Cultural Heritage Protection Center of Huaihua City, Hunan Province, Yang Yudian, Research Center of Non-Genetic Inheritance and Application, East China Normal University, Li Ke
During the Lantern Festival, the three Xiangs and four waters were full of joy, a jubilant, and the traditional outdoor folk activities that were overwhelmed pushed the joyful atmosphere during the Spring Festival to a new climax. Huaihua under the Xuefeng Mountain in southwest Hunan Province, Han, Dong, Miao, Yao, Tujia and many other ethnic groups have long lived here, and the local "Lantern Festival" activities are also full of different ethnic customs. It is precisely with the Lantern Festival and other traditional festivals of the Chinese nation as the carrier, the display and performance of regional folklore and the living inheritance that provide the possibility for cultivating new momentum in the integrated development of cultural tourism in the Xuefeng Mountain plate.
Lantern Festival: Traditional multi-ethnic Lantern Festival customs and dragon lantern dances
Huaihua is a multi-ethnic settlement, 51 ethnic groups in the pattern of large mixed residence, small settlement throughout the 13 counties and municipalities of Huaihua, ethnic minorities accounted for 40% of the city's total population, of which Dong, Miao, Tujia accounted for the highest proportion. All ethnic groups multiply and intertwine with each other to create a magical, magnificent and brilliant national culture. Since ancient times, Wuxi Dadi has been passing down the colorful Lantern Festival customs forged by multi-ethnic culture. (Qianlong) "Qianyang County Chronicle" said: "Fifteen colorful lanterns are hung, with Qiaoli horns to win, and the golden drum Da Dan is called the Lantern Festival." Its lamps are cut and paper-cut, like figures, flowers and fruits, poultry and fish, and children insist on it, walking around the street. It is also a hundred plays, such as playing lions, walking horses, playing flower drums, singing the four major scenery songs, dressing up as tea women, and dancing with masks and mutes, and entering people's homes to perform them. Dragon lanterns danced again, coiled along the streets, drums and drums were noisy, and the roads were boiling, thinking that they were happy. (Qianlong) The "Yuanzhou FuZhi" also has a record of little discrepancy with this, but adds an account of eating the Lantern Festival: "On the fifteenth day of the Yuan Festival, there were also those who congratulated each other earlier. And rice noodles for the pills, called the Lantern Festival, the group to feed the guests. At night, the lights are hanging... Dragon lanterns are danced again, coiled along the street..." (Guangxu) "Re-repairing Huitong County Chronicle" said: "Shangyuan, hanging lamps at the door." Chasing each other is a hundred diseases. Set off cannon fires, dance lanterns, and perform operas to watch the scenery. "It is not difficult to find that, like most other parts of the mainland, in Huaihua, the tradition of lanterns in the Shangyuan Festival can be described as the same, with the lantern festival as the center, eating lanterns, playing flower drums, decorating lanterns, dancing dragons and lions, singing and dressing up opera and other Lantern Festival customs have long been popular in the Qing Dynasty.
Not only that, but the Lantern Festival at that time lasted more than one day and one night. (Qianlong) "Yuanzhou Fu Zhi" said: "Ten days away, the goods lamps are in the city. On the night of the thirteenth day, outside the door of each lamp, it is said that the lamp is above. The same is true of fourteen nights. ...... After the sixteenth day, there are those who worship each other again, which is called the year of worship, and the meaning of the festival is covered. (Jiaqing) The saying in the "Chronicle of Tongdao County" is also much the same: "The city qu zhang drum music, the flower lantern, the makeup story, the flower out of the mystery, the children celebrate the competition together." From eleventh to sixteenth. Therefore, some people in the folk also refer to the eleventh to sixteenth day of the first month as the "Scattered Lantern Festival".
In the old days of Huaihua, sacrifices were also prevalent during the Lantern Festival, "a few days before the Yuan Dynasty, making flower lanterns to offer temples and temples, hanging all over the office" (see (Qianlong) "Reconstruction of Huitong County Chronicle"). The "Huaihua Regional Chronicle" compiled after the founding of the People's Republic of China also has records of lantern festival customs such as "sending the New Year" to the gods, making new year gongs and drums, dancing dragons and lions, and inviting "seven girls". On the day of the Lantern Festival, in addition to lantern festivals, dragon dances and lion dances, and spring cattle festivals common to the Han areas, the passages of the Dong ethnic region in southern Huaihua will also be carried out from the beginning of the first month of the new month. "For also" refers to the collective guests of the group between the tuanzhai and the tuanzhai, or between the Fang and the Fang, such as singing, doyle and Sai Lusheng. "Matsuri" refers to the village where there is a "Tang Sa" (referring to the building dedicated to the ancestral spirit of the Dong female ancestor "Sama"), on the first day of the Chinese New Year and the Lantern Festival, morning and evening to "Tang Sa" to pay tribute to tea, burn incense and burn paper, and pray to the sa god to bless the tuanzhai well-being. Xinhuang in the northern Dong area began to "play the New Year Gong" from the twenty-third day of the Waxing Moon, and the villages came and went, competing with each other until the twentieth day of the first month. During the day, "playing the New Year Gong", at night, walking the village to dance dragons and lions. Hua Yao, who lives in the Pupu Mountains, sings mountain songs, silkworm lanterns and bench dragons on the day of the Lantern Festival.
