Double Third Festival
01 · Historical Records
During the Ming and Qing dynasties, this tradition came under the influence of the popular Daoist belief in Zhenwu (the Perfected Warrior), and the third-day-of-the-third-month rites worshipping Zhenwu and welcoming the deity in temple-fair processions developed into a folk festival of the Zhuang people. During the Ming and Qing dynasties, an upsurge of building temples to the Dragon Mother swept the Zhuang countryside of Guangxi, and many Dragon Mother temples sprang up. Offering five-colored glutinous rice to the ancestors is a distinctive feature of the Zhuang Sanyuesan, and antiphonal singing is the expression of the "courting of young men and women"; by the Qing dynasty both had become important traditions of the Sanyuesan.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Zhuang Sanyuesan is a cultural space constructed by the Zhuang people on the third day of the third lunar month each year, integrating many folk activities: worshipping the ancestors, offering sacrifices to the Mysterious Heaven, venerating the Dragon Mother, and courtship meetings between young men and women. Wuming County in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, formerly called "Wuyuan," lies in the northern part of Nanning City and is the main area where the Zhuang Sanyuesan is transmitted. The Sanyuesan is the ancient Shangsi Festival. Third-month ancestor worship is a long-standing folk tradition of the Zhuang people. Volume 7 of the Daoguang-era Shangsi Zhou Zhi (Gazetteer of Shangsi Subprefecture) records: "On the Shangsi day, no purification rites are held. The villagers cook glutinous rice as food, staining it red, yellow, or black with juice steeped from wild leaves, to offer to their ancestors." The Wuyuan Xian Tujing (Illustrated Gazetteer of Wuyuan County), volume 3, records that "all the villages and hamlets within the county borders have Zhenwu temples." Shen Zixiu of the Qing dynasty, in his Xi Yue Jisu (Account of the Customs of Western Yue), records: "The custom in Xuanhua and Wuyuan (present-day Wuming) is that on the third day of the third month every village offers black rice to Zhenwu. They vie with one another to make giant firecrackers to entertain the deity. The firecrackers are one or two inches in diameter and five or six inches tall, decorated with colored patterns, and sound like thunder. Whoever picks up the head of a firecracker must make another giant one in return the following year." As the Zhenwu temples fell into ruin, the venues for the group sacrificial activities of the Sanyuesan shifted to the Dragon Mother temples. In Zhuang folk legend, the Dragon Mother "Yapu" passed away on the third day of the third month, so the worship of the Dragon Mother is quite prevalent in Zhuang folk society. Today, on the south side of Luobo Street in Luobo Town, Wuming County, a Dragon Mother temple — the Luobo Temple — is still preserved intact. Above the temple gate is inlaid a plaque inscribed with the words "Luobo Miao" (Luobo Temple), written according to the Zhuang pronunciation by the late-Qing Zhuang scholar Wei Fenghua. This Luobo Temple is the core venue of the Wuming Zhuang Sanyuesan activities. The rites venerating the Dragon Mother continue to this day, and the shigong (ritual masters) still play the important role of presiding over the Dragon Mother worship ceremonies. The Wuyuan Xian Tujing records: "The custom of answering songs is found in the two places of Xianhu and Liaojiang in Wuyuan; from the first to the tenth day of the third month, up and down the river within a few li, men and women gather like clouds." At present, during the Sanyuesan, young men and women sing in antiphonal exchange in great waves; embroidered-ball tossing, egg-knocking, and the like are festive activities with distinct Zhuang characteristics.
Black rice cakes for the Zhenwu deity
Glutinous rice coloured with wild plant juices and steamed, then offered to the ancestors and to the Zhenwu deity.
Rite for the Dragon Mother
The communal rite moved to the Dragon Mother temple after the Zhenwu temples fell, still led by the ritual master.
Songs along the river
Village by village singing along the river from the first to the tenth, taking turns from one house front to the next.
Embroidered ball tossing and egg clashing
Ball tossing to choose a partner, and clashing boiled eggs in which the one whose egg breaks buys the wine.
The Dragon Mother legend and the date
The legend that the Dragon Mother passed away on this date, giving the day its particular emphasis on her worship.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The venues of the Wuming Sanyuesan activities shifted several times over: in the Ming dynasty Zhenwu was worshipped, with the ceremonies held in the Zhenwu temples; after the Zhenwu temples fell into ruin, the group sacrifices moved to the Dragon Mother temples, of which the Luobo Temple is one preserved to this day, and the ritual sequence of Dragon Mother worship presided over by the shigong has never been interrupted. Each village has its own temple and its own sacrificial date. The villages of the Xianhu and Liaojiang area set up altars along the river between the first and tenth days of the third month, with men and women gathering like clouds within a few li; the antiphonal singing, unlike elsewhere where it takes place in a single location, continues village after village along the riverbank, and whichever village's doorstep is reached must come out and answer a few lines. Embroidered-ball tossing and egg-knocking are held in other open spaces, mostly on the drying grounds in front of temples or in village squares; the balls are made of cloth and tossed back and forth, while the eggs are boiled and knocked against one another — both are pursuits of the young, with the elders watching from the side to see whose hand is accurate.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Li Sanyuesan Festival · Double Third Festival.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Wuming Zhuang Sanyuesan is driven by the core members of the villages and is passed down collectively. The Zhuang Sanyuesan has been transmitted for more than two thousand years; it is of positive significance for inheriting and promoting the fine traditional culture of the Zhuang people, strengthening community cohesion, and enhancing ethnic unity, and it also has a certain reference value for historical and folklore studies.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Lu Chaoyuan 05-2974
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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