Miao New Year
01 · Historical Records
The three purposes behind the name Miao New Year are layered in their order: remembrance of the ancestor Chiyou, who perished in the great inter-tribal war more than five thousand years ago, comes first; celebration of the fruits of the year's labor is in the middle; and sacrifice to the spirits of ancestors and to the protective deities such as the maple, bamboo, the Rock Mother, and the water well comes last. Placing remembrance of the departed first means that the year's harvest is regarded as a repayment to the ancestors and to those who died in battle rather than as mere celebration; the harvest in the middle is an accomplished fact; and the sacrifice at the end looks to safety in the coming year. The plants and features of the terrain worshipped are not anthropomorphic gods but existences directly bound up with the livelihood of the Miao stockaded villages, so the sacrifice is an expression combining gratitude and commitment. 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, so the two orders of time have long coexisted on the same stretch of mountain land. In each locality the Miao New Year must be observed by consultation and in sequence, with each village able to take turns as the center of the revelry in different years.
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 new year at the harvest's end
The Miao new year comes at the end of the harvest and opens the Miao year, a calendar that runs apart from the Chinese lunar one.
Offerings to the trees, the rock and the well
The festival offers to ancestors and to maples, bamboo, a rock and a well, all tied to the livelihood of the village.
The obligation of the visiting round
Visiting round after round of villages and drinking together, hospitality is not weighed by closeness, so one visit reaches several communities.
The closing drum-turning festival
The festivities run on into the second lunar month, so the new year lasts longer than most Chinese new year observances.
The Qingjiang Miao of western Leishan
The Qingjiang Miao of western Leishan border on other subgroups, and the same festival is not identical everywhere: bull-fighting, bird contests and song contests appear only in some places.
The festival order agreed between villages
Villages agree on an order and take turns as the centre of the year, which is what makes the gathering possible at all.
A festival that runs into February
From slaughtering the year pig in late autumn to the drum-turning festival in the second month, the new year forms one long chain in which a single broken link dulls the rest.
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; each village must hold it by consultation and in sequence, taking turns as the center of that year's revelry. Within Leishan County, the Qingjiang Miao sub-branch lives mainly in western Leishan and eastern Danzhai, its distribution bordering those of the Gong and Bailing Miao sub-branches, so the Miao New Year in Leishan often brings people of several sub-branches together in one celebration. During the festival, visiting from village to village and drinking the village-visiting wine are essential courtesies, and a village is not considered finished until its turn is done; bullfights, birdfights, and song contests are held only in some areas, and the same festival is not fully isomorphic across the different sub-branches. The ancestral sacrifice and the reunion-year meal are each household's own affair, while the public grounds and the lusheng field must be agreed on in advance; only after the dates are settled can young people from neighboring villages be invited and the musical troupes be assembled, so the pre-festival consultation is in effect the guarantee of how lively that year's celebrations will be.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Miao New Year.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The value of the Miao New Year is concentrated in three things: first, the completeness of the ritual procedure; second, the survival of the language; and third, the intercourse of the settlements. Sacrifices to objects such as the maple, bamboo, the Rock Mother, and the water well must be arranged and explained by experienced hands following set procedures, and such knowledge cannot be learned from texts. The festival makes heavy use of the Miao language in sung responses; if local young people are not versed in it, both the antiphonal singing and the sacrificial liturgies will lapse at once. And once the courtesy of visiting from village to village is no longer accepted, travel between the villages dwindles, and the lusheng ground can no longer be filled. The difficulty of continuation lies precisely here: few are those who can stay busy from the autumn harvest through to the Fan-gu (Drum-Turning) Festival of the second month of the coming year, visiting dozens of villages in the round. In recent years, protection in the Leishan area has mostly taken the form of concentrated exhibitions and village-gate welcomes, impressive in scale but simplified in procedure; villages that can complete the whole course of ancestral sacrifice, village-visiting, and song contests in the original order are exceedingly few.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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