Author: Liu Qiujie
In the southeast of Lianyuan City, Hunan Province, in the hinterland of Central Hunan Province, there is a small town called Hetang, which was called Dunxing Township in ancient times. During the reign of Qing Tongzhi, it belonged to The forty-four capitals of Jixiang Township, Xiangxiang County. It has a long history and is the birthplace of the Xiang Army. In that year, Li Xubin, a famous general of the Xiang Army, led his township brave regiment to train from here through the Tomita Bridge to the whole country. Hetang has three family armies of Li, Xiao and Mao galloping on the battlefield. The battle merits are outstanding, the meritorious achievements are famous, and the lotus pond is famous for this.
Map of Xiangxiang County during the Reign of the Qing Dynasty, the city of Tomita in the map is the territory of present-day Lotus Pond, and the Tomita Bridge is on the ancient road.
Tomita Old Bridge
Futian Bridge, formerly part of Xiangxiang County, was marked as "Futian City" in the Tongzhi Xiangxiang County Chronicle, and formed a bustling market because it was located in the ancient post road of Anhua (Lantian) - Xiangxiang (Yongfeng).
Remnants of tomita Bridge's ancient cobblestone streets and ancient shops
Tomita Ancient Bridge, formerly known as Goto Bridge, is located in the southeastern border of Hetang Town, Lianyuan City. Originally, a few fir trees were built on an unknown small river, which was convenient for villagers and merchants, connecting the Lan (Tian) - Yong (Feng) Ancient Road. Over time, these trees are named The Guardian Vine Bridge because of the thick-leaved vines that are wrapped around them.
Xiang'an Ancient Road Tomita Bridge
Due to the sun and rain, the wooden bridge can not withstand the erosion of wind and rain. For the safety of passers-by, qing xianfeng was first repaired by Wu Lifang and Long Qing in the sixth year of Qing Xianfeng (1856), and repaired by the local people in the seventh year of Tongzhi (1868). The bluestone pavement has been used to form the single arch bridge that still exists. When the tree bridge was changed to a stone bridge, the local people changed the name of "Fudo Bridge" to "Tomita Bridge" for auspiciousness. In ancient times, the Tomita Bridge was an important jinliang connecting the Lan (Tian) Yiyong (Feng) Road of the Xiang'an Ancient Road.
Ancient bridge stone railing
The bridge body of the ancient Tomita Bridge is all made of bluestone blocks, and is built with glutinous rice juice, tile ash, lime, and tung oil with slurry. The length of the bridge is about fifteen meters with stone platforms, and the width of the bridge is more than three meters. There are eight steps on the upper deck and ten steps on the lower deck. After more than 100 years of ups and downs, it still stands firmly here. However, the thick-leaved vine has always been loyally wrapped around the stone arch bridge, and still wrapped the stone bridge like a tree bridge for more than a hundred years!
The green vines attached to the ancient bridge are lush and lush
Stalk Dragon Legend
In the magical land of Tomitabashi, a unique folk culture has been developed and passed on - the Straw Dragon Lantern Festival. (Straw: Hunan Xiangzhong region called straw, straw dragon is straw dragon)
The site of the Tomitabashi Stalk Dragon Lantern Club
According to the old genealogy of Tomitabashi, the Tomitabashi Stalk Dragon Lantern Society originated in the Shunzhi period (1645), when dysentery broke out and many people were infected. The local villagers were guided to drink water with straw burning ash to cure stubborn diseases. During this period, he was inspired to weave a sacred dragon with straw in order to dispel disasters and pray for blessings, and eventually formed the "Divine Fire Double Dragon" on the street and down the street.
