Miao Gucang Festival
01 · Historical Records
The Miao of the Duliu River area believe that the spirits of their ancestors dwell in the distant east and that only by striking the wooden drum can they be summoned forth. Hence a Guzang Festival is permeated from start to finish by the drum: receiving the drum, awakening the drum (also called turning the drum), hollowing the drum, replacing the drum, and sending off the drum. With the drum in hand, one stands before the ancestors. The Miao language calls this festival "Nuniu", also known as "eating the drum hoard" and "eating the ox offering"; the word "eat" in the names indicates that its original meaning was inviting the ancestors to share a meal. When the rite ends the meat is divided and the whole village eats together, the most direct witness to this meaning. The Miao on both banks of the Duliu River migrated in and brought this set of festival dates and drum regulations into the mountains with them. Rongjiang is one of the representative areas of distribution, sharing the observance with the other villages of the Moon Mountain area; when there are not enough people, a neighboring village supplies drummers, and when numbers are small the festival is merged and held in another village. Mutual support between drum societies is precisely the strength of this system.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Miao Guzang Festival is called "Nuniu" (nexniel) in the Miao language; it is also called "eating the drum hoard", "eating the ox offering", and "the festival of eating the hoarded drum". The great majority of the Miao people living on both banks of the Duliu River and in the Moon Mountain area have the custom of observing the Guzang Festival. The Duliu River Miao Guzang Festival is a solemn ancestral worship rite held once every thirteen years, and Rongjiang County, Guizhou Province, is one of its representative areas of distribution. The Miao of the Duliu River believe that the ancestors dwell in the distant east and that only by striking the wooden drum can they be summoned forth. Thus the wooden drum runs through the whole of the Guzang Festival custom, including a series of rites: "receiving the drum", "awakening the drum" (also called "turning the drum"), "hollowing the drum", "replacing the drum", and "sending off the drum". As organizer of the Guzang Festival, the "Guzang head" is the key figure communicating between the spirit-and-ghost world of the festival and the real world; he leads the Miao masses, together with numerous ritual masters, in completing this major sacrificial ceremony. Following ancient rites and rules, the Guzang Festival's ceremonies are complex yet ordered. The main program includes preparatory deliberation, receiving guests, abstaining from certain foods, raising the drum and summoning the spirits, the ox circling the pond, making the tools for slaughtering the ox, redeeming the Guzang ox, killing the ox to worship the ancestors, dividing the meat and seeing off the guests, and halting the drum and sealing the village. For the Duliu River Miao, a single "Guzang Festival" takes at least seven days. The Miao Guzang Festival is the Miao people's most solemn sacrificial festival, bearing rich connotations and fulfilling multiple important functions and meanings. It is a practical platform for displaying such cultural forms as ancient Miao legends, song and dance, and traditional handicrafts, and it transmits traditional virtues. It plays an active role in teaching people to abide by norms and standards, in receiving moral education and behavioral restraint, in maintaining social order, and in promoting harmonious social relations.
Receiving the drum
The opening stage: the wooden drum is brought into the community, inspected by the drum keeper and the priests, and mended if cracked.
Waking the drum
Also called turning the drum: the priests beat it as if speaking with the ancestors, after which the drum is formally installed.
Hollowing and replacing the drum
Carving follows inherited measurements and a new drum takes a whole winter to cut, hollow and lacquer before the festival.
Starting the drum to summon the spirits
The most solemn sequence: the drum is beaten without pause as the priests call the ancestral spirits from the east.
Abstaining from vegetables
A strict fast from vegetables once the drum is sounded, with gardens sealed until the festival is formally closed.
Leading the ox and slaughtering it
The ox is led around the village with prayers and then killed to the ancestors, its meat shared out among the guests.
Sharing the meat and sealing the drum
Meat is distributed by an open list and the drum is finally sealed away until the next cycle, thirteen years on.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Duliu River valley and the Moon Mountain area in Rongjiang are the core zone of this festival custom. Villages do not hold it at the same time; each sets its date according to the old rules of its drum society, and guests come at word sent by wood notch or oral message. One observance takes at least seven days: preparatory deliberation, receiving guests, abstaining from certain foods, raising the drum and summoning the spirits, the ox circling the pond, killing the ox to worship the ancestors, dividing the meat and seeing off the guests, and halting the drum and sealing the village, and the order may not be reversed. Drum-society leadership is more common than household leadership: where a village has several surnames, each surname forms its own society and the societies run the festival jointly; when a great vow comes, such as a village-wide ancestral sacrifice or a prayer for the year, the societies combine, labor and funds suffice, and the drum can be borrowed, so every household need not prepare anew.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Miao Gucang Festival.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The thirteen-year cycle is longer than a human lifetime, and today its observance is uneven: some drum societies have delayed their year, while others have split one cycle across several years. The continuity of drum and drum society must therefore be held in human memory, remembering the dates set by the previous Guzang head and remembering the roster of the last division of meat. After halting the drum and sealing the village, the drum must be disposed of, the shed sealed up, the ritual masters re-engaged, and the food-abstinence rules taught anew to the younger generation. None of this is written down; it is all arranged through consultation among a few elders of the drum society. Once the prayer texts, the dimensions of the hollowed drum, and the hours for receiving the drum are lost, there is nowhere to recover them. This is the most fragile and most critical link of this heritage.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。