Yandi Memorial Ceremony
01 · Historical Records
The Yuanhe Commandery and County Gazetteer, compiled by Li Jifu of the Tang dynasty, records: 'Lishan, also named Lieshan, lies one hundred li north of (Sui) County.' The Yuanfeng Jiuyu Zhi, compiled by Wang Cun and others of the Northern Song, records: 'Sui Prefecture: the Shennong Temple is in Licun.' The ceremony began in the Northern and Southern Dynasties, flourished in the Ming and Qing dynasties, with popular and official sacrifice proceeding in parallel.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Suizhou Shennong ceremony is a grand folk activity held in the homeland of Shennong to sacrifice to the progenitor of the Chinese nation. Historical documents frequently record that Suizhou is the birthplace of Shennong the Yan Emperor. Historical legend holds that the twenty-sixth day of the fourth lunar month is the birthday of Shennong the Yan Emperor. Today, the ancestral-worship ceremony in the homeland of Shennong the Yan Emperor is held in Lishan Town, Suizhou. Since the eighth year of Tongzhi of the Qing dynasty (1869), Hu Xingpu, a local man of Suizhou, presided over the sacrifices and established a set of ritual procedures, which thereafter became a tradition passed down through the generations. This project is of great significance for inheriting the fine traditions of the Chinese nation and strengthening the cohesion of the Chinese nation. The names Lishan, Lieshan, and Shennong Temple follow one another in the two geographical gazetteers of the Tang and Song: the former marks the place name; the latter the temple's location. The site of sacrifice did not move for more than a thousand years; only the officiant and the details of the procedures changed. Once the procedures were fixed by the villager Hu Xingpu in the eighth year of Tongzhi, they were passed on in a family line; the officiant is still a descendant of the Hu family, and the festival date, ritual steps, eulogies, and the order of drums and music all pass down with that line. The villages around Lishan Town to this day take turns by household to offer incense and candles and to prepare food and drink; whichever household is on duty does the organizing. This household-based sharing of burdens solved, for a village without a full-time temple keeper, the two most practical questions of where the money and the people for sacrifice would come from. Once the procedures of the ancestral-worship ceremony are fixed, the order of drums, music, and procession follows; participants need not memorize the rules, but only follow the movements of those before and after them. The transmission of the rite thus relies not on memorization but on walking through it again and again.
The birthday of the Divine Farmer
The twenty-sixth day of the fourth lunar month, a date of legend, is still the fixed day on which the ancestors' shrine at Lishan is visited.
From the Six Dynasties to Ming and Qing
The rite began in the Six Dynasties and flourished in Ming and Qing, with official and folk worship running in parallel.
A rite passed down by one family
Since the rite was organised by Hu Xingpu in 1869, the same family has supplied its masters, preserving drum music and recitation unchanged.
The Shennong temple of Suizhou in the Song gazetteer
Two Song and Tang gazetteers record a hill and a temple at the same place, fixing the seat of today's ritual in two solid coordinates.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
In addition to the enthusiastic participation of local people, large numbers of descendants of Yan and Huang from home and abroad come to seek their roots and worship their ancestors. The Suizhou ceremony centers on Lishan Town; it is the foothold for descendants of Yan and Huang in the Suizhou area to seek their roots and worship their ancestors. In addition to the enthusiastic participation of local people, large numbers of descendants of Yan and Huang from home and abroad come, making the square before the temple of this mountain village a cross-provincial gathering place around the twenty-sixth of the fourth month.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Yandiling Memorial Ceremony · Yandi Memorial Ceremony.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The officiant of the ceremony is still a descendant of the Hu family. The birthday festival of the twenty-sixth of the fourth month is still a public festival in Suizhou, with official and popular sacrifice proceeding in parallel: officially there are complete rites of announcement sacrifice and public sacrifice; among the villagers there are scattered private sacrifices in fulfillment of vows. The Hu family has guarded the right to preside for more than a hundred years. This practice of hereditary family control of the right to preside over sacrifice is rare elsewhere; it keeps the ritual text and the officiant joined, and also makes the survival of the entire ritual system rest on a few people. From the Northern and Southern Dynasties through the Ming and Qing, official sacrificial rites and private village sacrifice alternated in the same temple, neither displacing the other. This pattern in which official and popular forms coexist, with an official system and popular personnel, is the deep reason this ritual system could endure for so long.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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