Double Dragon Play Beads
Every New Year's Festival, please attach the dragon to the body of the grass dragon, sprinkle the grain and abundance, adjust the wind and rain, sweep away the plague, and guotai and people's safety. According to records, the ancestors of the Zhou clan donated to the Place of The Guanguan Temple (Lantern Field) to worship the dragon, and gradually formed the Stalk Dragon Lantern Society. At that time, the lantern festival was very popular, and it was said that Xie Zhending, the Qing Dynasty's "burning car imperial history", and Li Xubin, a general of the Xiang Army, all danced dragons and held up lanterns at The Tomita Bridge, and people with a radius of more than 20 kilometers competed to participate, and pedestrians lived here in the hope of seeing it quickly. After nearly 380 years of development, today's stalk dragon lanterns will be given more cultural connotations.
Double Dragon dances
Divine Fire Double Dragon
Tomitabashi Stalk Dragon, honored as "Divine Fire Double Dragon". Tomitabashi Street is divided into two sections, the upper street is "Divine Dragon", which is 11 knots long, and the lower street "Fire Dragon", which is 13 knots long, is made of straw. Rice is the king of the "five grains", and it gives the villagers the original emotion of praying for the abundance of grains.
The weaving of the stalk dragon is very exquisite, from asking the dragon god to weaving the dragon head, first of all, you must sacrifice the dragon king of the four seas with three fresh fruits, and ask the dragon king to bless all the villagers with peace and prosperity. The stalk dragon is made of straw to form a dragon head, 3 straw whips to weave the dragon body, the dragon tail into the three parts, and finally inserted into the wooden handle according to the knot, forming the knot bone of the dragon.
Shangtou Street 11 Festival Dragon
The production of the dragon head is more complicated, with the branches as the dragon horn, the straw woven into a slender grass rope, wrapped into the dragon head, with the blood of the vermilion chicken, and the ramie as the dragon's whiskers. There are 11 sections of the dragon on Shangtou Street, and the dragon head is divided into the upper jaw and the lower jaw, which is made of 1.2 meters of green bamboo pieces and straw with hemp grass, and the lower jaw is the same size. The dragon head is 1.8 meters high connecting rod, the dragon head is 2.5 meters long, the dragon tongue is 30 cm, the dragon horn is 25 cm, the dragon's whiskers are 80 cm, the dragon's eye is as large as a goose egg, and it is decorated with cinnabar and chicken blood, and the other 10 sections are 1.5 meters long.
The Lower Head Street Fire Dragon is 13 knots, and the size of the dragon head is slightly atmospheric, and the other sizes are the same.
13 fire dragons on Lower Head Street
Stalk dragons fly
Tomitabashi Street is divided into two streets, the upper street and the lower street. A dragon guards the street, and a fire dragon guards the street. At the beginning of the new year, there are special ceremonial students in the upper and lower streets to go to Longjiajing and Wanjiajing to take their respective dragon gods to a specific ancestral hall hall, and offer them with fragrant tea fruits and three animals, and then someone has found high-quality straw to weave eleven dragon heads and dragon bodies.
When the dragon head is successfully woven, everyone will fire in unison, slaughtering pigs and sheep to sacrifice the Dragon King. Although the dragons at the upper and lower street lantern festivals are made of straw, there are rules handed down from ancestors: the stalk dragon on the street is 11 knots, male, can fly up and down left and right, and the movement is exaggerated and powerful. The stalk dragon on the lower street is 13 knots, which is female, and can only swim back and forth, and is not allowed to fly left and right. When the stalk dragon passes by every household, it will be blessed with incense sticks and worship with great respect!
Incense is planted to worship the stalk dragon
Because the living grass dragon mouth and each dragon handle (knot bone) are inserted with incense, at night the grass dragon dances, the whole looks like a fire dragon flipped up and down, so the predecessors called it "fire dragon" "divine dragon", the thirteenth day of the first lunar month is the Lantern Lantern, this night, the supporters of both sides are carrying lanterns and torches, banging gongs and drums to stand in their respective lines to cheer and encourage. I wish you a good harvest in the coming year.
