The ancient and mysterious Miao Drum Tibetan Festival

The Drum Tibetan Festival is also called the Drum Sacrifice Festival, which is called nongX heknes in Miao language). The Guzang Festival is a grand ceremony for the Miao tribe to sacrifice its ancestors and gods every 13 years. It is commonly known as eating Guzang. The years for each branch to worship their ancestors are also different, and the days for killing animals to worship their ancestors are also different from place to place. The procedures for eating drums in Wulue Village, a planned township in Rongjiang County, southeastern Guizhou are as follows:

Lunar 13th (sheep): Honoring ancestors (13th)

Morning: Festival preparations.

Afternoon: A pig was killed by the Guzangtou family, cut it into small pieces, and strung it into 60 strings with bamboo strips according to the total number of households in the village. Each string was distributed to each household in the Guzang family. According to the regulations of the Guzang Festival, before the string of meat was received, vegetables were eaten. Since receiving this string of meat, the whole village began to avoid eating vegetables (That is, no vegetables are eaten during the festival, including all guests.) During the Guzang Festival, in addition to focusing on auspicious and auspicious words (not speaking bad things),"Guzang" is also used. For example, eating is not called "eating", it is called "sigh"(eating grass) Drinking is not called "drinking", but called "autumn travel"(clearing the ditch)... etc.

Lunar Fourteenth Monkey): Reception of visitors

Preparations continued throughout the day, and households began to receive visitors to kill pigs that had not yet been killed. Each household steamed glutinous rice and placed it on a dustpan. On the rice, put five dried fish, five bowls of wine, and one for each male and two horns). The male filled the liquor and the female filled the wine, placed it in a standing position. Nine "framing"-the role of the drum and Tibetan ceremonial teachers was selected according to very serious regulations) went to the door and sat down beside the dustpan and read a sacrificial poem to the ancestors.

Lunar 15th (chicken):"Zuonuyang" in the Miao language of Lusheng in Jingzhai)

Morning: Prepare for stepping on Lusheng.

Afternoon: After lunch, all the classes in the village sent out to the village to blow the Lusheng, creating a festive atmosphere. At this time, a group of people organized by Guzangtou carried wine and meat to the Lusheng Hall to toast and meat to the Lusheng teams of various classes during the festival.

Evening: Young men and women from our village and young men and women from our village play Lusheng and step on the singing hall at the Lusheng Field. Some sing together at home all night long to exchange feelings.

Lunar 16th dog): Jing Ke Fan Miao dialect "Nuga Bang")

Morning: All households in the village steam a dustpan of glutinous rice, cook three kilograms of pork, prepare scissors or daggers), and place them in the dustpan. After lunch (around 12:00), the whole village carries the dustpan rice and goes to the "flower cultivation"(drum Tibetan ping) three circles later, and the venerable person agreed by the village announces that the meat and glutinous rice will be distributed to the guests of the parent village in units of the village).

Lunar Seventeen Pig): Drum Tibetan Niu Xuan Tang Miao language "Ying Wei")

From this day on, the whole village according to the order, pull cattle into the drum Tibetan ping to hold the rotation ceremony. At the end of the ceremony, the Lusheng Hall was sealed, and no Lusheng was allowed to be played for three years. In addition, on the afternoon of the 17th, when my mother and uncle went to the mountain to find a suitable tree, they first tied a dried fish with hemp silk and tied it to the trunk, and then recited a poem before cutting down the tree.

At about 10 p.m. on the 17th of the lunar calendar, nine Guzang ritual masters-"Gouheng" came to the stove of the Guzang household. The owner put the glutinous rice in a dustpan, and five dried fish and five bowls of wine were placed at the same time. Next to the rice. The dustpan is placed next to the middle pillar of the house, and two different words are pronounced for "Gouheng": one is to recite ancestors, and the other is to recite cattle.

Eighteen Rats in the Lunar Calendar): Kill and break cattle

At about three o'clock in the morning, after Guzitou took the lead in killing the cattle, three iron cannons were fired, followed by two artillery cannons, and the sound of the cannons ended. At this time, the sound of cannons came and went one after another from all Guzitou households in the entire village. In just one to twenty minutes, all the cattle in the entire village were killed.

At about eight or nine o'clock in the morning, my uncle,"Gou Heng" and others took the knife to the cow. Before opening the abdomen,"Gou Heng" read a passage: "One opens the child, the second opens the girl, the third opens the copper drum, the fourth opens the dam field..." and so on.

The Miao people must invite their closest relatives and friends to celebrate the Guzang Festival and carry pig legs. The more relatives and friends come, the happier the owner will be. Families without relatives and friends will be laughed at by the people in the village. Those who are invited or who leave must carry glutinous rice, chickens, ducks, pigs and even cattle to give gifts. They must also buy firecrackers and start setting them off as soon as they arrive at the village, in order to inform the owner. After the festival, the guests will return home. When the guests leave, the host will need to present them with a pig leg and a basket of glutinous rice. If you are a uncle and uncle, you must have a tail when you send pig legs to show your supremacy. The main activities of the Guzang Festival are Lusheng dances, which usually lasts 5 to 9 days, and the number is even odd. The Guzangtou Festival is organized by "Guzangtou". A series of procedures from slaughtering pigs or cattle worshiping ancestors to festival activities are arranged by the "Guzangtou" organization, and people must obey.

(Information introduction)

Planning Township: Located in the hinterland of Yueliang Mountain, it is a remote, isolated, poor and backward ethnic minority township in Rongjiang County. It is also one of the 100 key poverty alleviation and development townships in the province in the new stage.

Wulue Village: Located in the hinterland of Yueliang Mountain, it is a first-class village for poverty alleviation and development in the new stage. There are four villager groups in the village, which are divided into four natural villages: Wulue Dazhai, Baijiao Village, Baiji Village, and Yesuo Village). At the end of 2004, the total number of households was 170, with agricultural households accounting for 100%. The total population was 756, all of whom were Miao.

Editor: Yang Xi) .