Miao Tiaohua Festival
01 · Historical Records
The Miao Tiaohua (Flower-Treading) Festival is an indispensable and important part of the life of the Miao people. Handed down to the present as an ethnic festival, it has played a positive role in enhancing ethnic unity and promoting social harmony.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Miao Tiaohua Festival is a folk activity held by the Miao people of Guizhou to pray for favorable weather, abundant harvests, and thriving livestock. Each year more than fifty thousand people come to the slopes to take part in the flower-treading, and the largest in scale is the flower-treading slope event held in Wayao Village, Anshun City, from the seventh to the ninth day of the first lunar month. Preparations for the flower-treading begin as early as the sixth day of the first month: first, under the direction of a highly esteemed village elder, branches of several kinds of evergreen are assembled into a flower tree, which is handed over to the head of the household that had received the flower tree the previous year and then had a child; to the sound of suona horns, the household head carries the flower tree directly from his home to the top of the mountain. On the seventh day of the first month the Tiaohua Festival arrives, and Miao men and women from everywhere gather on the flower-treading slope. Unmarried young men dress as women and play the lusheng reed pipes; married young men carry baby-carrying shawls and quilts on their backs, hang silver ornaments and embroidered items on the quilts, and join the activity playing the lusheng; children carry small carrying shawls and take part in the flower-treading. On the afternoon of the ninth day, when the flower-treading ends, a couple who have been married for many years without children take the flower tree home to be worshipped. If young men and women take a liking to each other during the flower-treading activities, the man's side may ask someone to propose marriage at the woman's home.
Making and handing over the flower tree
Two days before the festival a village elder makes a tree of evergreen boughs and hands it to the household that received the tree and then had a child, who carries it to the hilltop to the sound of suona.
The lusheng gathering on the slope
On the seventh day young unmarried men blow lusheng in women's dress, married men carry fans and quilts hung with silver, and children come with small back-baskets.
Breaking a bough and carrying the tree home
Everyone may take a bough home, and at the close of the festival couples long married without children carry the tree to their house to pray for offspring.
Matches made on the slope
A young man who takes a liking to a woman on the slope may send someone to her family with a proposal, so the gathering doubles as a marriage market.
The flower tree as a prayer for harvests
The festival was first a communal prayer for good weather and full granaries; evergreen boughs were chosen for their lasting green, and an elder had to oversee the making.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Tiaohua is a typical hillside celebration: the site must be a slope that is open on all sides with unobstructed views, so that spectators and performers can see the center of the ground at the same time; whether the flower tree is set on which terrace of the slope and from which mountain path the procession enters thus directly determines the density of the scene. The Wayao Village flower-treading slope in the Anshun area is the largest in scale, held from the seventh to the ninth day of the first month each year, with more than fifty thousand participants ascending the slope; young people from the counties and stockades come in batches according to the distance, and the flower-treading slope is in effect the annual social market for Miao youth in central Guizhou. The flower tree is assembled from evergreen branches selected by the village elder from the third day of the month onward and handed to the household that received the tree the previous year and then had a child; during the festival everyone may break off a branch to take home, and at the end the childless married couple of long standing take the tree back to their own home for worship -- thus the rite on the slope and the outcome of each household's line of descent form a visible chain of cause and effect. The passing of the flower tree also serves as a form of social selection: young men and women who take a liking to one another on the slope have the man's side ask a matchmaker to the woman's home to propose marriage, and marriages are mostly scheduled in succession in this period. Tiaohua is thus not only a rite praying for a good harvest but also an occasion where the love and marriage of the young can be settled face to face. In former days those attending were dressed according to their marital and reproductive status -- the unmarried dressing as women and playing the lusheng, the married carrying shawls and quilts with silver ornaments and embroidered pieces hung on the quilt faces, and children following with small carrying shawls -- clothing here is a self-statement requiring no explanation.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Nowadays, as the living habits and value orientations of Miao young people change, people's enthusiasm for taking part in the flower-treading activities continues to decline. Under these circumstances, the cultural connotations and practices of the Tiaohua custom show a tendency to disappear and urgently need protection.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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