Nadun Festival: A "great" festival for the Turkish people

From July to September of the lunar calendar, Qinghai, located on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is the harvest season when melons and fruits are fragrant, new grain is put into warehouses, and new oil is put into tanks. At this time of year, if you travel to Minhe Hui and Tu Autonomous County in Qinghai, you will see such a scene in the Sanchuan area: the wheatmills and small squares of every village are crowded with people, colorful flags are flying, the Tubers dressed in festive costumes shout "Great", and the festive sound of gongs and drums rings into the sky... This is the lively scene of the Tuo-nationality Chenaten Festival.

Dance "Hanshou", perform Nuo opera, and dance "Fara" to celebrate the "great" harvest

"Nadun" is a transliteration of the Turkish language, meaning "play","entertainment","game", etc. Nadun Festival is a traditional festival for the Turkish people living in the Sanchuan area of Minhe County, Qinghai Province to celebrate the harvest. It lasts from late summer to autumn, generally from July 12 to September 15 of the lunar calendar. It is also called the "Farmers 'Meeting","Harvest Celebration Party","July Meeting", etc. Because it lasts for two months, some people call it "the longest carnival in the world."

The Nadun Festival is not only a traditional temple fair for the Turkish people, but also a cultural and cultural event with extensive mass character and strong national characteristics. During the festival, large villages with the same surname have their own temple fairs, and small villages with mixed surnames have public temple fairs. Some of these temple fairs are called by their surnames, such as Zhujia Natun and Majjia Natun; some are called by regions, such as Sangbulanatun and Taizi Natun.

During the Narton Festival, I came to Ejia Village, Zhongchuan Township, Minhe County. Hence the name Siyi, most of the people in this village have the surname "E".

The performance of the Narton Festival usually consists of three parts: "Meeting Hands", mask dance (Nuo opera), and "Fara". The most common form of "meeting hands" is the alliance between two villages, with one village serving as the host and the other village serving as the guest. The day I went to Ejia Village, it happened that Ejia Village was the main one, and the village in front was the guest. Before the performance began, the home team took the initiative to welcome the visiting team at the junction of the two villages. The visiting team sent eight strong men in two groups to carry the shrine in which the god Erlang and the local god sat and ran quickly. After the two teams met, men from the two villages lined up in long queues, carrying colorful flags and beating gongs and drums.

The most exciting moment has arrived! Dozens of big drums were beating loudly. Accompanied by the steady and powerful drum sounds, the "players" danced and danced, showing their strength and beauty in the rough high voice.

This is a large-scale dance attended by 40 to 50 people. At the forefront of the dance are old people dressed in long robes and holding fans. They are often the organizers of Nadun and descendants of Nadun dance. Although they are over sixty years old and have silver beards hanging down on their chests, they are still so calm and at ease when they dance. Young people holding colorful flags followed behind. They moved left and right, dancing around the field. Although the dance movements are not too complicated, the neat steps and coordinated leaps are very beautiful amidst the rhythmic sound of drums and gongs.

After the "Hand Dance" dance, there is a simple folk Nuo opera performance. For example,"Crop Qi" uses dance to show the father teaching production skills to his son, and the funny performance is full of earthy flavor;"Kill the Tiger General" shows the spirit of fighting against the tiger and winning bravely; and "Three Wars Lu Bu" and so on.

While dancing, the host kept toasting the "participants" with a large sea bowl. The wine is intoxicating, and the climax of joy and joy is higher and higher. When the dance performance ended, everyone knelt in the field. I saw a "Fara"(a cleric in Turkish folk belief activities) holding an iron, taking the "Baogai" prayer flag hanging at the end of the wheat field and lighting it. The old man burned paper coins and placed them in front of the local statue of gods, sang the "Happy Divine Comedy" to thank the gods for coming to the world, having fun with the people, and blessed the people for their kindness, and prayed that the weather would be smooth and the people would be rich. Then, he presented the big white buns steamed by the whole village to everyone present at the meeting in pieces. Finally, he threw out the eight diagrams wooden plaque to predict next year's harvest.

