Taihaofuxi Memorial Ceremony
01 · Historical Records
Fuxi is the founder of the civilization of the Chinese nation: he taught fishing and hunting, made tools, promoted agriculture, instituted marriage, rectified surnames, created writing, and elucidated the eight trigrams. With the lamp of civilization he led people out of the chaos of primordial ignorance and ended the mode of life of the primitive age. Sacrificial standards and contents differed from one historical period to another; the rites reached their height in the Ming dynasty, when the imperial court issued sacrificial texts and the tailao standard of offerings was adopted, with two sacrifices a year, each lasting three days — solemn and sacred. By the Qing dynasty, the sacrificial procedures had been simplified and the rites made more concise. From 2005 onward, the annual sacrificial ceremony has been organized by the Gansu provincial government. Every year, from the 2nd day of the second lunar month to the 3rd day of the third lunar month, an ancestor-worship and incense-offering ceremony is held at the Taihao Mausoleum. As for the origin of the temple fair, according to the book "A General Survey of the Taihao Mausoleum Temple Fair in Chenzhou," it should date from after the Zhaozong reign.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Tianshui City in Gansu Province is one of the cradles of ancient Chinese culture and also the birthplace of Fuxi, the forefather of human civilization. Fuxi's merit in opening up the heavens and illuminating the Way laid the foundation for the flourishing of Chinese civilization over several thousand years. To commemorate and display Fuxi's achievements, later generations built the Fuxi Temple and conduct sacrificial activities once a year. The sacrificial activities at the Fuxi Temple in Tianshui began in the 19th year of the Chenghua era of the Ming dynasty (1483) and have continued ever since. During the Republican period they became even simpler, with sacrifices presided over by the Shangyuan Society, a folk sacrificial organization. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Qing-dynasty standard of sacrifice was gradually restored, and the dates of sacrifice were changed to the 15th through the 17th of the first lunar month, one sacrifice lasting three days: the first day for the welcoming rite, the second for the grand ceremony, and the third for the sending-off rite. The sacrificial activities at the Fuxi Temple have developed the following basic characteristics: 1. a dependence on folk custom, formed through their emergence and development together with folk activities; 2. a relatively fixed procedural character that varies according to different historical periods; 3. a character combining this region's folk sacrificial traditions with the ritual etiquette of the Son of Heaven; 4. vigorous promotion of dragon culture and Fuxi culture in the content of the sacrifice; 5. a character of mass cultural activity. In recent years, the Gansu Provincial Party Committee and the provincial government have attached great importance to the Fuxi sacrificial activities. The Fuxi sacrificial ceremony has played a positive role in strengthening the cohesion of the Chinese nation and building a harmonious society. The mausoleum and temple of Taihao Fuxi lie 1.5 kilometers north of the county town of Huaiyang in Henan Province; because it is the mausoleum and temple of the "cultural ancestor" of the Chinese nation, it is called the "Foremost Mausoleum under Heaven." During the sacrificial ceremony a temple fair is also held, lasting more than a month; the liveliest part, however, is the ten days from the 10th to the 20th of the second lunar month, and the three days from the 14th to the 16th of the second month may be called the climax of the ceremony, with the crowds strolling the fair rubbing shoulders and massing in their tens of thousands, reaching more than two hundred thousand people a day. The temple fair's sphere of influence extends beyond Henan to dozens of counties (and cities) in Anhui, Shandong, Hebei, and other provinces. The fairground covers about one square kilometer, with all trades on display and every line of business present, and ancestor worship as its core content. The clay toys sold at the temple fair, such as "nini dogs" and "tigers," have been praised by some Chinese and foreign experts and scholars as "true totems" and "living fossils." In the long course of historical evolution, the broad working people have transformed their wishes, ideals, and aesthetic interests into visible and tangible cultural forms and folded them into the temple fair's activities, forming distinctive rituals. The sacrificial and secular music and dance it encompasses, the "Shougong" narrative singing with its meaning of "exhorting to goodness," and the folk fine arts and crafts that preserve the consciousness of humanity's childhood — these have given the temple fair of the First Ancestor its profound cultural connotations and rich, colorful forms of expression.
Pilgrimage days at the Taihao mausoleum
From the second day of the second month to the third of the third, pilgrims climb to the Taihao tomb where the fair fills the street beside them.
The three-day peak
Of a fair lasting over a month, the tenth to the twentieth of the second month is the busiest, peaking on the fourteenth to the sixteenth.
Clay dogs and tigers
Small clay dogs and tigers sold at the fair are called true totems and living fossils, preserving the oldest ideas of form.
The storytelling of virtue
Storytelling that urges the good performs alongside the ritual and secular music, telling the fair's crowds in the plainest idiom.
A fair drawing several provinces
Beyond Henan the fair draws people from dozens of counties in Anhui, Shandong and Hebei, its reach set by the crowds it pulls in.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
At the Taihao Mausoleum in Huaiyang, sacrifice and fair are merged into one: during the incense-offering period from the 2nd day of the second lunar month to the 3rd day of the third lunar month, the fairground covers about one square kilometer, with all trades on display and every line of business present, and ancestor worship as its core content. Those who come from other provinces to attend the fair hail from dozens of counties and cities in Anhui, Shandong, and Hebei; for the duration of the fair, provincial and county boundaries are temporarily smoothed away. The clay toys sold at the stalls, such as nini dogs and tigers, have been praised by some Chinese and foreign experts and scholars as true totems and living fossils. The temple fair also features sacrificial and secular music and dance, Shougong narrative singing with its exhortation to goodness, and folk fine arts and crafts that preserve the consciousness of humanity's childhood; wishes and aesthetics are folded into the very process of strolling the fair, forming the temple fair of the First Ancestor's own distinctive rituals.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Taihaofuxi Memorial Ceremony · Taihaofuxi Memorial Ceremony.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
In recent years, many experts and scholars from China and abroad have come to the temple fair to explore antiquity and study the Eastern culture of ancient China, and compatriots from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan have returned to the mainland to visit and take part in the ceremony at the Taihao Mausoleum, seeking their roots and asking after their ancestors, to show that they have not forgotten their forebears or forgotten that they are descendants of the dragon.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Yang Tingjie 05-2986
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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