Dong Sama Festival with honest folk customs in the village

People living in southeastern Guizhou danced and sang at the Rongjiang Sama Festival.

The deep and quiet Sama Temple in the village.

Qiandongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture is identified by the United Nations World Native Culture Organization as one of the top ten holy places in the world that "returns to nature and returns to nature." Due to its relatively closed geographical environment, the simple folk culture has been preserved to this day. The cultural customs of many ethnic minorities here have formed a unique festival culture. Qiandongnan Prefecture has 135 ethnic festivals every year and is known as the "State of Hundred Festivals". Among the many festivals, the "Dong Sama Festival", which was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists, is the most magical one.

The safari culture centered on the Sanbao Qianhu Dong Village of Rongjiang River is magnificent and ancient and magical. The annual "Dong Sama Festival" vividly displays the spiritual outlook, rich and unique national costumes and simple and unique ethnic customs of the people of all ethnic groups in Rongjiang. The quiet Duliu River bypasses Sanbao Dong Village, and three or two small wooden boats docked by the river sway gently against the waves. The banyan trees are affectionate and hang down their branches one after another, just like stretching out their hands to soothe the clear water of a river on a long journey. Under the high drum tower, the Dong daughters sang the Doye song in unison, thanking the goddess Sama for her eternal blessing...

"The small ancestral hall is always carefully located in the deepest part of the village. Compared with the Drum Tower, it is less high-profile and publicity. It enshrines the greatest god in the hearts of the Dong people," Sama,"which the Dong family worships in their hearts. Worship in their hearts and silently serve." Shi Kaizhong, dean of the School of Ethnology and Sociology of Guizhou University for Nationalities and executive vice president of the Dong Society of Guizhou Province, said that he grew up in Dong Village, and the scene of Dong people worshiping Sama was particularly solemn and solemn. Only women and highly respected village elders in the village could participate in such a ceremony.

"Sama" is literally translated as great grandmother, and the profound meaning is the supreme goddess. Today, in Rongjiang, Liping, Congjiang, Tianzhu and other counties in Guizhou, some Dong villages believe in the god of Sa. Each village has a Temple of the Virgin of Sama. At specific times every year, women in the village join in praying for blessings.

This is a cultural legacy of female worship in early society, which has been rooted in the hearts of the Dong people for thousands of years. There are many versions of the legend about Sama, among which the heroine theory is the most widely circulated. That is a tragic story without any background of the times. In order to protect her clansmen, a female ancestor of the Dong nationality fell in a place called Nongtanggui, at the junction of Liping and Rongjiang River today. In order to commemorate this brave ancestor, before building the village, people had to take a handful of soil from the place where she died to build a shrine before starting to build houses. There is a saying in the ancient Dong village rules that "before building houses, build a drum tower first, and before building a village gate, set up a sa altar first."

In the quaint ancestral hall, Sama's avatar is a half-open black umbrella, standing on the altar in the middle of the hut. The altar is composed of soil and stones. At the beginning of the altar, wooden harrows for beating cloth were buried., tongs, tripods and other daily necessities. In Shi Kaizhong's memory, children were not allowed to participate in the ceremonies in the Sama Temple, but children and adults had the right to share the same portion of food in subsequent celebrations. "Whether you are eighty years old or you are in an infant's clothes, you will be given exactly the same amount of food during activities. This is a primitive egalitarianism."

Decades ago, the Sama Temple was guarded by special personnel. In ordinary days, the door was closed and outsiders were absolutely not allowed to enter it. If special incidents such as chicken plague and swine fever occur in the stockade, the old people will think that the god of Sa in the stockade is no longer in place, so they have failed to protect the stockade in time and need to ask the god to return to his place again. Therefore, the camp was immediately sealed for three days, swept the camp, and solemnly sacrificed Sama to pray for blessings. "Since outsiders cannot visit, there is very little documentary record in this regard."

At the opening ceremony of the 2012 Rongjiang Sama Festival in China, representatives of each village watched the performance in the stands. The most eye-catching ones were the grandmothers dressed up, holding black umbrellas, and wearing red flowers. Shengzhu, 67, is one of them. In Dong society, they are called "Dengsa" and are the women who guard the Sama Temple. Shengzhu married into Chejiang No. 1 Village, Guzhou Town, Rongjiang at the age of 22. Her mother-in-law was a Dengsa. As time passed, her mother-in-law gradually grew older. She followed the old custom and let her daughter-in-law Shengzhu get familiar with this position. It has been more than 30 years.

