Mulao Yifan Festival
01 · Historical Records
Second, as legend has it, during the Tianxi era of the Song dynasty the Mulao mountain villages were invaded by foreign enemies; Liang and Wu led the villagers in a hard-fought resistance and unfortunately died heroically.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Mulao people live mainly in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and call themselves "Ling" and "Jin." The Yifan Festival is a traditional festival unique to the Mulao people, strongly colored by gratitude and well-wishing. The Yifan Festival is also called the "Joyful Vow" or "Lord Yifan," meaning "fulfilling a vow to the ancestors." There are two legends about the origin of the Yifan Festival. The first holds that when the Mulao ancestor was imprisoned for a crime, the prison guards Liang and Wu took pity on him and released him late at night. But that night it was pitch dark, and pursuers were close behind. At the moment of crisis, a girl in white suddenly appeared, leading a white horse to the rescue. The ancestor mounted the horse and soared into the sky, escaping the danger. After the ancestor made his fortune, he did not forget the debt of life owed to Liang, Wu, and the girl on the white horse, and he set the day on which the disaster turned auspicious as the "Yifan Festival." In the fourth year of the Jiaxi era, Emperor Huizong of the Song dynasty specially granted official posts to Liang and Wu and had a shrine hall built, ordaining that in the years of the hai, mao, and wei branches the Three Origins Masters be invited to pray to the gods and gather blessings, praying for the safety of people and livestock and abundant harvests. The Mulao people hold the Yifan Festival three times in every ten-year period, choosing auspicious days in the period of the Beginning of Winter in the lunar calendar, organized in units of the so-called "dong" (literally "winter") — the spatial divisions of the Mulao settlement areas — in their respective clan ancestral halls, conducting devout sacrificial activities. The whole activity lasts one day and one night and consists of seven stages: setting up the altar, inviting the saints, presenting the sacrificial animals, urging the saints to partake, singing the "Cow Brother" songs, assembling the spirit soldiers, and seeing off the saints. During the festival, the whole village is in festive fervor; men and women, old and young, celebrate the harvest together, share the joy, and wish one another abundant crops and thriving livestock in the coming year. The Yifan Festival is unique to the Mulao people and is the crystallization of the long accumulation of Mulao beliefs and customs. It embodies the essence of Mulao culture and has thus become an important symbol of Mulao culture.
Setting up the altar
The opening act: the ritual master sets the altar inside the clan hall, arranging cloth, vessels and name tablets before any deity is invited.
Inviting the deities
The deities are formally invited from outside the hall with documents and song, accompanied by gongs and drums until they are seated.
Sacrificing the animals
Pigs and poultry are counted and killed after the invitation, their blood and feathers prepared as offerings before any meat is eaten.
Persuading the deities and the Ox Brother song
Two demanding singing sections: a heartfelt plea for divine presence, and the Ox Brother song praising the year's ploughing.
Joining the ranks and sending off the deities
The closing rites: the gathering of the spirit ranks, then the sending-off of the deities, after which the whole village feasts.
Three occasions in every ten years, each ward holding one
Held three times in ten years on auspicious days near the Beginning of Winter, each ward keeping its own turn and scale of ceremony.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The unit that organizes the Yifan Festival is not the village but the individual "dong" — organizations divided by direction within the Mulao settlement areas; each dong has a dong head, each dong maintains one ancestral hall, and a single Yifan Festival invites only the clanspeople of that dong, so attending across dong boundaries must wait for the next festival period. This practice of apportioning the ritual order by space is a direct expression of Mulao clan structure in festival custom: whichever village the ancestral hall is in, that village presides over the sacrifice, and people from other villages come only as guests. The ancestral halls of the various dong within Luocheng are mostly built with their backs to the mountains, and the open ground in front of their gates serves as the festival square; rites such as setting up the altar and inviting the saints are held inside the hall, while the singing of "Cow Brother," the assembling of the spirit soldiers, and the seeing off of the saints are mostly moved to the front of the hall and the square — once the drums and music sound, half the dong turns out. The festival period is set in the period of the Beginning of Winter in the lunar calendar, with auspicious days chosen by the Three Origins Masters; the invited shigong masters decide the complexity of the procedures according to the size of the auspicious day.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
At present, many traditional customs of the Mulao people are fading, the cultural space for the transmission of the Yifan Festival is gradually shrinking, and there is a shortage of successors for transmission; it urgently awaits rescue and protection. Xie Zhonghou (as recorded in the official archives of associated inheritors): Male, Mulao ethnicity, born in March 1967, from Luocheng Mulao Autonomous County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. From childhood he had a strong interest in Yifan Festival rites; at the age of eighteen he studied under Liang Dianfu and others and took up work on Yifan Festival rituals. He has mastered the ritual procedures of the Yifan Festival, excels in the rites of setting up the altar, inviting the saints, presenting the sacrificial animals, urging the saints to partake, singing to the gods, assembling the spirit soldiers, and seeing off the saints, and is skilled at chanting scriptures and singing to the gods. For many years he has presided over grand and small Yifan Festival rites, traveling to villages throughout the county to conduct vegetarian fasting and penitential rites. His disciples, including Liang Chengde, actively carry out Yifan Festival transmission activities in the townships of Luocheng. Representative inheritor of the Mulao Yifan Festival, a fifth-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage project. He has long devoted himself to the performance and publicity of Yifan Festival culture, excavating and compiling the Yifan scriptures and songbooks, and training inheritors.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xie Zhonghou 05-2976
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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