Among the above-mentioned Lantern Festival customs, dragon dancing has always been an important existence. Dragon dance, also known as dragon dance lamp, is actually driven by people to dance, the dragon lamp presented dynamically is also a kind of Lantern Lantern, as (Tongzhi) "Yuanling County Chronicle" said: "A few days before the Lantern Festival, urban and rural paper-cutting for lights, or dragons, or lions, and birds and beasts, children under the age of ten play tea picking and singing stories. By the fifteenth night, the sheng song was boiling, the Ying Street Wasudan, the scholars and women gathered, and the Lantern Festival was celebrated. The "dragon lantern" mentioned here is used for dragon dance. (Republic of China) "Pupu County Chronicle" also said: "Street market rural paper lamps, there are dragon horses, lions, tea picking lamps, there are people who are united, there is a person who is alone, the name is called the lantern wish, and it is also known as the Lantern Festival." "On the basis of traveling to enjoy the lights, there are more enthusiastic and cheerful rhythms accompanied by drum music, waving dragon lanterns and group interaction experience, which really plays the aesthetic effect of "Lantern Festival", which is the carnival of sentient beings.
One Dragon and One Treasure: The Unique Charm of Dongxiang "Dragon Dance" in the Lantern Festival
As we all know, the dragon dance custom is a folk activity shared by han areas and ethnic minorities, which is widely used in festivals, life rituals and belief ceremonies, and has become an important symbol of Chinese festival culture. The dragon dance forms are similar in various places, and the Lantern Dance Dragon Dance in the Huaihua Dong area has continuously beautified the form and enriched the content on the basis of absorbing the characteristics of the Han dragon dance, forming a dongxiang dragon dance custom with strong style and unique charm.
The Dong ethnic group in Huaihua is mainly concentrated in the three Dong Autonomous Counties of Tongdao, Xinhuang and Zhijiang and Jingzhou Miao and Dong Autonomous County, and a small number is distributed in Huitong, Hongjiang and other places. The Dong population in Hunan Province is also basically concentrated in these counties and urban areas of Huaihua, and some are distributed in Suining, Shaoyang, which is adjacent to Huaihua. The "Dragon Dance" (also known locally as "Dulong Dance" and "Inferior Dragon Dance") in the area of Fujiatuan Village, Tuqiao Town, Zhijiang Dong Autonomous County, is currently the rarest and most unique Dong dragon dance custom, and has been selected into the list of representative items of national intangible cultural heritage.
Different from the length of the dragon body of the traditional dragon dance, the "evil dragon" has only one dragon, and the shape is the dragon head and the snake body and the tail, reflecting the Dong people's worship of dragon snakes and birds. There are only two performers, one person dancing the dragon and one dancing treasure, accompanied by a sonorous and powerful gong and drum, there are two forms of "single treasure play dragon" and "double treasure play dragon". The main performance actions are "dragon pan water", "dragon bathing", "dragon turning over", "dragon gun treasure", etc.; the basic steps are snowflake top, ancient tree rooting, Green Mountain cow swinging tail, harrier turning over, yellow dragon wrapped around the waist and so on. Dragon dancers need to be strong and strong, familiar with movements and footwork essentials, in order to dance with momentum and elegance.
The custom of dancing the "evil dragon" began in the late Sui and early Tang dynasties, and the dragon dance skills were passed down from generation to generation by the Murata family of the Tuqiao rich family. The "evil dragon" is exquisite in weaving skills, and it is necessary to use bamboo to weave a six-foot-long bamboo stick into the skeleton of the snake's body dragon head and phoenix tail, and the dragon cannot use bitter bamboo, taking the water bamboo as the best, taking the meaning of "the dragon does not leave the water". Paste the skin of the dragon, draw the dragon scales with paint, and light a candle inside the dragon head. Long Bao made a skeleton of bamboo sticks, woven into a round ball with a diameter of one foot and five inches, wrapped in red and green silk cloth on the outside, a thick wire on the inside, and a candle on the inside when dancing. After the completion of the "evil dragon" and the dragon treasure system, there will also be a sacrifice, the sacrifice will recite a blessing, burn incense and prostrate, and then use three incense sticks to burn three small holes in the throat of the dragon, commonly known as "opening the throat", also known as "point red" or "point tongue", only the dragon who has opened the throat has spirituality, and can enter the house to perform without taboos.