As it slopes westward, a happy and beautiful atmosphere lingers in the countryside and refuses to disperse for a long time...

A cultural treasure that has gone through hundreds of years

From the recorded Tuyuhun period, Minhe was the place where the ancestors of the Tu people lived and lived. In Minhe, three wide streams rush from north to south. According to the ancient place name naming method that "water comes from other ditches, and those flowing in large waters and the sea are called Sichuan Water", these three wide streams are collectively called "Three Rivers" and are also called "Shangchuan","Zhongchuan", and "Xiachuan" according to their respective locations. For thousands of years, the Tus Nadun Festival has started in Xiachuan, where grain matured at the earliest, passed through Zhongchuan, to Shangchuan, passed from village to village, and swept across the Sanchuan area wave after wave.

As for the origin of the Narton Festival, it has always seemed a little mysterious because there is no historical record. But widely circulated local legends may help us understand the tip of the iceberg.

It is said that a long time ago, there was a Turkish carpenter with extraordinary craftsmanship. The emperor called him to build a royal palace. Three years later, the palace was completed, and its magnificent beauty was unprecedented. But in order to enjoy all the luxury in the world, the greedy emperor even ordered the carpenter to be killed. The carpenter fled back to his hometown overnight and organized an uprising among the villagers who had long been abused by the royal family. After hearing the news, the emperor sent troops to suppress it. The witty carpenter had an idea and immediately asked the villagers to beat gongs and drums, carry the prepared battle flag, wave the handle of the knife that had been coated with dye, shouted "Great", and walked towards the village temple. The emperor's army was puzzled, but the villagers told them: "We are celebrating this year's harvest and celebrating the gift of heaven!" Seeing that there was no change among the people, the army withdrew. Since then, in order to commemorate this witty carpenter, the Narton Festival has been passed down and gradually became a festival for the Turkish people to celebrate the harvest.

A saying that the academic community agrees with is that at the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, with the development of agricultural civilization, the Tutu people gradually got rid of the nomadic life of their ancestors, integrated with the local residents, and slowly entered farming society. In order to deal with some contradictions in agricultural production, unite their neighbors, and celebrate the harvest, the Turkish people gradually developed the temple fair to sacrifice to the shrine into a Narton Festival that amuses themselves, celebrates the harvest, and prays to heaven for good weather in the coming year. Experts believe that the contents, forms and costumes of Nuo opera in Sanchuan area are similar to Nuo dance and local opera from the middle Yuan Dynasty to the early Ming Dynasty. Therefore, it is inferred that the Na Dun Festival of Tu nationality originated in the middle Yuan Dynasty and perfected in the early Ming Dynasty.

According to the staff of Minhe County Cultural Bureau, the most important feature of Tu Naton Festival activities is rural Nuo dance. It can be said that both the origin of the Nadun Festival and the specific organizational form of the Nadun Festival now revolve around the rural Nuo dance. Nuo dance has been carried forward from Qin and Han Dynasties to Tang and Song Dynasties, but in the process of development, the original taste of sacrifice has gradually faded. By Ming and Qing Dynasties, Nuo dance in rural areas has developed into an entertaining folk activity. The Tu Nuo dance also inherits the local characteristics and original ecological cultural elements of traditional Nuo opera. It has gone through thousands of years.

With its diverse cultural forms and strong regional cultural characteristics, the Narton Festival has become a highlight among many folk festivals and has attracted more and more people's attention. In 2006, the Nadun Festival of the Tu Nationality entered the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists, thus moving out of the northwest and becoming a cultural phenomenon of concern to folklorists and tourists at home and abroad.

(The picture shows an old Turkish man leading young people to dance in the "Dance Dance" at the Nadun Festival.)