Chapter 93 Chapter Ten Wuhu Chisel Teeth

The stone in my hand just now, no, no, it should not be called a stone, it is clearly a tooth, a human tooth!Could it be that what we stepped on all the way just now were all human teeth?Xinhong impatiently urged me to move forward. He thought I was looking for trouble again, so I pulled him down and asked him to use a flashlight to take a close look at the things on the ground. Unexpectedly, there were all gray teeth!Xinhong finally calmed down now. He has been restless since he got down just now, wondering if he was worried about his mother. "Look, the ground is full of black teeth. I said how to walk without stopping, so that's what happened." I picked up another tooth and said while looking at it.

"These teeth are old and oxidized to black." Xinhong also picked up one, and then it shattered with a crisp sound when he squeezed it lightly. "It's going to be turned into ashes, can there be no history, but how can there be so many teeth on the ground, are they left after death?" I was puzzled. "It's not like, if it's true that a bunch of dead people died in these caves that look like passages, there's no reason why only teeth are left. Where did their bones go?" Xinhong said softly. "Then what if there are wild beasts coming to eat them? Didn't you just see the phobias? Maybe they did something good." I guessed.

"How is it possible? If you pay attention to these teeth, do they all have the same characteristics?" Xinhong said seriously. After hearing what Xinhong said, I had some clues.I picked up a few decayed teeth at random, which were middle or upper upper incisors or canines, and which all looked to me as though they had fallen out of the body during puberty.Because we work in the museum, sometimes we can get in touch with the work of dealing with ancient corpses, and we know a thing or two about the identification of teeth.In other words, the teeth here are not from dead bodies at all, but from living people in their youth!

"So the teeth here are pulled out by themselves. No wonder there are so many teeth. What is the purpose of doing this?" Xinhong himself couldn't figure it out. "I think it's probably related to the reason why the officers and soldiers closed the mountain in the Tang Dynasty!" I got up and said. "Ah!" As soon as I got up, a man's screams echoed in the cave with nine turns and eighteen turns. "An accident happened, who is it?" Xinhong looked around nervously, probably he was worried that something happened to the old curator.Although the old curator Zha is not related to us, we have lived together in the same place since we were young, and our relationship is like that of a grandfather and a grandson.

"It's not the voice of old curator Zha. The yelling just now was full of energy. It should be from a young man, maybe a foreigner who came with Lin Yue." An inexplicable feeling of anxiety rose in my heart , It seems that I can't wait to go to the place where the accident happened to see clearly and understand. "There are forks everywhere in this ghostly place, like honeycombs. Where should we go?" Xinhong was anxious to find the source of the voice. "I can't hear it, I can't hear it at all, the echo here is too strong, it's impossible to find it!" I said dejectedly.

Xinhong looked back and forth, not knowing which way to choose. If there is still time to go back now, at least the exit is still close at hand.However, this time the situation is very special. It is our beloved curator Mr. Cha who has the accident. How could he go out at this time.Besides, there are still Lin Yue and Chen Jing in the cave!When I thought of this, I slapped myself on the head violently again. What time is it? Why do I keep thinking about unclean things.Xinhong finally recovered his usual calmness. He scanned the scattered teeth with a flashlight. I immediately understood what he meant when I saw it, so I followed the light of the flashlight and looked at the teeth on the ground. The local saw that the tooth was broken all the way, extending to other openings.

"Go that way, remember to take out the knife." Xinhong hurriedly walked to the left, while I hurriedly took out a small and exquisite Swiss army knife from my bag. When I took it out, I thought it was a bit funny. If I encounter a cat-phobic knife, can this knife come in handy?We walked along the road along the trampled teeth, only to realize that this place is surprisingly large, and it seems that the center of the entire mountain is filled with these intestine-like holes.Lin Yue and the others must have walked in like this just now, but they seem to know the way, and there is no roundabout confusion in the traces they walked. It seems that the information they have is not only comprehensive but also very detailed.I don't know what they are looking for this time. The reason why the old curator Zha and his party came here more than 20 years ago is also the same thing as Lin Yue and the others are looking for. In this way, our parents are not They have become treasure thieves, and their actions have not been disclosed to outsiders. Could it be that they really want to monopolize them?

