Haou Study

Haou is the name of the Hani people whose ancestors are living nearby the Da Xing Town of Lvchun County and Sanmeng village, belonging to the Zhuang nationality. After locating in Lvchun, the ancestors of Hani have experienced more than900years of historical development, and have been assimilated by Hani in aspects of architecture, dress, language, festivals (except Spring Festival), customs, rituals, beliefs and so on. However, they still keep the historical memory of its progenitor, migration and settlement, and have their Spring Festival customs, funeral customs and Ajie Abo cry culture. Haou people think themselves are Haou branch of Hani nationality, whose ethnic recognition first manifests as the nationality identity to Hani nationality, then status identity of Hani people basing on historical memory. As a group which is assimilated in the process of acculturation, the ethnic group has its primordial and inherent moral characters, but also it's the result of the long-term interaction with the surrounding Hani people, and it has not only retained most of the ethnic quality of Hani people, but also has its own unique group properties.The main part of the thesis is composed of three parts. The first part, starts from the oral tradition, describes the ancestors of the Haou people, who suffered from wars,twists and turns, finally settled in Lvchun. Lu Baohe, a local cultural elite, concluds that the Haou people are the descendent of the Nungz Cigaoh and their migratory route from original spoken history and some fragmentary pieces of information, thus construct a fairly clear historical memory of the Haou people.The second part depicts the common cultural characteristics of Haou and Hani people, and has an analysis of the condition of its cultural acculturation and the base of nationality identity. The third part explains he Haou people's historical memory is the basis of ethnic identity, the tradition of attaching attention to Spring Festival and the taboo of no eating pork in Spring Festival's eve, which created on the basis of historical memory, as well as the root of the ethnic identity, which is the funeral custom and taboo. All of which are the bright symbol to separate with the Hani people and the Haou people's ethnic boundary. The way of'ajie awa cry' closed the kinship, strengthen the self-identity, consolidated the ethnic identity and maintained the ethnic boundary by the continued repeat of Spring Festival and funeral custom.This article is the creative research to the Haou people from the perspective of ethnology, also the ethnic group. It provided a vivid case for the research to the Haou people. Besides, it also discussed as an assimilation group, the foundation of self-identity and the basic place of establishing and maintaining the boundary, to provide an added research perspective of ethnic group's contact and identity theory.