Jiangnan Songcheng - Ganzhou
Ganzhou City is located in the south of Jiangxi, where the Zhangjiang River and the Gongjiang River merge into one, converging into an important tributary of the Yangtze River - the Ganjiang River, so Ganzhou is known as "the first city of the Ganjiang River in a thousand miles". In addition, Ganzhou is also known as the "Cradle of Hakka", because Ganzhou was the earliest distribution center during the period when the Hakka ancestors moved south. Hakka culture pervades the entire Gannan region, especially during the festival period. The New Year is approaching, and the Hakka New Year customs of the eighteen counties in the Gannan region have their own characteristics, and today's protagonist "Nine Lions Worship Elephant" is one of them.
First, the formation and development of the nine lions worshiping elephants
Shangyou County is located in the west of Ganzhou and is known as the "hometown of hydropower". There are many Hakka people living in the area, and they hold a folk activity every New Year's Day - the Nine Lions Worship. Nine lions worship is a folk art developed on the basis of dragon lanterns and lion lanterns, usually composed of a dragon, nine lions, an elephant and a unicorn plus a card lamp, gong and drum pavilion. A performance often requires dozens of people to perform at the same time, and the performance is imposing.
Scenery of Shangyou County
The formation and development of the Nine Lions worship is inseparable from the local clan struggle. By the middle of the Qing Dynasty, the local contradictions between the local natives had gradually dissipated, and in their place were the struggles between the various surname clans. In order to show their strength, these clans have worked the prototype of the Nine Lions Worshiping Elephant, the Dragon and Lion Dance. Dragon and lion dances are generally composed of a dragon and three to five lions, these dragons and lions are made of straw "pipe dragon" and "pipe lion", the production is very simple, the local clan was the original dragon, lion raw materials into paper and cloth to show strength. As the production process of paper and cloth improved day by day, it was no longer enough to change the material to reflect the financial strength, so some clans began to increase the number of lions. When one clan begins to add lions, the other clans will follow suit, gradually increasing the number.
The Nine Lions worship the dragon in the elephant
In this battle of strength, the dragon and lion dance gradually increased into a dragon and a nine-headed lion. Because the ancients believed that nine was the largest number of yang numbers, and only increasing the number of lions was also very monotonous, the local clan decided after discussion that the number of nine lions would not increase after increasing to nine lions, but would add an elephant for lions to worship. Elephants are so large that even lions, who are the king of the hundred beasts, have to fear it for three points, so it is reasonable for lions to worship elephants. Increasing elephants not only shows strength (there are more materials to make elephants than lions), but also implies that they are superior to other clans that have not increased elephants, so there are many people who support adding elephants instead of other animals. Moreover, elephants are the same as each other, which can refer to the prime minister, so the local clan also stipulates that the surname of the person who has not produced a prime minister in history cannot hold the nine lions to worship the elephant. The Nine Lions Worship Elephant is developed in this way, of which the Nine Lions Worship Elephant in the town of Yuyingqian is the most famous, and the name of the Nine Lions Worship Elephant also has the meaning of "Vientiane Rejuvenation, Kyushu Tongle".
Among the Nine Lions is an elephant of enormous size
2. The performance arrangement of the Nine Lions worshiping the elephant
The preparations for the Nine Lions Worship will begin at the beginning of the Waxing Moon every year, and the local clans that want to hold the Nine Lions Worship will select highly respected people as organizers to organize everyone to collect money, and then invite people to participate in the performance and prepare props. In the past, when the clan struggle was fierce, the clan that held the Nine Lions Worship would also invite people to mix in the audience to maintain order and prevent the hostile clans from sending people to make trouble. Most of the participants were martial artists who had been practicing martial arts for many years, because the training of the Nine Lions and Elephant Worship was very strict, and there could be no mistakes. Take the dragon dance, each movement must be practiced repeatedly, once there is a mistake that leads to the dragon, it is a violation of the gods and a big taboo.
