Temple Fair
01 · Historical Records
People come in crowds from hundreds and thousands of li away, as if on pilgrimage; singing and dancing, shopping and socializing, they unfold a grand panorama of Central Plains folk custom. "Celebrate the New Year, visit the temple fair" - this is the renowned Xun County Ancient First-Lunar-Month Temple Fair. Second, shehuo (folk festivity) performances ascend the peak: especially on the ninth day of the first month and during the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth and sixteenth days of the first month, more than a hundred shehuo troupes from Xun County and the surrounding counties successively climb the mountain to pay homage at the summit; the teams of participants form long dragons, and the spectacle is of great momentum.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Starting from the first day of the Chinese New Year each year, long awnings stand in connected rows on Dayu Mountain and Fuqiu Mountain in Xun County, Henan Province, and seas of people crowd the slopes. According to the Book of Documents, when Yu the Great tamed the floods he "came as far as Dayu"; in memory of this, the King Yu Temple was first built during the Wanli era of the Ming dynasty. In addition, legend says that Bixia Yuanjun (the Goddess of the Morning Clouds) has vast miraculous powers: she can protect agriculture and commerce, sojourners and marriage, and can cure the sick and save people, and is miraculously efficacious in answering prayers for children. Thus in the Jiajing era of the Ming dynasty, the Bixia Palace was built on Fuqiu Mountain in her honor. The Xun County Ancient First-Lunar-Month Temple Fair was born of Buddhist temples and flourishes through popular belief. According to research, it has a history of more than 1,600 years to date. The ancient fair is held every year during the first lunar month, lasting from the first day of the first month to the second day of the second month; its scale is grand and its activities rich, with scholars, farmers, artisans and merchants attending in groups and millions of people taking part. The fair has four main activities. First, the people worship the spirits of Erlang Shen, the Great Stone Buddha, Yu the Great and Bixia Yuanjun; from early morning to dusk, worshippers come in an unbroken stream. Myriads of people, each carrying their own wishes, form wave upon wave of vow-making and vow-repaying year after year. Third, folk culture performances are staged together. Fourth, it drives and activates the concentrated display and trade of folk handicrafts. During the fair, merchants from various places put up sheds to sell their wares, artistes of all kinds compete to display their skills, several hundred kinds of food and drink are spread throughout the fair, and more than a hundred kinds of handicrafts are exhibited and sold here; drum storytelling, shadow puppetry and other arts each show their strengths, and a dozen or more opera genres perform with instruments in unison. The Ancient First-Lunar-Month Temple Fair becomes a sea of people, a sea of song, a sea of banners and a sea of dance. The Xun County Ancient First-Lunar-Month Temple Fair is an important component of the local Spring Festival folk activities, with a long history and broad influence; it carries the living history of China's agrarian civilization, and through folk shehuo performances and other customary activities it expresses the people's spiritual beliefs and emotional aspirations - their hope to end flood disasters forever and to pray for peace. It has multiple values: historical, folkloric and cultural.
Shehuo troupes ascending the peak
Over a hundred shehuo troupes from Jinxian and neighbouring counties climb the peak in the ninth and fifteenth, forming a dragon of teams.
The Yuwang temple and the flood-control legend
The Shangshu records Yu's labours reaching Mount Liang, and the temple raised for him ties the flood legend to this landscape.
The Bixia shrine and prayers for children
Venerated as a protector of farmers, travellers, marriage and healing, Bixia draws supplicants to her shrine on Mount Fuqiu the year round.
The term from new year to the second of the second month
The fair runs from the first day of the year to the second of the second month, its covered stalls linking the two peaks.
Pilgrims and folk craft at the fair
Stalls, hundreds of dishes, a hundred crafts, storytelling, shadow play and a dozen opera genres share the fairground at once.
Wishes and their redemption
Worshippers of the gods stream from dawn to dusk, returning year after year to fulfil vows made in earlier years.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Deities and heroic figures such as the Great Stone Buddha, Yu the Great and Bixia Yuanjun together constitute the local people's spiritual belief - their hope to end flood disasters forever, for favorable weather, and for long life and abundant harvests, and their prayer for peace - and the Ancient First-Lunar-Month Temple Fair is the cultural space that centrally embodies and carries this spiritual belief.
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04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The value of the Xun County Ancient First-Lunar-Month Temple Fair lies in its complete preservation of the water-praying appeals of Central Plains agrarian society. The record that Yu the Great, in controlling the floods, "came as far as Dayu," and the King Yu Temple first built in the Wanli era of the Ming dynasty corroborate each other; the legends of Bixia Yuanjun protecting agriculture and commerce, sojourners and marriage, and curing the sick and granting children, are likewise supported by the construction of the Bixia Palace on Fuqiu Mountain in the Jiajing era of the Ming dynasty. The hope to end flood disasters forever, for favorable weather and for long life with abundant harvests, finds concentrated expression in the fair on Dayu Mountain and Fuqiu Mountain. Shehuo performances ascending the peak are the most organized part of this heritage. Around the ninth day of the first month and the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth and sixteenth days, more than a hundred shehuo troupes from Xun County and the surrounding counties successively climb the mountain to pay homage at the summit, the teams forming long dragons. That the teams travel across county lines shows it has already gone beyond the boundary of a single village, becoming a cross-regional folk union in the heart of the Central Plains. The fair's scale can also be seen in its capacity: scholars, farmers, artisans and merchants attend in groups, the people number in the millions, merchants put up sheds to sell their wares, several hundred kinds of food and drink and more than a hundred kinds of handicrafts are exhibited and sold, and drum storytelling, shadow puppetry and a dozen or more opera genres perform with instruments in unison. The Ancient First-Lunar-Month Temple Fair is like an open-air grand stage, temporarily holding together the beliefs, performing arts and crafts of the heart of the Central Plains.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Hu Wenxiang 04-1974
- Guan Zhangxun 04-1975
- Cheng Zhongxin 05-3018
- Wang Defeng
- Luo Binggen
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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