Miao New Year
01 · Historical Records
The three purposes of the Miao New Year follow a deliberate order: first to mourn Chiyou, then to celebrate the fruits of the year's labor, and finally to sacrifice to the spirits of ancestors and to the protective deities such as the maple, bamboo, the Rock Mother, and the water well. That remembrance of the departed comes first shows that the year's harvest is understood as a repayment to the ancestors and to those who died in battle rather than as pure celebration; the harvest in the middle is an accomplished fact; and the sacrifice at the end looks to safety in the coming year, the three together, one vertical and one horizontal, forming the framework of the festival. Among the objects of sacrifice, the maple, bamboo, the Rock Mother, and the water well are not anthropomorphic gods but plants and features of the terrain directly bound up with life in the Miao stockaded villages, so the sacrifice here is in fact an expression of gratitude for, and commitment to, the conditions of growth. The Miao New Year is set when the autumn harvest is finished and the year's farm work has essentially ended, coinciding with the start of the Miao calendar; the Miao of the Qingshui River and Duliu River basins have since ancient times used the Miao calendar, which differs from the Han lunar calendar, and the first day of the year is the Miao New Year, so the twelfth month of the Han lands and the New Year of the Miao villages often fall apart, and two orders of time coexist on the same stretch of mountain land. The Miao New Year must be observed locally by consultation and in sequence, with different Miao villages taking turns as the center of the revelry in different years, an arrangement that creates a rotation among the villages and avoids clashes over festival dates and gathering grounds.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Miao New Year is the New Year of the Miao people, generally held when the autumn harvest is complete and the year's farm work has essentially ended. It is observed for three purposes: first, to mourn Chiyou, the Miao ancestor who perished in a great inter-tribal war more than five thousand years ago; second, to celebrate the fruits of the year's labor; and third, to sacrifice to the spirits of ancestors and to the maple, bamboo, the Rock Mother, and the water well, which the Miao regard as protective deities. In the Miao settlement areas of the Qingshui River and Duliu River basins of Guizhou Province, the Miao New Year is the most important festival of the year. From ancient times to the present, the Miao of this region have continuously used the Miao calendar, which differs from the Han lunar calendar; the first day of the Miao calendar is the Miao New Year. The Miao New Year must be observed locally through consultation and in sequence, which enables different Miao villages to take turns as the center of the festival revelry in different years. The Miao New Year marks the end of the Miao family's year of labor and the beginning of joy. During the festival, people visit from village to village, each hosting the other: they slaughter the New Year pig, pound glutinous rice cakes, sacrifice to ancestors, eat the reunion-year meal, drink the village-visiting wine, and dance the lusheng dance. In some areas, bullfights, birdfights, and song contests are also held. One festive event follows another, and the lusheng gatherings continue from one village to the next, the joy lasting until the Fan-gu (Drum-Turning) Festival in the early spring of the second month. In Danzhai County and the surrounding counties and cities of Guizhou Province, four sub-branches of the Ganao branch of the Miao people observe the custom of the Miao New Year. Among them, the You sub-branch lives mainly in northern Danzhai, southern Kaili, and eastern Majiang; the Gong sub-branch mainly within Danzhai itself, in southern Kaili, and in parts of Jianhe, Taijiang, Huangping, and Majiang; the Bailing Miao (White-Collar Miao) sub-branch mainly in southern Danzhai and northern Sandu; and the Qingjiang Miao sub-branch mainly in western Leishan and eastern Danzhai. With the comprehensive development of the social economy and the accelerating pace of rural urbanization, people's living standards have greatly improved, and the general public's anticipation of festivals has gradually faded. The younger generation who have left the Miao villages do not return home for the Miao New Year, so the festive atmosphere is greatly weakened, causing the traditional customs of the Miao New Year as a whole to decline and leaving them in urgent need of protection and revitalization.
The three purposes of the Miao new year
The new year honours the ancestor Chiyou, celebrates the harvest and offers to ancestors, trees, rocks and wells, combining remembrance, reward and prayer.
Ancestor rites and the reunion meal
Slaughtering the year pig, pounding sticky rice, offering to ancestors and eating the reunion meal turn the offerings directly into shared food.
House-to-house hospitality
Guests drink their way from house to house and village to village, so one visit involves several villages and the festival chains across them.
Lusheng gatherings village to village
The festivities run from village to village until the drum-turning festival in early spring, and the host village's standing depends on drawing young people from its neighbours.
Taking turns as the centre
Neighbouring villages agree an order in which each takes a turn as the centre of the festivities, avoiding clashes over ground and audience.
Maple, bamboo, rock mother and the well
The honoured objects are trees, a rock and a well rather than personal gods, so the rite addresses the water and soil on which the village stands.
The four subgroups of the Ga-nao branch
Four subgroups of the Ga-nao branch keep the new year, each occupying a distinct stretch of Danzhai and the neighbouring counties.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
In the Miao settlement areas of the Qingshui River and Duliu River basins of Guizhou Province, the Miao New Year is the most important festival of the year, and in each locality it must be observed by consultation and in sequence, with different villages taking turns as the center in different years. The Ganao branch of the Miao in Danzhai County and the surrounding counties and cities preserves the Miao New Year custom of four sub-branches, whose distribution boundaries are clearly distinguishable: the You sub-branch lives mainly in northern Danzhai, southern Kaili, and eastern Majiang; the Gong sub-branch mainly within Danzhai itself, in southern Kaili, and in parts of Jianhe, Taijiang, Huangping, and Majiang; the Bailing Miao sub-branch mainly in southern Danzhai and northern Sandu; and the Qingjiang Miao sub-branch mainly in western Leishan and eastern Danzhai. The four sub-branches' distributions interlock while their festival dates are close, so when one village celebrates, people of several sub-branches are often present together, and the level of festivity depends on which village holds the center position that year.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Miao New Year.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The activities of the Miao New Year run from slaughtering the New Year pig, pounding glutinous rice cakes, sacrificing to ancestors, eating the reunion-year meal, and drinking the village-visiting wine to dancing the lusheng dance; the village-visiting wine best illustrates the organizational logic: the host entertains with wine, and guests must call from village to village, and no village is considered finished until its turn is done, hence the lusheng gathering of one village follows that of the next, and the joy extends from the end of autumn all the way to the Fan-gu (Drum-Turning) Festival in the early spring of the second month of the coming year. Bullfights, birdfights, and song contests are held only in some areas, showing that the same festival is not fully isomorphic across the different sub-branches: the unity of the custom is limited and local differences are marked. There are three difficulties of survival: first, the younger generation who have gone out do not return home for the Miao New Year, so the number of people present at the festival directly declines; second, the sacrifices and ritual procedures must be carried out by experienced hands following set forms, and once no one takes on a complete sequence of the ritual it cannot be restored; third, collective activities such as the lusheng ground and the song ground require a considerable gathering of young men and women to come into being. In recent years, protection has mostly taken the form of restoring concentrated exhibitions; the gap is marked between villages that can carry out the whole course in the original order and those that can perform only one or two segments. What truly needs to be continued is not any single performance, but the chain of visiting from village to village, maintained by wine and ritual courtesy.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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