Qiang New Year Festival
01 · Historical Records
The origin of the name Qiang New Year can be corroborated in two ways: one is the name Rimei Festival, whose sound coincides with the head of the year in the Qiang Pingyang calendar; the other is the alternative names "Minor New Year" and "Harvest Festival", both of which take their cue from its place in the year — not the beginning of the year, but a day of settlement after the year's farm work has been wound up. The Pingyang calendar is not synchronized with the Han lunar calendar, so the festival falls around the first day of the tenth lunar month and lasts three to five days; although the dates differ, both calendars place this day at the turn from late autumn into early winter, showing that the same climatic transition was felt at once in the two places. Three aims stand side by side within the festival — celebrating the harvest, sending blessings, and praying for peace: the harvest is a fact already in hand, while peace is a hope not yet certain, and putting the two together precisely suits the psychology of a year-end settlement. In its forms of expression, the Qiang New Year still retains many survivals of nomadic and hunting culture, while the worship of the omnipresent spirits of all things continues in the forms of sacrificing to mountains, to ancestors, and to the gods; the content is agrarian, yet the bearing still carries an earlier way of life. This very displacement is what most deserves attention in research on the transformation of Qiang society.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Rimei Festival (the Qiang New Year) is also called the "Qiang New Year", the "Minor New Year", and the "Harvest Festival". It is a grand festival of the Qiang people, its activities centering on celebrating the harvest, sending blessings, and praying for peace. It is mainly prevalent in the broad Qiang settlement areas of the 23 townships of Mao County, Sichuan Province, and it is also transmitted in Qiang-distributed areas such as Wenchuan County, Li County, Songpan County, and Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County. The Rimei Festival takes its name from the Qiang Pingyang calendar; it is generally fixed on the first day of the tenth lunar month and lasts three to five days. In content, Qiang New Year activities mainly reflect the state of the early farming culture of the Qiang people, but in their forms of expression many survivals of nomadic and hunting culture and of the worship of the spirits of all things (animism) still appear. Whenever the Qiang New Year approaches, every village stockade holds grand celebrations presided over by a highly respected elder. Men and women, young and old, form circles on the lawn; first they sing and dance — popularly called "dancing the festive shalang" (a Qiang group dance) — then they open the zajiu (wine sipped through straws) and exchange delicacies with one another, jointly wishing a happy new year and reveling without restraint until deep night before going home fully satisfied.
Three to five days from the first of the tenth month
The Qiang new year, also called the Rimai festival, begins on the first day of the tenth lunar month and runs three to five days, keyed to the Qiang calendar rather than the Chinese one.
The joyful salang dance
Villagers of all ages form circles on the grass and dance and sing the salang, the circle being its basic formation, with the bigger the ring the fuller the sound.
The shared jar of zang wine
After the dance the zang wine is opened, scooped with bamboo or wooden spoons and passed from hand to hand, so that sharing the jar is itself a form of participation.
The mountain sacrifice and the chanting
A ritual master presides over the festival, transmitting the northern dialect chanting and the upper, middle and lower ritual sets, and leading his disciples at the mountain-sacrifice gatherings.
The Qiang new year across Maoxian
The new year is kept across the townships of Maoxian and neighbouring counties, each village cooking and drinking from its own jars while neighbours come to watch and join.
Xiao Yongqing and his disciples
Born in 1937, Xiao Yongqing has performed ritual work across Sichuan since 1990 and trained several disciples who now preside at the Qiang new year mountain sacrifices.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Qiang New Year is mainly prevalent in the broad Qiang settlement areas of the 23 townships of Mao County, Sichuan Province, and it is also transmitted in Qiang-distributed areas such as Wenchuan County, Li County, Songpan County, and Beichuan Qiang Autonomous County, making it a New Year festival shared by several counties in northwestern Sichuan. Each village organizes the festival on its own account, presided over by a highly respected elder; the circles on the lawn, the zajiu, and the delicacies are apportioned by village, pot by pot and jar by jar, never mixed with those of other villages. When one village holds the festival, neighboring villages come to observe the rites or to share the enjoyment, and in this way the liveliness rotates from village to village. Fortunately, since the post-earthquake reconstruction, veteran hands at shibi (Qiang ritual specialists) rites and mountain-sacrifice gatherings have survived in the various villages, so the sequence of the festival can still be completed as before. Xiao Yongqing has engaged in shibi ritual activities in various parts of Sichuan since 1990 and enjoys considerable prestige; he has taught many disciples, including Xiao Qingwang, Xiao Qingyu, Yin Cheng, and Xiao Wu, and led his disciples in presiding over such major folk festival sacrifices as the Qiang New Year mountain-sacrifice gatherings in the Qiang areas; he is thus one link in this transmission line that still reaches the ground in practice. The Qiang villages of the western belt are mostly built against the mountains; the open ground in front of a village is the natural arena for the festival, and dancing in circles requires no separate site, so the festival customs and the spatial conditions of the settlements are here matched with unusual closeness.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Qiang New Year Festival · Qiang New Year Festival · Qiang New Year Festival.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Qiang New Year is a precious cultural heritage of the Qiang people. It integrates belief, history, song and dance, and food and drink into one, and through its festival activities it expresses the Qiang people's national character of worshipping nature and their ancestors. It has research value in many fields, including ethnology, folklore studies, sociology, history, and cultural studies. Xiao Yongqing (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Qiang ethnicity, born in November 1937, native of Mao County, Sichuan Province. He began engaging in shibi ritual activities in various parts of Sichuan in 1990 and has considerable prestige. He is well versed in the traditions of the Qiang New Year, masters the various ritual formats, is proficient in all manner of shibi ritual arts, excels at chanting scriptures and reciting texts and at feats such as licking a plowshare and grabbing from a wok of hot oil, and has transmitted the shibi chanting scriptures of the northern dialect of the Qiang and those of the upper, middle, and lower altars. Persisting in the transmission of his skills, he has taught many disciples, including Xiao Qingwang, Xiao Qingyu, Yin Cheng, and Xiao Wu, and led his disciples in presiding over major folk festival sacrifices in the Qiang areas, such as the Qiang New Year mountain-sacrifice gatherings. He is a representative inheritor of the Qiang New Year, a project of the third national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Xiao Yongqing 03-1476
- Wang Zhisheng 03-1477
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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