A dragon dance performance in progress
The props of the Nine Lions worshiping elephants are also very exquisite, and the lions alone have the difference between several lions such as silkworm lions, monkey-faced lions, minotaur lions, pig-headed lions, and dog-headed lions. In addition to the different appearance of each lion, it is also different in color, and the colorful and beautiful. According to the number of participants, the production of props will also be different, the dragon is generally nine to eleven sections, each section of the dragon body is made of red cloth or yellow cloth embellished, with golden pink painting as dragon scales, very exquisite. If the number of participants is large, it can be extended at the front of the tail, and it is said that the longest can reach ninety-nine knots.
The Nine Lions worship the lions of all shapes in the elephant
Because the first day of the Chinese New Year is to go to the ancestral hall to worship the ancestors, the performance time of the nine lions worshiping elephants is from the second to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month. Before the official performance, it is also necessary to invite the elders of the higher status in the clan to give the dragon a finishing touch, and then perform at the ancestral shrine to perform a performance before leaving the team. When leaving the team, the card lights should walk in the front to guide the way, followed by the gong and drum pavilion and the accompanying personnel, followed by the dragon lamp team, with the elephant in front, followed by the dragon, and the two sides of the dragon are unicorns and lions. In order to see and declare the scope of protection and protection, the route of the departure will be prepared in advance to avoid taking the duplicate route. The teams that encountered the other nine lions and elephants had to give way to each other politely, and the dragons, lions, elephants, and unicorns of the two teams had to salute each other. People who have had happy events in the past year during the team will also invite the team to perform at home to pray for the new year to continue to have good luck.
Well-organized teams
During the performance, the unicorn will stretch its neck to look at the offering, the various lions will shake their heads and tails and play with each other, the dragon will play with them back and forth among the unicorn and the lion, and the elephant will be in the center, waving its nose to accept the lion's worship. In addition, various programs such as "Golden Dragon Ginseng God Playing water" and "Yellow Dragon Winding Pillar" will also be performed. In this way, on the day of the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month, it is necessary to "thank the dragon god" and burn incense in the ancestral hall to worship the god to show that this year's event is very smooth. After the end of the "Xie Long God", people would tear some fragments of dragons, lions, elephants, and unicorns outside the ancestral hall, burn them and send them back to their places or bring them home to pray for the protection of the gods, and the remaining skeletons could be left for repeated use in the future.
Lions are worshipping elephants
The Nine Lions Shrine was interrupted for a period of time due to social unrest, but it has not been lost over the course of generations. Since its re-organization in 1984, the Nine Lions Worship has once again returned to the Spring Festival activities of the People of Shangju. Nowadays, the contradictions between the various clans are no longer as irreconcilable as before, so the nine lions worship is held more to enhance the cohesion of the clan than to show the strength of the clan. The Nine Lions worship elephant is the carrier of Hakka culture, containing the charm of Hakka folklore "to become a family".
Wen Shijun said
As a tradition held by the local Hakka people every New Year, the Nine Lions Elephant Worship is an activity used by locals to express their wishes for a smooth new year and their yearning for a better life. The holding of the Nine Lions Worship Elephant not only reflects the Hakka people's unique inheritance of the Central Plains culture, but also reflects the Hakka people's strong cultural innovation ability, which is the Hakka, the Hakka who "prefer to sell the ancestral fields and do not forget the ancestral words", and the Hakka who are always "on the road"!
bibliography
Zhong Shanjin and Li Jun, "The Large-scale Hakka Folk Lantern Art before shangyuying in Gannan Province: "Nine Lions Worship elephants"", Journal of Jiaying University, No. 1, 2009.
Tan Donghui and Liu Zhimin, "Research on the Social Function and Value of Hakka Folk Sports Culture in Gannan Province: A Field Survey of "Nine Lions Worshiping Elephants" in Yingqian Town, Shangyou County", Journal of Nanjing University of Physical Education, No. 2, 2010.
Huang Zhifan, "Turk-Hakka Conflict, Shangzhen Development and Folklore Creation: A Case Study of Shangyouying Qianwei in Jiangxi", Journal of Tsinghua University, No. 1, 2011.
(Author: Haoran Wenshi Taoyuan)
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