Tu Nadun Festival
01 · Historical Records
Some scholars believe that, judging from the content, form and costumes of the nuo dances and nuo dramas in the Nadun Festival, the festival should have originated in the middle of the Yuan dynasty and was perfected in the early Ming dynasty.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Nadun Festival is a folk activity unique to the Tu people of the Sanchuan area in Minhe County, Qinghai Province. More than seventy villages across seven townships including Guanting and Zhongchuan in the Sanchuan area of Qinghai all observe the Nadun Festival. The order in which each place holds Nadun follows the sequence of the crop harvest seasons: it begins with the Songjia Nadun on the 12th day of the seventh lunar month, proceeds village by village, moving from Xiachuan to Zhongchuan and Shangchuan, and continues until it ends on the 15th day of the ninth lunar month, lasting sixty-three days. The Nadun Festival proceeds in three stages. The first is preparation. Beginning at Qingming, the villages of Sanchuan offer sacrifices at their local temples to Erlang Shen and the local deities, and elect the 'big board head' (dapaitou) and 'small board head' (xiaopaitou) who will hold the Nadun gathering in July of that year. Before the festival they are responsible for raising funds, maintaining public order in the village and coordinating production management (such as the order of field water use); during the festival they are specifically responsible for organizing and implementing the activities. The second is the small gathering: before the festival, villagers erect a large tent at the gathering ground to house the deity statues and carry out the sacrifices. On the day before the festival, the big and small board heads beat gongs and drums and perform a series of sacrificial ceremonies. Then comes the main gathering of the Nadun Festival itself, which consists of three parts: dancing the huishou (dance leaders), dancing the masked dances (nuo drama), and dancing the 'Fa' (shamans). The Tu Nadun Festival has very distinctive features: it is a village nuo folk activity, it uses folk belief as a bond connecting villages, it has a long history of transmission, each event lasts a long time, and participation is broad. The Nadun Festival has a strict organization and procedure; its activities are closely integrated with village administration and the agricultural calendar, and it has an evident function of social adjustment. During the festival the activities are rich and colorful and strongly marked by ethnic and local character. The nuo dramas and nuo dances in particular preserve vestiges of the shamanic culture of the northern peoples, while also absorbing Han cultural content such as the worship of Erlang Shen and Lord Guan. They express both the cultural individuality of the Tu people and the phenomenon of ethnic harmony in which multiple cultures coexist, prosper, influence and blend with one another. They have rich cultural and artistic content, and their music, dance, eulogies, costumes and ritual protocol are all highly distinctive.
The big and small heads
A large and a small head are chosen for the year, raising funds and keeping order before the festival and running it during, handing over the long relay.
A chain of fairs across the three river valleys
From the twelfth day of the seventh month to the fifteenth of the ninth, the fairs move from the lower to the upper valleys in the order grain ripens.
Raising the tent and the rites for Erlangshen
A great tent is raised to house the divine images, and the day before, the heads beat drums and gong for the rites; the tent opens the middle stage.
Masked dance, wizards and game
The main meeting joins the game-dance, the masked drama and the shamanic dance, mixing traces of northern shamanism with Han deities.
Irrigation order and festival timing
The heads settle irrigation order before the festival while the dates follow the harvest, so administration and amusement share one calendar.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
In the Sanchuan area Nadun is not held by a single village but links more than seventy villages across seven townships into one timeline following the harvest order: the Songjia Nadun in Xiachuan opens the round, Zhongchuan and Shangchuan follow in turn, the latest-harvesting village closes it on the 15th day of the ninth lunar month, and the whole spans sixty-three days. Each village elects its big and small board heads around Qingming; they separately raise funds, maintain order and coordinate field water use. Nadun is therefore not a mere festival but an annual village affair that compresses harvest progress, water disputes and village decision-making into a single ritual rhythm.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In the local Tu language, 'Nadun' originally means 'play' or 'game.' As for its historical origins, no written records have so far been found. The Nadun Festival is a 'living document' for understanding the history of the Tu people; the rich cultural information it contains is an important source for academic research.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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