After a series of ritual activities such as dragon zha, dragon painting, and dragon sacrifice, since the second day of the Chinese New Year, the dragon dance New Year celebration activities have appeared in the villages and villages of Dongxiang with joyful gongs and drums. On the day of the Lantern Festival, the dragon dance reaches its climax, and a solemn "dragon transformation" ceremony is held after the dragon dance. The villagers put up incense offerings by the stream, placed the dragon on the "Dragon Terrace" made of firewood and straw and lit it to "send it away", praying that the "evil dragon" would protect the village with smooth wind and rain, harvest in all seasons, and the villagers would be safe and auspicious, and the family would be peaceful.
Craftsmanship, Performance and Legend: The Narrative Features of the "Dragon Dance" in Dongxiang
Professor Tian Zhaoyuan of East China Normal University once pointed out that intangible cultural heritage is a narrative of cultural traditions, and is mainly embodied in the narrative of language, writing, behavior and rituals and landscape images. As a national intangible cultural heritage, the "Dragon Dance" in Dongxiang embodies different narrative characteristics from three dimensions: tie-making craftsmanship, performance form and folklore.
First of all, from the perspective of the tie-making process, the shape of the "evil dragon" is different from the widely circulated long dragon, and its tie-making technique reflects the unique narrative characteristics of landscape images. "Evil dragon" is made of bamboo and bamboo sticks woven into the shape of the dragon head snake body phoenix tail, the whole is "S" shape, the head is up to the sky, the tail is facing the sky, inserted in a six-foot long bamboo stick, like a dragon is not a dragon, like a snake is not a snake, the dragon body is very short and clever, appearing agile and agile. And when dancing, there is no need to light up the dragon's body like a traditional dragon lamp, just light a candle in its dragon head. Corresponding to the "evil dragon" is the tie of the treasure, also known as the "dragon ball", which is woven with bamboo and wrapped in colorful silk cloth. Dongxiang is rich in water bamboo, which is tough and strong, which means toughness and auspiciousness. The "evil dragon" based on the bamboo weaving skills of the Dong people is full of beauty, aura and spirit, reflecting the wisdom and delicacy of the Dong people. It is worth noting that at present, due to the death of the old artists who mastered the craftsmanship of tie-making, the production technology of "Evil Dragon" has gradually become endangered, and it is urgent to inherit and promote the new generation of craftsmen.
Secondly, from the perspective of performance form, the common dragon dance is as few as a dozen people, as many as hundreds of people, and the long dragons fly and leap with red colored beads, meandering and surging, magnificent, huge and majestic. The "Dragon Dance" is unique, with only one person dancing the dragon and one person dancing treasure. With the accompaniment of gong and drum music, the two cooperated tacitly, dancing, light and fast, dazzling. At first glance, a short dragon looks like it has no dragon power, but because of this, its performance space is also larger, it is not bound by any conditions, and it can be more boldly innovated and flexible in dance. The traditional dragon, lion, shrimp lamp, mussel shell dance can be absorbed and used, and a large number of improvisational movements can be used, which shows its flexibility and speed in leaping, rolling, twisting, probing, swooping, shaking and other postures. In this way, the excitement of the "Dragon Dance" is no less than that of the long dragon, and with its transcendent performance form, it constructs a distinctive narrative of behavior and ritual.
Third, from the folklore behind the "Dragon Dance", the language and text narrative about the "Dragon Dance" is also very unique. First of all, the name "evil dragon" is different and fascinating. The view of the dragon as a "sin" is very different from the positive image of the "dragon" in the traditional Chinese dragon dance. In fact, the "evil dragon" of Dongxiang comes from a vivid folklore. There is a local folk song: "The evil dragon is happy with the five grains, and the evil dragon is angry with the four landslides", people not only sacrifice it every New Year's Festival, but also worship it when encountering natural disasters and man-made disasters, why are they so afraid of the evil dragon? Legend has it that a long time ago, there was a high mountain behind the village of Fujiatuan called The Eagle Pengjie, with undulating dragon veins and winding eastwards. Villagers surnamed Tian regard it as a treasure of feng shui and have been worshipping on the mountain for generations. One year, a golden rooster on the mountain laid eggs, gave birth for seven days and forty-nine days and had not yet been born, the pain was unbearable, day and night "clucking" straight, attracting a large yellow snake, the golden rooster panicked at the sight of it and fled for its life, and a huge egg finally fell to the ground. The yellow snake wanted to eat it, but because the egg was too big to eat, it was wrapped tightly in the nest. A few days later, the eggs hatched, and a monster with a snake body, a crown, a dragon head, and a phoenix tail was drilled out of it, and flew to the village to forage for food, causing the crops and insects that year, and hundreds of acres of rice grains were harvested. Later, some people who were skilled in xiangshu said that it must be a dragon born out of nowhere, which will bring disaster to the human world, and if you want to live a peaceful and peaceful life, you can only use a bamboo grate to form a dragon shape, light a candle in your belly, and use treasure to open the way to dance the dragon, so as to influence it to change evil and do good. Since then, every spring and early autumn, every New Year's Festival, there is this "dragon dance" custom, and the "evil dragon" has also been influenced by people, and gradually become the protector and protector of the villagers, from then on the cottage grain is abundant, the six animals are prosperous, and the people are healthy. This is the origin of the "evil dragon", which was originally a stubborn dragon, making waves everywhere, and only after being inspired did it turn evil into good and benefit the people. Therefore, the "Dragon Dance" is not only a performance to entertain the gods, but also a ceremony of induction, with a strong national and regional color.
