Dragon Boat Festival
01 · Historical Records
The Xinglong (Prosperity) Temple, first built in the ji-hai year of the Qianlong reign (1779), remains to this day the central place of worship for the dry dragon boat temple fair activities. From the 15th to the 18th of the fifth lunar month, a series of solemn rites for expelling pestilence and offering prayers is held in proper order, including erecting markers, consecrating the images by opening their eyes, the jiao offering rite, paying respects to the boat, and worshipping the boat.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The dry dragon boat is a traditional festival custom of Zelin Village in Ezhou City, Hubei Province, held every year during the Duanwu Festival. During the activities, the villagers of Zelin carry out a series of traditional practices in concentrated fashion: burning mugwort to fumigate away pestilence, decocting medicinal broth to drink, sweeping and bathing to wash away poison, and making and sending off thatch boats to drive out evil — meaning that all evils are removed and peace and prosperity are prayed for. Zelin Village lies where Ezhou borders Huangshi; historically, as the plum-rain season approached, miasmas and poisons arose in abundance, so to seek peace the people made thatch boats, set them adrift on the Zelin River, and used the act of "sending off the plague god" to expel pestilence and ward off evil. The Kangxi-era "Daye County Gazetteer" records: "On the fifth day of the fifth month, [people] watch the spectacle of racing"; "on the eighteenth day, the dragon boat gathering. ...When the time came, [the boat] was welcomed to Qinglongdi and burned — this was called 'sending off the plague.'" By the Qianlong reign, the villagers had changed the tradition of making thatch boats into making dry dragon boats, holding land-based processions in the form of a dragon boat temple fair (also called the "Peaceful Boat Fair"). Each year from the second to the fourth lunar month, the inheritors complete the framing and making of the dry dragon boat in accordance with strict formal specifications. The dry dragon boat has a three-tiered trapezoidal structure, on which the figures of 72 deities, each with their own office, are carefully modeled. During this period the people also spontaneously organize various cultural activities, such as performing festival operas, displaying traditional calligraphy and painting, and giving gong and drum performances. Of these, the liveliest is the dry dragon boat procession and sacrifice. After a Taoist priest casts lots to choose an auspicious day, the dry dragon boat slowly leaves the temple. At this point the village headman leads the cheers, then announces the official procession of the dry dragon boat. In an instant the firecrackers shake the sky, drums and music sound together, banners fly in rows, and the crowd carries the dragon boat forward in mighty procession — a magnificent scene. On the morning of the 18th day of the fifth lunar month, the dry dragon boat procession reaches the bank of the river at Zelinzui and the ceremony of burning the boat in farewell is held; at this point the temple fair is declared over.
Building the dry boat from the second month
From the second to the fourth month the boat is built to a fixed spec — a three-tier structure carrying seventy-two deities, each with his own place.
Marking, consecration and the Daoist office
Over four days the boat is marked, consecrated and set in a Daoist office, and only then may it be carried in procession.
Leaving the temple and the leader’s cry
After a diviner picks the day, the leader shouts the start and the crowd lifts the boat out of the temple amid drums and firecrackers.
Burning the boat at the river mouth
On the eighteenth morning the boat is burned at the river mouth, completing the sending-off of the plague.
The earlier reed-boat practice
Before the dry boat, villagers floated reed craft down the river to carry off the plague; the boat parade kept that older wish.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Rooted in Chu culture, it has a distinctly local character and is a special form of exchange and dialogue between humanity and nature, carrying the life wisdom, life temperament, and good wish for blessings and auspiciousness of the local people; it plays a positive role in sustaining a harmonious natural and social environment and strengthening social cohesion. Zelin lies at the border between Ezhou and Huangshi, once at the edge of the watery network of Huangshi Lake; the miasmas of the plum-rain season and the river floods made the rites of sending off the plague especially weighty. The Xinglong Temple, first built in the Qianlong reign, is the sacrificial center of this custom: the dry dragon boat leaves the temple here, is started on its way by the headman's cheers, then processes to the bank of the river at Zelinzui to be burned in farewell — the day's rites are complete from beginning to end. During the temple fair, festival operas are sung, calligraphy and painting are displayed, and gongs and drums are performed, all alongside the dry dragon boat's leaving the temple and the send-off of the spirits, composing a Duanwu scene unique to eastern Hubei.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Zelin dry dragon boat has a history of more than three hundred years; it is the living folk transmission of the Duanwu custom of "sending off the plague god." Liu Guisheng (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, Han nationality, born in October 1947, of Ezhou City, Hubei Province. From 1990 onward, for more than twenty years he made and organized the folk cultural activities of the dry dragon boat, independently building eighteen dragon boats. He has taught three apprentices. He is a representative inheritor of the Duanwu Festival (Zelin Dry Dragon Boat) project in the fifth batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage. He has been invited many times to take part in municipal and district public-awareness activities for intangible cultural heritage, actively conducted training classes in transmission teaching, and explained the history and production techniques of the Zelin dry dragon boat folk custom; he was named an outstanding representative inheritor of Ezhou's intangible cultural heritage three years in succession.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Tan Guozheng 05-2970
- Liu Guisheng 05-2971
- Xiang Fuchang
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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