The Sama Temple in Chejiang Village is not far from Shengzhu's home. There is no special decoration on the outside of the temple. It is hidden in a corner of the village and is deep and quiet. If it were not for the words inscribed on the courtyard door in front of the temple, outsiders passing by would not have known the existence of the temple. The elderly Shengzhu bent down and tidied the black umbrella on the altar. A humanoid puppet was wrapped in Dong cloth at the handle of the umbrella, which represented the God of Sa whom she admired so much.

The Dong song team in the village was going to Sanbao Dong Village to participate in a singing competition. Shengzhu came to the ancestral hall in advance, cooked tea and prepared the tea that had been served to Sama. Soon, the women of the Dong Song Team dressed up and walked into the ancestral hall to ask Shengzhu for tea. It is said that only in this way can we achieve the best results in the competition.

Shengzhu is cheerful and talkative. She said that the people who guard the Sama Temple will be blessed by Sama throughout their lives and be in good health. "Sama has seven sisters, all of whom are goddesses who were placed down from the sky to govern the world." In the village, drum towers are built, bullfights are bought, bridges are built in front of the village and behind the village... In short, important events related to the activities of the whole village must be visited in Saitan in advance before the activities can be carried out, and we hope to achieve success.

On the first and fifteenth days of every lunar month, Shengzhu would open the temple door and burn paper to provide incense and incense. All the expenses incurred would be borne by herself. Usually, if someone in the village comes to make a vow or make a wish, she will be asked to open the temple door. For decades, she has cleaned this quiet courtyard cleanly, and the key to the ancestral hall door in her hand is an honor and a family responsibility.

Shengzhu's husband, Yang Guangjing, was nearly eighty years old and had been paralyzed on a chair at home because of illness. However, he personally wrote an article "Introduction to Sama" on paper to show passers-by who did not understand Sama the legend. Long ago, Sama brought his children to Sanbao Dong Village to open up wasteland and cultivate farmland. They were loved by the local people, so every village built Sama Temple. "During the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China, the village's Sama Temple still had an acre of land. The year's harvest was managed by the village elders as expenses for offering items." The crooked words are the work that the seriously ill old man spent a lot of effort in his hospital bed.

At the Chejiang Dam in Jiuzhou Town, Rongjiang County, ten villages are closely adjacent to each other, and dozens of tall ancient banyan trees stand on the banks of the Duliu River in turn, giving a pleasant scenery. In Chejiang Ba Village, Li Changying, a village veteran who is nearly eighty years old, sat outside the ancestral hall and silently watched as the women came to worship with bamboo baskets decorated with incense sticks. During the ritual ceremony, Li Changying and several elderly people in the village were holding the thatch in their hands and walking at the forefront of the team to turn the village. There was a slip knot tied at the top of the thatch. Li Changying said that it was a road sign used by the people to identify them when they migrated to Guizhou in their early years and walked through the fog of thorns and thorns.

Today, sacrificial activities still retain the most traditional and unique way of slaughtering animals, mysterious and primitive. The admiration people had for Samar was evident in every detail possible. In addition, the women of the whole village lined up to turn the village was the most pleasing activity. They were old and young. In the courtyard of the ancestral hall, they picked a branch of evergreen thousand-year-old moxa and carefully put it on one side of the bun. Then, everyone followed Densa with umbrellas and walked a full circle along the periphery of the village. It is said that wherever you go, you will receive the blessing of Samar God in the coming year.

The long team moved slowly along the path by the village amid the sound of firecrackers, with silver peelings jingling and blessings ringing. Li Changying said that the Sama Temple in Chejiang Ba Village was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. There was a family feeding horses on the original site. A few days after the Sama Temple was destroyed, the family found that the horse was blind for no reason. In their minds, they must always have the most pious heart towards Sama, and the ancestral hall dedicated to her must not be desecrated at all. "Even in the years when the 'Four Old Ordinances' were broken, people came quietly to offer sacrifices without interruption." Sacrifice to sa is a historical imprint left by the ancestors of the Dong nationality, which has been passed down to this day and passed down from generation to generation.