The sow cuts then his heart, liver and stomach being placed in a big casserole of iron where they are boiled. There is cooked at the same time millet or buckwheat, which will eat up with the sow, quite in an absolute silence. When the meat and the millet are ready the family sits down in the soil and shares the ceremonial meal …"

"At the end of the meal every participant stands up along with the fire where the mouth is cleaned with two hands, as if he was throwing his breath on the fire. Then the hands rub on the fire. That way there are purified hands, mouth and breath. Then all there are going to fall asleep except the father and the elder son, who wait up to one hour or two before the dawn, when they are placed before the door, the father takes a meat piece and repeats: "We adore you, oh door. Keep the illness remote, keep remote the calumnies and everything what is harmful."

"With the dawn of the new day the ceremony is considered completed, the people of the family experience an important safety sensation."

A ceremony like this one, strange since it could seem at first sight, in fact is quite common between the peoples of China. The proper Chinese place every year figures of the gods of the door at the entry of his houses, as well as calligraphies auspiciosas. Also it is possible to relate with similar ceremonies realized between nearby cultures, in honor of the god or goddess of the door of the village.

The existence of deities that protect different places is common to all the cultures of China, including the traditional culture of the majority They Have. Throughout we find deities of a mount, a forest, a river or any other geographical feature. Also there are common the deities that protect a village, a city, or even a region.

The god of the stove, which in this rite fulfills a role purifier, is, between the Chinese, one of the most important deities. One of his missions, it is precisely to protect the family. Between the peoples whose languages belong to the family tibeto birmana the cult to the stove is much developed, and a series of taboos guarantees that the due respect gives up. Also the cult is important to the fire between the nomadic peoples of the north of China, as the Ewenki, Hezhe and Elunchun. The mastery of the fire is, after all, one of the crucial moments in the history of the humanity. All of them, like the god of the door, symbolize the safety of the family.

The fact that the god of the door has reached such a preeminence between Miao Floridos can have owed to many reasons, any more we must not forget that in the first decades of the XXth century his villages suffered an important number of epidemics of fevers tifoideas, that decimated the population. What could have generated the feeling of needing a major protection of the household.

W. H. Hudspedth. - Stone gateway and the Flowery Miao. London. 1937

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