Overview of Tianzishan Town and ethnic settlement
Tianzishan Town is located in the northwest of Wulingyuan District, Zhangjiajie City, with a total area of 56 square kilometers and a core scenic area of 36 square kilometers. It governs 2 administrative villages and 3 neighborhood committees, with a total population of 4,797 people. It is an inhabited area of ethnic minorities such as Tujia, Bai and Miao, of which the Tujia population accounts for more than 97%. The territory has unique scenery and complete ecology. It is the northern gate to the core scenic area of Wulingyuan and has become a distribution center for self-driving tourists from Hubei, Sichuan, Chongqing and other places.
Since 611 BC, the ancestors of Tujia people have gathered in Tianzishan Town with their surnames, and in the long history of history, production and living habits with unique national characteristics have been produced. Tujia festivals have been formed such as: celebrating the New Year (celebrating the New Year one day earlier than the Han people, on the 29th of the twelfth lunar month and the twenty-eighth of the twelfth lunar month), the Ox King Festival on April 8th of the lunar calendar, the Clothes Drying Festival on June 6th, etc.; customs such as "crying for marriage"; local drama Yang opera and a large number of songs and dances, such as the production of pendulum Hand dance, grass singing, Maogusi dance and copper bell dance used for sacrifices, singing lanterns, blowing wooden leaves, three-stick drums, wei drums, etc. used for festival entertainment; there are also Tujia delicacies known for their "sour, fragrant and spicy", such as Sanxiaguo, loach drilled tofu, sour pork, anchovy fish, and traditional crafts such as wine making, carving, and brocade weaving.
Tujia architectural style and cultural heritage
"Architecture is the form, culture is the soul." Due to the baptism of war and historical changes, the ancient Tujia buildings and residences in Tianzi Mountain were seriously damaged, but the Tujia overall architectural firewall style or stilted building style has been inherited, which is reflected in the mahogany square eaves between the first and second floors, the second floor corridors are stilts and lattice railings, the houses have carved wooden lattice windows, wood-carved doors, exterior walls are covered with blue bricks or board walls, the roof is a pitched roof, small green tiles, and white eaves.
In order to promote local culture, Tianzishan Town has formulated village rules and regulations on the protection and development of Tujia culture: in terms of architecture, the Tujia hanging turret or horse head wall style is promoted. After passing the inspection, each household will be rewarded 5,000 yuan; in cultural inheritance, the village invests 30,000 yuan every year to encourage Tianzishan Central School to highlight national characteristics. Starting from childhood, students are required to wear folk clothes, sing folk songs, and dance folk dances, and ask old folk artists to teach three-stick drums and wei drums. In terms of the protection and development of Tujia characteristic villages in Tianzi Mountain, the district and town governments invested 5 million yuan to beautify and brighten the streets. They invested more than 3 million yuan to build a water plant, which solved the water problem of more than 1,000 people. They invested 300,000 yuan to build septic tanks and improve water and toilets for every household. They invested 3 million yuan to harden village roads and group road surfaces, and invested 200 yuan. Ten thousand yuan was invested in the renovation of cable TV and telecommunications networks. Every household has access to cable TV and the Internet. More than 30,000 yuan was invested to build the Tianzishan Yang Opera Stage, complete the construction of the Tujia Cultural Square, continue to explore and organize Tujia folk dances, and form a Yang Opera Troupe and two Tujia theatrical performance teams. At the same time, the scale of the brewery was expanded, and a new carving factory and a brocade factory were built.
It is understood that the construction of characteristic villages in Tianzishan Town has begun to take shape. In the first half of 2015, a total of more than 100,000 people entered the core scenic spot from the Tianzishan Ticket Station for sightseeing, and more than 10,000 self-driving vehicles. Tianzishan Town has become another "golden channel" for tourists to enter the core scenic area of Wulingyuan.