Minjian Shehuo Performance
01 · Historical Records
Gaoyao District lies in the middle and lower reaches of the Xijiang River, the mainstem of the Pearl River; it was the seat of the Governor-General of Liangguang during the Ming and Qing dynasties, giving it the advantage of "overall command of the two Yue".
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The she sacrifice (worship of the god of soil) was one of the most solemn ritual institutions of ancient China; the "Gaoyao Spring She" of Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province, follows the "spring sacrifice" within China's traditional she ritual. The ancient Central Plains sheji culture (worship of the gods of soil and grain) spread to Lingnan via the Xijiang corridor, and has accumulated a long-standing depth in Gaoyao. The "Local Customs" chapter (Volume 9) of the Zhaoqing Prefecture Gazetteer of the sixteenth year of the Wanli reign of the Ming dynasty (1588) records of Gaoyao and other places: "At the spring she, prayers are offered for the grain harvest; people pool money to buy wine and food to sacrifice to the god, then gather and drink together before dispersing." The custom has survived to this day for four or five hundred years. Every year, from the second day of the second lunar month to the beginning of the third lunar month, the towns and villages celebrate on staggered days according to schedules established by long custom, lasting more than a month; it is one of the folk celebrations with the longest festival season in Lingnan. Before the festival, village elders gather the villagers to pool money for the expenses of the she sacrifice; during the festival, the towns and villages first worship their local soil-and-grain altars together, then organize she-day celebrations, with a dazzling array of activities: seizing the firecracker (qiangpao), dragon and lion dances, Cantonese opera, bayin (eight-instrument) ensembles, temple-fair processions, and tea-leaf and fruit delicacies. After the spring she sacrifice is completed, it enters its climax of distributing the sacrificial meat and feasting: each village distributes the sacrificial meat that has been offered to the soil-and-grain gods. Gaoyao, with a population of more than one million, receives several hundred thousand additional guests during the festival season, recreating the ancient scene of the verse "When the spring she disperses, mulberry shadows slant; every household helps its drunken folk home"; after the festival, each village publishes the accounts of the she sacrifice, and any surplus rolls over to the following year. Gaoyao still preserves more than 4,000 soil-and-grain altars, most of which retain the traditional layout of the ancient Central Plains, fully capturing the intent of the Yin and Zhou dynasties' practices of "setting up stones to form an altar" and "planting trees to mark the she". The soil-and-grain altars maintain a strict hierarchical relationship with the towns and villages: at important transport nodes there are "great she" or "communal she", while within the villages each lane and alley has its own subordinate branch altar; soil-and-grain altars are also installed at economic and production sites such as waterside docks and field heads. The Gaoyao Spring She subtly integrates the consciousness of loving the motherland and the homeland into the hearts of the people.
The spring calendar from the second day
From the second day of the second month to early in the third, villages stagger their celebrations over more than a month.
Praying for grain, pooling money and drinking together
The 1588 gazetteer records spring societies that prayed for grain, pooled money for wine and dishes, worshipped and drank together.
Worship at the altar, firecracker scramble and procession
Villages worship their local altar of soil and grain first, then stage firecrackers, lions, opera, music and processions.
Distribution of sacrificial meat and the shared feast
After the rite, meat is shared among all; accounts are then published and any balance rolls into the next year.
Great, lesser and workplace altars
Over four thousand altars remain, graded from great societies at crossroads to lesser ones in lanes, wharves and fields.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Gaoyao Spring She is the folk event with the highest popular participation in the middle and lower reaches of the Xijiang River, and is mainly distributed across the 17 towns and townships — including Hetai, Lubu and Lecheng — under the jurisdiction of Gaoyao District, Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Gaoyao Spring She is transmitted as a group endeavor; the representative inheritors (and inheritor groups) of some intangible cultural heritage projects associated with this comprehensive folk activity play an active role in its practice. The Spring She celebrations centered on the soil-and-grain altars have enabled many cultural elements and refined skills of Lingnan to be continued, and the fine traditions and virtues of the countryside to be transmitted and carried forward. At the same time, Zhaoqing is one of the nine cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the Gaoyao Spring She highlights the Bay Area's characteristics of "shared cultural origins, close people-to-people kinship, similar folk customs, and complementary strengths", giving it important contemporary value.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Du Tonghai 03-1470
- Zhao Xiwen 03-1471
- Yang Fengshan 05-2992
- Zhao Zhigao 05-2993
- Lvchunjing 05-2994
- Sun Shulin 05-2995
- Li Jianzhong 05-2996
- Pei Baolin
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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