It is precisely under the joint action of the above three unique narratives that a more grand festival landscape is formed, creating a festive atmosphere of joy and joy without losing solemnity, which not only shows the connotation of "noisy" in the "Lantern Festival", but also reflects the farming tradition and sense of distress of the ancestors of Dongxiang.
The Lantern Dance Dragon Festival custom empowers the integrated development of Xuefeng Mountain Cultural Tourism
Today, the "Dragon Dance" as an intangible cultural heritage has changed from a pure spontaneous performance of the people to a custom of government guidance, mass participation and spontaneous organization of the people, and the rituals related to the dragon dance have been simplified accordingly. However, as Professor Ji Zhongyang of Nanjing Agricultural University said, although the concepts of "culture", "tradition" and "heritage" explain the contemporary value of traditional festivals, only from the perspective of celebration and gathering, which meet the inherent needs of people and all beings, can we truly understand the motives for the contemporary inheritance and revitalization of traditional festivals. This is also the logical starting point for the Lantern Dance Dragon Festival to participate in and empower the integration and development of local culture and tourism.
In Huaihua, in addition to the "Dragon Dance" of Zhijiang Dongxiang, there are also Mao Dragons of the Dong Ethnic Group, Bench Dragons of the Yao Ethnic Group, as well as various dragon dance forms such as Flat Dragon, Incense Fire Dragon, and Grass Handle Dragon. During this year's Lantern Festival, with the in-depth promotion of the integrated development of Huaihua cultural tourism, the heroic dragon dances have taken on the glorious mission of leading the festival atmosphere, setting an example for cultural inheritance, and creating popularity for folk tourism. The ancient city of Qianyang in Hongjiang City launched the "Lantern Festival" Dragon and Lion Club activity, dancing dragons and lions in the ancient ancient city of Qianyang, holding lantern festivals, setting up lantern riddles, playing iron flowers, and celebrating the Lantern Festival. The Lipu Fengxiang Yaozhai Scenic Area integrates traditional Yao folk activities such as silkworm lanterns, bench dragons, charcoal fire dances and other traditional Yao folk activities with Rap hi singing and rock bands, in an attempt to create a carnival of "Southern Snow Peak, Intangible National Tide Lantern Festival", which is based on the continuation of the traditional folk customs that the local people like to hear, and the bold innovation towards the present, especially the youth tourism group. In the Hongjiang Ancient Mall, there will also be a traditional Lantern Harvesting Ceremony, and the dragons that have appeared on the first day of the New Year will be harvested by fire until the evening of the fifteenth day. The (Xiangyun) Tourism Distribution Center in Huaihua District also organized a Lantern Festival, preparing a series of folk experience activities such as dragon dance, lion dance, lantern riddle guessing, flower lantern viewing, paper cutting, and lantern tasting for citizens and friends.
(The author conducts a fieldwork in Huaihua DongXiang)
With the passage of time, the traditional dragon dance customs are also constantly increasing in narrative and enduring, and what remains unchanged is the inherent need for people to celebrate and gather in traditional festivals. From the social level, through the gathering and radiation of traditional festivals as a platform for folk economic consumption, more festival cultural resources and their narrative methods, and even a wider range of local cultural resources can be allocated and activated, which promotes the deep integration of traditional culture and market economy, especially with modern tourism. As far as the main body of the people is concerned, the celebration of the festival allows people to briefly enter the "extraordinary" time and space from the daily life, eliminating people's sense of time and obtaining a pure happiness. The gathering of festivals has gathered people's hearts, constructed cultural identity, boosted cultural self-confidence, and provided inexhaustible spiritual motivation for building a solid sense of community of the Chinese nation and realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. (Some of the field materials used in the article are provided by the Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center of Zhijiang Dong Autonomous County)