Gege

01 · Lineage & Regional School

From childhood he loved singing and dancing, and he learned Tiaocaogai under his father. Within the regional tradition and school record of Tiaocaogai in Pingwu, Sichuan: The range of transmission of the Jumping Cao Gai is limited to the White Horse Tibetan villages within Pingwu County, Sichuan Province, and is most concentrated in the villages of the Huoxi River basin. Each village organises its own troupe on the fifth and sixth days of the first lunar month; the troupe consists of four to eight masked “Cao gai”, three to five unmasked shamans called “bai gai”, and one performer each as the black bear and the wild boar, with an odd total number of people, dancing in a circle in the counter-clockwise direction, while onlookers may watch or join in the dance. Compared with the other White Horse Tibetan villages, the Jumping Cao Gai has few variations in its dance steps, yet it completely preserves the full set of procedures — killing a chicken to sacrifice to the ancestors, worshipping the mountain god, driving away ghosts from household to household, and sending off the ghosts at the riverbank. The Jumping Cao Gai has been handed down through generations in the White Horse Tibetan villages of Pingwu, and its origins are directly connected with the White Horse Tibetan worship of “Dana shijie” (the black bear god): the masks represent precisely this mountain deity, half man and half beast. The ritual of worshipping the mountain god on the fifth and sixth days of the first lunar month is the principal occasion for the dance; a chicken is first killed to sacrifice to the ancestors, then the mountain god is worshipped, then Cao Gai is jumped from household to household to drive away the ghosts, and finally the whole village, led by the masked shaman “bai mo” and by the Cao Gai, goes to the riverbank to sacrifice to the gods and send off the ghosts. Because the place of transmission lies deep in the Minshan mountain range and is cut off by poor transport, the Jumping Cao Gai long retained a plain and primitive appearance, and it was only recorded and collated by folk dance investigators in the second half of the 20th century.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Male, Tibetan, born in July 1966, a native of Pingwu County, Sichuan Province. In 1987 he became a Baigai, the highest rank in the sacrificial rites of the local Baima Tibetans, and he is the principal organizer and performer of Tiaocaogai in local festival activities. His skills are consummate and his dance movements are expansive and graceful; he has consistently preserved the traditional style and characteristics, and is highly appraised by the local people of all ethnic groups and by his peers. Within the documented technical tradition of Tiaocaogai in Pingwu, Sichuan: The Jumping Cao Gai is a folk sacrificial dance transmitted in the White Horse Tibetan villages of Pingwu County. “Cao gai” is White Horse Tibetan for “mask”. The Cao Gai masks are the images of the deity “Dana shijie” (the black bear god), half man and half beast. On the fifth and sixth days of the first lunar month every year each village holds a “Jumping Cao Gai” to worship the mountain god and pray for favourable weather and freedom from illness and disaster in the coming year. The procedure of the Jumping Cao Gai includes: killing a chicken to sacrifice to the ancestors, worshipping the mountain god, jumping Cao Gai from household to household to drive away ghosts, and the whole village, led by the masked shaman “bai mo” and the Cao Gai, going to the riverbank to sacrifice to the gods and send off the ghosts. The number of dancers must be odd, and they dance in a circle in the counter-clockwise direction. In the troupe there are three to five unmasked shamans called “bai gai” and four to eight masked “Cao gai”, together with one performer dressed as a “black bear” and one as a “wild boar”, who weave their dancing in among them. Onlookers may watch or join the troupe in the dance. The movements of the Jumping Cao Gai are rugged and awe-inspiring, plain and simple and little varied, and they clearly preserve the plain appearance of the primitive religious sacrificial activities of the White Horse Tibetan. The Jumping Cao Gai has a long history; because the place of transmission is cut off by poor transport and for other reasons, it has consistently kept its plain and primitive character, and the large amount of original White Horse Tibetan cultural information contained in it is very precious. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "The bear-spirit mask": The mask depicts the human-beast bear deity, the concrete image of the Baima Tibetans' mountain-god belief, worn by four to eight dancers in the troupe. "The mountain-god rite in the first month": Held on the fifth and sixth days of the first lunar month, the dance prays to the mountain god for timely weather and freedom from illness. "The two ranks of priests": The masked priest and the unmasked priest share different duties, while one dancer plays a black bear and another a wild boar; the troupe must number an odd figure. "From the chicken sacrifice to sending the ghosts off": The programme runs from the chicken sacrifice and ancestral offering to house-by-house ghost driving and a final riverside sending-off led by the masked priests.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

National representative bearer of Tiaocaogai, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. He is devoted to transmission and has passed on the Tiaocaogai dance he commands to his disciples without reservation.

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. Gege · National Representative Bearer Archive