Legend of the Dragon Boat Festival in Southeast Guizhou

Dragon Boat Festival is a festival event held in Miao Village. Each village has specially made one or two dragon boats and parked them in a promen-shaped boat shed covered with tiles, and waited until they were launched for racing during the festival.

The Dragon Boat Festival of the Miao people has a long history. "Wen Jian Lu in Miao Xinjiang" written by Xu Jiagan during the Qianlong period of the Qing Dynasty records: "The Miao people fought against dragon boats, and each year took May 20 as the end festival to cross the wide and deep waters of the Qingshui River. The boat is cut into fifty to sixty feet with a dragon head in front and a phoenix tail at the rear. It can accommodate more than 20 people. The short disturbance stimulates the water, and you can travel as fast as you can."

About the Dragon Boat Festival, the Miao people have a touching story, which has been passed down in the distant past. There lived a Miao fisherman named Bao along the river. He had an only son named Jiu Bao. One day, he took his only son down the river to go fishing. Suddenly, the sky was shrouded in darkness, the wind was strong, and the huge waves of the river beat the sky. A dragon jumped out of the deep pool and dragged Jiubao into the dragon cave. Bao was extremely sad, so he dived into the cave to look for it. He saw that the dragon had killed his son and fell asleep soundly using the body as a pillow. Bao was extremely angry and determined to avenge his son. He went ashore and took the fire sickle, and the fire grass sneaked into the dragon cave again and set fire to the dragon while the dragon was sleeping soundly. Smoke from Longdong fills the entire area. At this time, the heavy rain was heavy, and the sky was dark for nine days and nights. Everyone was very worried. At that time, a woman took her child to the riverside in the dark to wash clothes. The innocent child paddled her mother's swat-beating stick up and down in the water, muttering: "'Dong! Dong Duo!" Unexpectedly, when he shouted, the sky suddenly disappeared. The east shines brightly, and a bright red sun rises high. Everyone cheered and jumped with joy. Later, when people saw the burned dragon floating on the water, they rushed to the river to divide the dragon meat. Shengbing Stronghold was the first to discover and obtain the dragon head (it is also said that the dragon head was first distributed to Bao who was not afraid of the dragon's power and killed the dragon). Shidong went a step later and was assigned the dragon tail. Yangjia Stronghold also went a step later and only received the dragon intestines. Therefore, the dragon boats in Yangjiazhai are all painted dark green, which is regarded as green dragon. When the people divided the dragon's meat away, the dragon said to everyone in his dream: "I have lost the old man's only son, and I have lost my life. I hope that you old and young will do well, use fir trees to imitate my body, row in the Qingshui River and Xiaojiang River for a few days, just like I did when I was alive, and I will be able to make the clouds and make sure you have a bumper harvest." After this dream spread, people talked about it. They all said that the dragon had been surrendered. If you imitate it, you can get rain and maintain a bumper harvest. Why not have both? At first, they made a few boats for trial rowing, but as expected, there was heavy rain, so all the villages made dragon boats. People agreed that on the fifth and sixth days of the fifth lunar month... At this time, it was the busy farming season, which hindered production, so the villages negotiated with each other. Except for Shengping and Pingtiao boating on the fifth day of the fifth month, Pingzhai was changed to the 24th day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar, the 25th day of Tanglong, the 16th day of Rongshan, and the 26th day of Shidong as the "dragon division". Later, the Dragon Boat Festival activities were handed down to this day in this order. j