In the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day of the first month, the dragons on the street and the fire dragons in the lower streets will occasionally meet on the foundation of the crossing pond, which is the climax of the Tomitabashi Lantern Festival. At this time, the upper and lower streets will put all the fireworks and firecrackers, light Kong Ming lanterns, at this time the dragon dancers will dance the grass dragon to the extreme, change the pattern to complete a variety of dragon dancing movements, people are dizzying, and the upper and lower streets will use the sponsorship costs of their respective supporters to sing on the stage, buy new fireworks, new loud musical instruments, a moment of gong and drum noise, fireworks in the air, tens of thousands of people watching, lively and extraordinary.
The pomp and circumstance is unprecedented
Can Lantern Will
The Stalk Dragon Lantern Festival is mainly based on dragon dances. The straw dragon dance is the same as other dragon dance performances, there are disk, roll, swim, flip, jump, up, volt, grab and other actions; there are jumping dragon gate, crossing the dragon bridge, worshiping the four sides, walking the dragon cloud, wearing the dragon cloud, licking the dragon's spine, looking for the dragon ball and other routines; there are dragon walking, golden dragon into the sea and so on.
The stalk dragon lantern will last until the end of the fifteenth night of the first month, and the stalk dragon will be burned at the well in their respective areas to worship the stalk dragon, and the dragon will be returned to its place, and the entire folk activity will end.
Shen Jiyang
The stalk dragon is the god in the minds of the people of Tomitabashi and the place of hope. Through the forms of "dragon dance", "comparison lamp", and "zatai", the Tomitabashi people not only expanded the fame of Tomitabashi, but also invigorated the market, revealing the shrewdness and ability of the tomitahashi ancestors as businessmen.
Tomitabashi Stalk Dragon Lantern Club culture is rooted in the deep soil of traditional Chinese culture, she took local materials, woven into dragons with simple straw and inserted incense, through dragon dance to achieve her wishes; she did not divide the area by surname and ethnic group, but created a broad sense of the upper street and lower street, so that the influence of the Tomita Bridge Straw Dragon Lantern Club expanded to the land of Huxiang.
The Tomitabashi Straw Dragon Lantern Will be passed down from generation to generation in Tomita Bridge, is a traditional folk culture closely related to the lives of local people, and is the crystallization of the diligence and wisdom of the ancestors of Tomitabashi. It is not only a witness to historical development, but also a precious intangible cultural heritage of great value. It is also a link that connects the feelings of the villagers in the ten miles and eight villages, and is the spiritual sustenance of the People of Tomitabashi, which is of great significance to the sustainable development of the local economy.
At the beginning of 2016, Hetang Town, Lianyuan City, established the Futian Bridge Straw Dragon Lantern Association Application Committee. After more than a year of collation and careful organization of information. The declaration of intangible cultural heritage in Lianyuan City and Loudi City was completed. In October 2017, the People's Government of Hetang Town applied for the intangible cultural heritage protection project of Lianyuan City and Loudi City. It is protected by Lianyuan City Cultural Center. In December 2018, approved by the Loudi Municipal People's Government, the Certificate was issued by the Loudi Municipal Bureau of Culture, Sports, Radio, Film and Television News and Publications (the Tomita Bridge Straw Dragon Lantern Club is the intangible cultural heritage of Loudi City).
In July this year, at the symposium on the fifth batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage appraisal projects in Loudi City, the Loudi Municipal Bureau of Culture, Sports, Radio, Film and Television included the Tomita Bridge Straw Dragon Lantern Association in the fifth batch of provincial intangible cultural heritage projects in Loudi City.
Today, as a municipal intangible cultural heritage project in Loudi, the inheritance of the Tomita Bridge Straw Dragon has entered local schools and classrooms. Students weave five-knotted stalk dragons and dance stalk dragons by themselves. The protection of intangible cultural heritage continues to forge ahead.
Liu Qiujie, pen name Qiu Ge, was born in 1954 in Tangwan, Yuantian Township, Lianyuan County. He has worked as a farmer, a private teacher, a film projectionist, a safety supervisor, a secretary, an office director, etc., and has authored "Symphonic Poems of Friendship" and "Collected Letters".