Lantern Festival

Ⅹ-71Folk CustomsQiandongnanmiaozudongzuzizhizhoutaijiang, GuizhouBatch 5 (2021)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

The Miao dragon dance with xuhua (whistling fireworks) is an important folk custom of the Yuanxiao Festival in the Qiandongnan region of southeastern Guizhou; it originated from the Han people's playing with dragon lanterns and, through continuous transmission by the Miao people, has become a custom of Qiandongnan bearing Miao cultural characteristics that has been passed down to this day.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Taijiang County is the main area where this custom is practiced and transmitted, with 156 villages participating; it runs each year from the fifth day of the first lunar month to the seventeenth day of the first lunar month, with strict ritual protocols, techniques for weaving dragon lanterns and making xuhua (fireworks), and relatively complete preservation of the original cultural connotations and forms. Large numbers of people take part in the folk activity with great enthusiasm, and the cultural ecology of the Miao dragon dance with xuhua is healthy. The Miao dragon dance with xuhua custom is divided into several time nodes and activity contents: on the fifth day of the first lunar month, a sacrifice is held to invite the dragon out of the water, after which the dragon may be woven and the xuhua made. The craftspeople first complete the dragon's frame using bamboo, silk cloth, and cotton paper, then paint it; weaving the dragon head is the most important step, and the process finally produces dragon lanterns and other lanterns with Miao characteristics. For xuhua, the gunpowder is first compounded, and then the xuhua cylinders are made. On the seventh or ninth day of the first lunar month, the dragon is sent out and New Year visits are paid. On the calculated day, the finished dragon is revealed in the village, paying New Year visits house by house. Each family sets off firecrackers to welcome the dragon; at each household the dragon kowtows before the ancestral shrine, dances in the main hall, and recites auspicious phrases, while the host offers the dragon dancers wine and meat and gives them glutinous rice cakes, money, and rice. On the fourteenth and fifteenth days of the first lunar month, the dragon dance with xuhua takes place, which is the climax of this folk activity. Nearly a hundred dragons from the Miao villages all gather in Taijiang county town, and amid the sound of gongs and drums and the flames of the xuhua, they dart left and right, forward and back, high and low, weaving, twisting, and leaping, displaying the art of dragon dancing to the full. On the seventeenth day of the first lunar month, the dragon is transformed (hualong). Each village holds a dragon-transformation ceremony by the riverside, presided over by a ritual specialist, followed by the slaughtering of pigs and cattle and a communal feast. Historically, the procedures, sacrificial rituals, dragon-weaving, and xuhua-making techniques of the Miao dragon dance with xuhua custom have been transmitted through family or master-apprentice lineages.

Inviting the dragon out of the water

Rites on the fifth day come first; only afterwards may the lanterns and fireworks be made.

Weaving the dragon lantern

Bamboo, silk cloth and paper form the frame which is then painted, the head being the hardest part.

Mixing the hair fireworks

The gunpowder is mixed and the tubes built, both demanding experienced hands.

The dragon out and house-to-house calls

The dragon visits door to door, bowing at shrines while hosts offer wine, meat and money.

The night of dragon and fireworks

Nearly a hundred dragons fill the county town on the two climactic nights amid drums and fire.

Sending off the dragon

The priest presides over the river rite, and the whole village then shares a sacrificial meal.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

The dragon dance with xuhua is spread very widely across Taijiang, with all 156 villages taking turns as hosts, and between the fifth and seventeenth days of the first month there is always a dragon in the arena. Weaving and gunpowder compounding depend on craftspeople, and a single skilled hand can uphold a whole village's reputation; when the dragon is released, each family greets it with firecrackers, the dancers kowtow before the ancestral shrine and dance in the main hall, and the host rewards them with wine, meat, glutinous rice cakes, money, and rice—such exchanges of courtesy make the dragon and the households well acquainted.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

At present, Taijiang County has a dedicated folk dragon lantern association responsible for organizing and guiding the activities, which has enabled the dragon dance with xuhua custom to retain relatively complete cultural connotations and forms to this day. The Miao dragon dance with xuhua custom carries the colors of praying for auspiciousness, joy, harvest, and a better life, with a deep popular base, outstanding teamwork in the activity process, and strong spectacle value; these characteristics are the internal driving force behind the custom's unbroken transmission. The Miao dragon dance with xuhua custom has been practiced for more than 300 years without declining; it is an important folk activity of universal participation and collective inheritance in the Taijiang region, serving to unite people's hearts, promote social harmony, and strengthen ethnic unity, and it has become an important resource for rural revitalization and cultural prosperity.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

Lantern Festival (Qiandongnanmiaozudongzuzizhizhoutaijiang, Guizhou) · China ICH Official Project Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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。