Tatar Saban Festival
01 · Historical Records
The name Saban has two origins: it is both the name of a wild plant widely growing across Central Asia and, in the Tatar language, the pronunciation of the word for plowshare. The Tatar ancestors lived by herding, moving with water and grass; at the turn of spring and summer, returning from pastures and fields, they would gather on grass flats overgrown with saban to meet, race, sing, and dance, praying for favorable weather and full granaries, and over time this became a festival. After the shift to farming, households that took up plowing with a plowshare began calling such celebrations "Saban" after the sound of the tool, hence the name "Plowshare Festival." The two names in fact refer to two sides of the same thing: one records the years of gathering and herding on the grasslands, the other records the yield changes brought by the transformation of farm tools; together they make up the Tatar people's life trajectory from nomadism to agriculture. In former times this festival was held during spring plowing, but because of climate change it later moved to mid-to-late June; the drift of the festival date is itself a temporal mark left by the transition to agriculture.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Saban Festival, also known as the "Plowshare Festival," is a traditional agricultural festival of the Tatar people, mainly circulating in Urumqi, Tacheng, and the Ili region, as well as Qitai County and other places in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. It is said that saban is a wild plant growing in Central Asia. The Tatar ancestors, the Tatars, lived by herding, farming, and hunting; in spring and summer, when returning from the grasslands and fields, they would always gather on grass flats overgrown with saban to hold athletic competitions and cultural entertainment, praying for favorable weather and full grain stores, and over time this formed the Saban Festival. Historically, the Saban Festival was held during spring plowing; later, because of climate change, the festival date was moved to mid-to-late June. The Saban Festival is rich in content: during the festival, distinctive food and dress customs are displayed, and music, dance, and athletic competitions are held. Today in Xinjiang, only some Tatar elders over the age of 60 know the detailed content and the full course of this festival's activities. The relevant authorities should take immediate action to ensure the smooth transmission and development of this distinctive ethnic festival.
Gathering on the saban meadows
Saban is a wild plant of Central Asia; herders and farmers gathering on meadows covered with it to compete and dance gave rise to the festival.
Why the ploughshare gave its name
When the people took up ploughing, they named the celebration after the Tibetan-Tatar word for the ploughshare, which is why the festival is also known as the ploughshare festival.
The open-air fair of June
Held between the twentieth and twenty-fifth of June with no fixed site and no taboos, the fair displays food, dress, music, dance, games and handicraft without restriction.
Zaitunna and the Tacheng tradition
Born in 1965 into a family of Tatar cultural practice, Zaitunna studied abroad twice, chairs the Tacheng cultural association, works in four languages and has written about the festival and its cuisine.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Saban Festival is a festival of the entire Tatar people. Tatars live in concentrated communities in Urumqi, Tacheng, the Ili region, and Qitai County in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and each place holds the festival according to local conditions: farming-oriented villages set the venue beside wheat fields and irrigation channels, while herding-oriented tribes still arrange competitions around the summer pastures, and the food, dress, and song-and-dance programs also vary with the mode of production. The Tatar people are a cross-border ethnic group, also distributed in neighboring countries; the Saban Festival inside and outside the country, though each held separately, still shares broadly the same program order and terminology. The festival period falls between June 20 and 25, the venue is not fixed, and there are no special taboos during the activities; dress, food, music, dance, and handicraft items may all be displayed in the street, with the festival and the market running in parallel. The situation in recent years is worrying: in Xinjiang only a portion of Tatar elders over sixty still remember the complete content and the full course of the festival.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Tatar Saban Festival.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
This ethnic festival is of extremely important value for the study of the history of food, dress, music, and dance among China's ethnic minorities, as well as for the study of Tatar folk culture, aesthetic concepts, and moral concepts. Zaitunna (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): female, Tatar, born in April 1965, from Tacheng City, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. She was born into a Tatar cultural family and, influenced by her family environment, is deeply familiar with Tatar customs and habits. She not only learned traditional culture from her elders but also twice traveled beyond China's borders to study and exchange with Tatar communities abroad, gaining a profound understanding of Tatar history, food culture, music, dance, and the Saban Festival. As president of the Tatar Cultural Association of the Tacheng region, she has long been engaged in organizing the Saban Festival. She is able to conduct ethnic cultural exchange in four ethnic languages. She emphasizes the transmission and dissemination of the project: she has collected a large amount of ethnic materials and established a cultural courtyard, a museum, a delicacy hall, and a pastry workshop; she has participated in compiling books such as "The Saban Festival of the Tatar People" and "Tatar Cuisine and Pastry Techniques." She is a representative inheritor of the Tatar Saban Festival, a project of the fifth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zaitunna 05-3017
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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