Qingming Festival
01 · Historical Records
The Qintong Gathering of Boats originated in the Southern Song period. According to historical records, the Southern Song general Yue Fei and the volunteers Zhang Rong and Jia Hu defeated the Jin army repeatedly on Qin Lake; in the fierce fighting the Song soldiers also suffered heavy casualties, and from that time on, on the second day of Qingming each year the local people would hold memorial rites for the fallen soldiers, which over a long period gradually evolved into the Gathering of Boats custom.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Qintong Gathering of Boats is also called the "Waterborne Qingming Festival" and has a history of more than eight hundred years. Each year at Qingming, every household in Qintong Town, Jiangyan City, Jiangsu Province, and the more than two hundred surrounding villages worships its own ancestors. On the second day of Qingming, each family poles and rows its boat to the unmarked common graves to offer sacrifices to the nameless fallen soldiers; then more than a thousand offering boats, dragon boats, punt-pole boats, rowing boats, and women-and-children boats converge on Qin Lake to take part in the performance and racing activities, with participants and spectators drawn by the news numbering as many as a hundred thousand. The event is composed of multiple stages, in the following order: selecting boats, water testing, laying out the boats, sacrifices, going to the gathering, boat racing, on-water cultural performances, presenting the first pole, the wine feast, and night opera singing.
Choosing and fitting out the boats
Each village picks its boats, paints them, lays the boards, checks gear and then trials them on the water before the gathering.
Offering at the mass graves
On the day after the festival each household sails to the common graves to burn paper and pour wine for the fallen, then joins the fleet on the lake.
Racing and performance on the water
Boats race to the line of drums, then scatter to display music, lion and dragon boat routines before the crowded banks.
Sending the head pole, drinking and night opera
The head pole is sent out to close the meeting, boats are hauled ashore for a feast, and night opera follows until the gathering finally breaks up.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Qintong Gathering of Boats is a product of the polder-field water network of the Lixiahe region. Around Qin Lake, more than two hundred villages have scattered plots of land with dikes crisscrossing in every direction; the villages travel by boat, so grave-sweeping, market-going, family visits, and competitions all naturally take place on the water. This has produced several distinct boat types: the offering boat, used solely for sacrifices, carries a shrine and painted awning; the dragon boat, used for racing, has a long, narrow hull with high-raised bow and stern; the punt-pole boat is long and wide, allowing those holding poles to stand and punt; the rowing boat is light and swift, ferrying people back and forth; and the women-and-children boat has a wide, flat stern for the ease of women and children. This combination of boat types differentiated by use is a unique material repertoire of folk custom in the watery countryside of northern Jiangsu. The gathering takes place on the open waters of Qin Lake; the participants include not only the villages of the town but also boats and people from neighboring counties and cities. On the water, incense and candle smoke, gongs and drums, and stringed-and-bamboo music carry far: as one boat finishes its sacrifice, another arrives. On the memorial days around Qingming each year, the villages first go to the unmarked common graves to sacrifice to the nameless fallen soldiers, then form up and join the gathering; the activities run from boat selection and water testing until the night opera closes, continuing for several days on end. The painted decoration of the boats and the ornamented awnings are mostly the work of boatmen and craftsmen, while the spectators on both banks of the river bend gather by household and by clan in allotted places; the outcome of the boat races is directly tied to the prestige of the villages, and this competitive element makes each village willing to raise heavy funds to buy new boats rather than fall behind.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Qingming Festival · Qingming Festival · Qingming Festival.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Qingming Qintong Gathering of Boats is a distinctive waterborne folk activity that concentrates the customs and conditions of the Lixiahe region; it can be called a precious living historical and cultural heritage, with research value in folklore studies and related fields.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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