Xiawucairang

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Xiawucairang, Male, Tibetan, from Tongren, Qinghai, is a fourth-batch national representative bearer of Regongliuyuehui (Ⅹ-43). The tradition is documented in Tongren, Qinghai. Within the regional tradition and school record of Regongliuyuehui in Tongren, Qinghai: The first account says that at the time of the reconciliation between the Tang and Tibet, to celebrate the arrival of peace, the Tubo general guarding the local region prostrated himself before the local guardian gods and held grand sacrifices from the 16th to the 25th day of the sixth month of that year, from which the Regong June Gathering developed. The second account says that at the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, a mixed Mongol-Han army of the Yuan Dynasty accepted amnesty from the Ming Dynasty in the Longwu River Valley and settled there, laying down their arms to take up farming.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Tibetan ethnicity, born in February 1978, a native of Tongren County, Qinghai Province. He was born in Langjia Village, Tongren County, one of the villages where the traditional folk activity of the Regong June Assembly was transmitted earliest; influenced from childhood by his family and his fellow villagers, he mastered the ritual rules and the various performance movements of the June Assembly. At the age of twenty-one he threw himself into the promotion and study of the June Assembly and quickly won the recognition and respect of veteran artists and of his neighbours and fellow villagers, becoming the master of the various sacrificial rites and dance activities of the June Assembly and the sixth-generation lawa (ritual master) of the village. Within the documented technical tradition of Regongliuyuehui in Tongren, Qinghai: The Regong June Gathering is a large-scale sacrificial performance activity popular among the Tibetan and Tu peoples, circulating in Tongren County, Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province; it is held each year between the 17th and 25th days of the sixth lunar month, and the villages that hold the activities number more than fifty. The Regong June Gathering is a traditional cultural festival unique to the Tibetan villages of Tongren County, Qinghai; it has been transmitted for more than 1,400 years, and its way of worshipping the gods is unique in the entire Tibetan cultural region. There are two related legends about the origins of the Regong June Gathering. To celebrate peace and tranquility, they held grand sacrificial ceremonies, praying for the removal of disasters and difficulties and for human longevity and abundant grain; the Regong June Gathering developed from this. The June Gathering has a fixed period: it runs each year from the 17th to the 25th day of the sixth lunar month. The formal participants are all the men and the young unmarried women; others are merely spectators. The programs of the June Gathering take many forms, and the atmosphere is both fervent and solemn. The specific schedule includes at minimum sang-burning (incense offerings), inviting the gods, dragon drums, dances, and sacrifices, and at its fullest also includes "shangkouqian" (piercing the mouth with skewers), "kaishan" (opening the mountain), skits, and folk songs. Song and dance performances run through the June Gathering from beginning to end, divided mainly into three categories: "Lashize" (divine dance), "Leshize" (dragon dance), and "Moheze" (military dance), which display diversity in different villages. The Regong June Gathering has strong traditional cultural characteristics; it integrates ritual, celebration, song and dance, and folk drama performance, and has research value in art, religion, anthropology, folklore, and cultural studies. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The June seventeenth-to-twenty-fifth run": The festival always falls between the seventeenth and twenty-fifth day of the sixth lunar month, with more than fifty villages taking a turn in turn. "Smoke-offering and the summoning of deities": Burning juniper smoke and invoking the guardian deities open the rite, after which song and dance begin within the same gathering. "Lashize, the spirit dance": Lashize is the spirit-dance branch of the festival dance, led by the officiant and the lead dancer in solemn style. "Leshize dragon dance and Moheze war dance": The dragon dance Leshize and the war dance Moheze complete the three great branches, each village varying in drums, formation and numbers.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of the Regong June Assembly, a fourth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. Since becoming a lawa he has devoted a great deal of time to teaching and training new practitioners.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Xiawucairang · National Representative Bearer Archive