Pumi Niandazefengshanyishi
01 · Historical Records
Legend has it that the Pumi migrated from Qinghai and Gansu to Sichuan and Yunnan, living mainly by hunting and gathering along the way.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The “Niandaze” mountain-closing ceremony is an important folk activity in which, at an annual festival sacrifice, the Pumi review the relationship between humanity and nature and emphasize social norms and personal codes of conduct. “Nian” means enduring, “da” means peace, and “ze” means planting — that is, planting a tree of everlasting peace and harmony. The activity is held in March each year and lasts three days. It is found in Ninglang County, Lijiang City, Yunnan. The transmission of the Niandaze is very ancient and remote, as can be corroborated by the Niandaze Scripture, folk sacrificial texts, ancient songs, folk tales, paintings, and Niandaze ruins. In both content and form, the Niandaze mountain-closing ceremony has gradually become unified and standardized; Pumi people from all regions take part, and it has become a common cultural custom of all the Pumi. The important rites of the Niandaze include erecting the Nianda tree, burning incense to heaven, offering to the dragon god, making dough effigies, chanting the Nianda scripture, clearing gossip and slander (tui koushe), healing with medicinal broth, atoning for debts by planting trees, and releasing living creatures. Following traditional ritual protocols, the activity is organized by influential local figures, presided over by the hangui (transmitters of Pumi culture and folk priests) and the shibi (assistants to the hangui, skilled in orally transmitted scriptures and the concrete organizers of the different ritual procedures of folk activities), and carried out with the masses contributing shares by household. The ceremony carries two meanings: first, praying for blessings for the village; second, opening the annual period of mountain closure and prohibition of felling. The hangui arrange the altar and hold a rite reverently inviting the protection of all the gods, while the people erect the Nianda tree on Nianda Mountain; its platform has thirteen tiers, representing the thirteen heavens of the universe, and seventy-three wooden plaques are hung, painted with images of the deities governing heaven, clouds, wind, mountains, dragons, and snow. During the ceremony, the hangui chant scriptures, praising the spirits of nature and driving out evil thoughts and causes of disease, then boil a pot of herbal broth on the spot and sprinkle it over the assembled people to cure illness, warning them that all disasters in the world are related to human activity and that they must therefore treat mountains, waters, forests, and cliffs well. Finally, they hold atonement rites before the mountain god, such as planting trees and releasing living creatures, to redeem the sins of ordinary felling and hunting. The mountain closure lasts until the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month; besides herding and gathering thornwood and branches, the felling of timber and hunting are strictly forbidden during the closure period, and any violation will bring misfortune such as nightmares, sores, and plague. In old times there was also the custom of hanging up guns, putting away bows, and burning rope snares. These customary village regulations are sanctified through the Niandaze ceremony, and anyone has the right to dissuade violations. The Niandaze expresses the Pumi reverence for nature and ancestors, praying that under the protection of the gods of nature and of ancestors, people may obtain happiness and safety. The time and place of the Pumi Niandaze are relatively fixed and uniform; the ceremony standardizes and restrains the behavior and thoughts of ordinary people in the name of the gods of nature, has formed the collective memory of Pumi culture, and has strong binding force. This folk activity is rich in content: many myths and legends, folk songs, proverbs, maxims, tales, and folk dances on the theme of the Niandaze circulate among the local people, and Pumi folk artists have also produced artistic masterpieces such as Nianda trees, cultural relics and objects, sculptures, hangui paintings, and dough effigies. The Pumi Niandaze mountain-closing ceremony regulates the relationship between the Pumi and nature.
Raising the tree and its thirteen terraces
A tree of thirteen terraces is raised on the mountain, standing for the thirteen heavens, hung with seventy-three painted boards of the gods of sky, cloud, wind, mountain, dragon and snow.
Burning heaven incense and honouring the dragon god
The rite includes raising the tree, burning incense for heaven, honouring the dragon god, making dough figures, chanting, warding off slander, bathing in herbal decoction, redeeming by planting and releasing animals.
Chanting the ritual text
The officiant chants texts praising the powers of nature and driving out harmful thought; the traditional corpus runs to nine classes and a hundred and twenty pieces, each applied to a particular case.
Herbal bathing and the rinsing away of slander
A decoction of herbs is brewed and poured over the people to ward off illness, with the warning that disaster follows human wrongdoing; slander is treated as a fault of the same order.
Redemption by planting and release of animals
At the close the planting and the release of animals redeem past felling and hunting; the trees set out are repayments rather than planting for show.
The closed season from March to mid-autumn
The rite both prays for the village and opens the closed season, which runs to the fifteenth of the eighth lunar month, when felling and hunting are forbidden on pain of misfortune.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The practicing subjects of the Pumi Niandaze are the hangui and the shibi together with the local Pumi masses; people of other ethnic groups also take part.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Pumi recognized that there is a relationship of mutual dependence among people and between humanity and nature: only if everyone protects nature can all things survive, and only if the myriad things of nature are well protected can humanity multiply — this is the reason the Niandaze custom took shape. Protecting forests and cherishing the lives of all things gradually became the mainstream consciousness of the whole ethnic group. The traditional Niandaze Scripture chanted by the hangui during the ceremony is divided into nine categories with a total of 120 kinds; its content expounds the deep relationship between humanity and nature, with the aim of protecting mountains, waters, forests, birds and beasts, all plants, cliffs, caves, pools, and water sources, and thereby protecting the peace and happiness of all people. These village regulations are precious survival wisdom handed down by Pumi ancestors to later generations, embodying the environmental ethics accumulated by the Pumi over a thousand years; they have practical significance and a positive role in strengthening ecological protection and restoration, promoting harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature, promoting social stability, strengthening ethnic unity, and realizing the sustainable development of human society.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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