Deang Jiaohua Festival
01 · Historical Records
The choice of date for the Watering Flower Festival is bound up with the De'ang belief in the agricultural calendar. The festival opens on the seventh day after Qingming, by which time the season has passed the spring equinox: transplanting on the terraced fields and sowing on the dry land come due in succession, and the villagers have not yet gone out to work, so there happens to be an interval in which they can stop. Placing the festival at this point inserts the sacrifices into a gap in the farm work rather than setting up a day unrelated to the agricultural calendar. The three-day program unfolds along the same logic: the first day is given to rites, offerings, and recited texts inside the zhuangfang (village Buddhist temple), and the second and third days turn to fetching water and merrymaking; sacrifice comes first and festivity after, and the order cannot be reversed. The De'ang Buddhist temple, the zhuangfang, is directly connected with the life of the stockade; the religious portion of the festival is presided over by the village elders or the abbot, and the identity of the presider directly determines the legitimacy of the rite. The key figures in transmitting this festival have therefore always been the elders and the abbot within the temple, not the musicians and dancers.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Watering Flower Festival is an annual traditional festival of the De'ang people, practiced mainly among the De'ang populace of the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. The festival begins on the seventh day after Qingming and lasts three days. On the first day of the festival, the De'ang people put on festive dress, carry clear water drawn from the wells on their backs, bring food prepared well in advance, and hold fresh flowers in their hands as they gather at their stockade's zhuangfang. The festival rites are presided over by the elders of the stockade. During the ceremony, young men strike elephant-foot drums, young women dance the 'Duisha' (sand-piling) dance to the drumbeat, and the other worshippers, with small exquisite flower baskets on their backs and bamboo water tubes held above their heads, pour water in turn into the water-dragon trough to bathe the Buddha image, praying for favorable weather in the coming year. After the rites, people place the food they have brought into offering dishes in front of the Buddha image, recite the sacrificial text in unison, and then freely sample the various foods. When the eating is finished they form a long line and, led by a column of elephant-foot drums, cross mountains and valleys to fetch water at wells or springs. Every water-fetching is done with great care: a water-fetching offering rite must be held, and young men and women perform cultural presentations such as passing cigarettes, antiphonal singing, and dance competitions. The Watering Flower Festival is a crystallization of De'ang culture. It involves the De'ang people's religious rites, folk song and dance, folk crafts, marriage customs, and traditional cuisine, among other aspects, and possesses a very rich national cultural content.
Opening on the seventh day after Qingming
The festival opens on the seventh day after Qingming and runs for three days, timing the ceremony to the agricultural season.
Pouring water over the image
Named for the act of watering: villagers carry baskets and bamboo tubes and pour well water into a dragon trough before the image to ask the gods for good weather.
Recitation before the offerings
After the rite the food is laid on the offering plate, the elders recite the prayer aloud together, and all the participants eat as one community.
The ritual of fetching water
After the meal the villagers go to the well or spring, offering gifts first and exchanging tobacco, song and dance as they draw the water to be used as an offering.
The sand-pile dance and elephant-foot drums
Led by the village elder, young men beat the elephant-foot drum while young women dance the sand-pile dance to the rhythm, the most settled musical sequence of the festival.
Wang Lasheng's training in the monastery
Born in 1942, Wang Lasheng entered the village monastery at fifteen, studied the Buddhist liturgy and texts under the monk, later studied abroad, and has presided over rites since 1977.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Watering Flower Festival is a traditional festival of the entire De'ang people, commonly held in the De'ang settlement stockades throughout the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture, with the festival period fixed as three consecutive days beginning on the seventh day after Qingming. The main site of the rites is the stockade's zhuangfang: on the afternoon of the first day, dressed-up men and women set out from each household carrying clear water, fresh flowers, and prepared food to gather at the Buddhist temple; young men strike the elephant-foot drums to set the rhythm, young women respond to the drums with the Duisha dance, and the rest, with small flower baskets on their shoulders and bamboo water tubes in their hands, pour water in turn into the water-dragon trough to bathe the Buddha image. On the following day each stockade forms a long line and, led by a column of elephant-foot drums, crosses the mountains to fetch water; at wells and springs offerings must first be laid out before water is drawn, and during the water-fetching the young men and women pass cigarettes, sing in antiphony, and compete in dance. The Jingpo, Dai, and other peoples hold their Water-Splashing Festival or Munao Zongge at the same period, so several festivals join front to back within the same landscape, and the Watering Flower Festival is thus able to persist stably in a pattern of interleaved multi-ethnic festival seasons.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Wang Lasheng (from the official archival record of the associated inheritor): male, De'ang ethnicity, born in September 1942, from Mangshi, Yunnan Province. From childhood he loved De'ang culture; at fifteen he became a novice monk at his village's zhuangfang (Buddhist temple), where he followed the abbot Zhaomenglong in studying Buddhist conduct, rites, and written texts, later going to Myanmar for advanced study. He has actively carried out inheritance activities for the item and has considerable influence among the local populace. He is a representative inheritor of the De'ang Watering Flower Festival, an item of the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage. Beginning in 1977 he presided over religious rites and folk activities at his village's Buddhist temple; he is the local 'Dahelu' (mentor and cultural inheritor) and at the same time an important presider of Watering Flower Festival activities.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wang Lasheng 05-3016
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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