We walked for a while, but because we already knew that we could get out of this cave maze from the traces on the ground, we didn't worry about going out even if we walked in a long way.The path Lin Yue and the others are walking is gradually going down, and there are no traces of being stepped on around. If Chen Jing and the old curator Zha also come in, then their path is the same as ours.Gradually, there was a little damp water vapor on the surrounding stone walls, which felt sticky to the touch.The karst landform is such an environment. There are many lime caves and rich water vapor, and stalactites are slowly appearing in front of our eyes.The most peculiar thing is that I can already smell a lime.

The cave we walked in began to appear steep, with a maximum slope of forty-five degrees, and the teeth on the ground were gone.It is estimated that it is too humid here, and even hard things will be corroded. Although the teeth are also very hard, the corrosion of thousands of years cannot be underestimated.Fortunately, because it is getting more and more humid, there are already more obvious footprints on the ground, and we will not lose Lin Yue and the others immediately.However, the smell of lime in front keeps getting worse, and I can't help but think there may be a pile of lime in front.Didn’t the stone slabs at the entrance of the cave say that during the Tang Dynasty, many lunatics were imprisoned here, maybe lime was used for construction, isn’t lime often used in our current buildings?

Instinctively, Xinhong shone the flashlight on the surrounding stone walls. Sure enough, there were some vague murals on them, and the most special thing was that there were many strange characters.The pictures above were faintly recognizable. Some of them depicted many young people, and then an old man was pulling out their snow-white teeth for them. There were also many strange characters written on them, but they were already hard to read.There are only two characters that are still intact. I think those two characters should be translated as "Yu Tu" when translated into today's text.

The picture about tooth extraction reminds me of the customs of some peoples in the primitive society.The ancient peoples used methods such as knocking, pulling out, sawing, and destroying teeth. Most of them extracted and destroyed the middle or upper front teeth or canine teeth symmetrically during adolescence.Some scholars now believe that chiseling teeth is related to obtaining adulthood and marriage qualifications; others believe that it is for the purpose of distinguishing ethnicity and identity or for beauty, decoration, clothing and evil spirits.In China, the origin of this custom can be traced back to the Neolithic Age more than 6,000 years ago.It was first produced in the early cultural distribution area of ​​Dawenkou, and later became popular in southeastern China, the lower reaches of the Yellow River, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and the Pearl River Basin. It was also popular among ancient ethnic groups such as Yue, Liao, and Wuhu for a long time.Until the 1930s and 1940s, some Gelao and Gaoshan people still retained this peculiar custom.In other parts of the world, chisel-tooth wind is also prevalent among many residents in East Asia, Southeast Asia, North and South America, Oceania, East and Southeast Africa.I have never seen this kind of extraction and chiseling of teeth. Now that I see the pictures on the stone wall and the teeth I saw just now, it seems that the people who lived here used to have the custom of chiseling teeth. "There may have been Wuhu people who lived in seclusion here before." I stared blankly at the stone wall and said. "How should I say it?" Xinhong asked, we all forgot about the danger when we encountered something related to archaeology at this time. "Look at those two characters, it should be 'Yu Tu'." I moistened my lips and continued to explain. In the dialect of Chu State, the tiger is called "Yutu", and Wuhu is actually the transliteration of Yutu. The entry of Yutu in "Ci Hai" explains it like this: "Yutu, another name for tiger, "Zuo Zhuan Xuangong Four Years" Chu People... call the tiger a doll."The sound of Yu is Wu, "Yutu", and it is pronounced like Wuhu, or Wuwu. This is the reason why the tiger is called "Yutu" in the dialect of Chu State. We are now among the 100,000 mountains in Guangxi. Guangxi was originally the Zhuang Autonomous Region, and the ancestors of the Zhuang people were also called Wuhu.The reason why it is called Wuhu also has its origin. It is because in Sichuan, the Zhuang nationality was formerly known as the Ba nationality. Because it was destroyed by Chu Zi, some people were unwilling to be ruled and exploited. In the third century BC, they moved to Hunan. Settle down in Xiongheng, Xifu and other places.Then, it slowly spread to today's Guangxi and other places, and gradually gathered together.Their pronunciation and customs can be verified in many places. The history of the Zhuang people is as long as that of the Han people. "They also have the custom of chiseling their teeth. Isn't that just fitting?" I said softly. "So this might be the place where Wuhu people live in seclusion?" Xinhong asked with his head tilted. I just wanted to answer Xinhong and say "yes", but my whole body trembled, because the ethereal and elegant piano sound suddenly wafted in the dark cave.