Maonan Feitao
01 · Historical Records
The formation, development, and evolution of the Maonan Feitao are of important reference value for understanding the history of the Maonan people.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
"Feitao" is the general term for the Maonan people's vow-fulfillment and similar ceremonies. It flourished around the Ming and Qing transition. Originally a ritual in which the Maonan invoked nuo sacrifices to the deities of heaven, earth, and all natural things, it absorbed Maonan oral literature, mountain songs, drama, dance, music, and percussion in the course of transmission, becoming a folk activity rich in content. Its songs, dances, music, and theatre carry the Maonan people's wishes for the endless continuity of their ethnic group and for favorable weather and abundant harvests in the coming year. It is both a historical witness to the development of the Maonan people and a precious legacy of their traditional culture. Maonan Feitao has a great many types and rich content; its main forms of expression fall into several broad categories: nuo songs, nuo dances, nuo theatre, nuo music, nuo stories (oral legends), and nuo mask carving. Its nuo culture is expressed through song, dance, music, and theatre, and one can see the imprint of the fusion and evolution of Maonan and Han Chinese culture.
Opening the altar and welcoming the deities
The first section: the ritual master sets the altar, burns incense and seats the deities before the performance proper begins.
Nuo singing
The principal expressive form of the fat-tao, with dense verses and wide-ranging melody, passed down orally by the ritual masters.
Nuo dancing
The physical interludes between sung sections: shuffling and stamping steps, turned wrists, and masks never lifted once the dance begins.
Nuo drama
The full-length play within the fat-tao, performed from a script and requiring a set of masks for the roles of gods, ghosts and mortals.
Nuo percussion
Gong, drum and cymbals carry the rhythm, their density cueing the singers and marking every change of section.
Carving Nuo masks
The carving of Nuo masks from wood blocks, painted so that brows and teeth distinguish one deity from another.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Feitao is concentrated in the Maonan villages around Huanjiang. Huanjiang lies in the mountain zone where the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau transitions to northwestern Guangxi, and transport was long inconvenient. Nuo troupes and ritual masters mostly circulated within a radius of a few dozen li, going to whichever household needed a vow fulfilled; the same set of procedures varied slightly from village to village, and boys learning the plays followed the nuo troupes from village to village. Once trained, they returned to their home village as its leading nuo mask. In form, Feitao is a complete vow-fulfillment performance: opening the altar, welcoming the deities, singing the vows, performing the nuo dances, staging the nuo play scripts, and closing the altar, one sequence following another. The vocal styles mostly take the Han-land ritual-master tunes and Daoist chants as their basis, while the handling of masks, drum patterns, and physical movements retains a distinctively Maonan flavor; nuo stories are usually carried by the member of the troupe with the best memory. The Maonan themselves describe Feitao as blending with other ethnic cultures: some of its items share origins with Han-land nuo theatre, while others are local tales of the Lady Queen. Tan Sangang was twice invited to perform "The Empress Bestows Golden Flowers" (also called "The Lady Queen Sends Flowers") in Japan, following precisely this local path.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
With social development and changing values, Maonan Feitao is in an endangered state and urgently needs effective protective measures so that it can play its proper role in preserving the distinctiveness of ethnic culture and maintaining cultural diversity. Tan Sangang (from the official archives of an associated inheritor): Male, Maonan, born in October 1959, from Huanjiang Maonan Autonomous County, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. He is thoroughly familiar with Maonan folk culture and adept in all the rituals and skills of Maonan Feitao. He was twice invited to Japan to take part in international folk culture and arts exchange performances, performing "The Empress Bestows Golden Flowers" (also called "The Lady Queen Sends Flowers"), and he has participated in many intangible cultural heritage publicity and display activities. Representative inheritor of the fourth national-level batch of the Maonan Feitao intangible cultural heritage project.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Tan Sangang 04-1960
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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