Yi Laohusheng
01 · Historical Records
The tiger lusheng originated among the Yi villages around Xiaomai Chong in Shuangbai County and is closely bound up with the local Bimo sacrificial system. Shuangbai lies at the eastern foot of the Ailao Mountains and is one of the main places where the Yi creation epic Chamu circulates; the veneration of and respect for the tiger has been handed down from generation to generation in the Yi villages of this area.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Yi tiger lusheng is a dance that is at once sacrificial and for self-entertainment, and it circulates mainly in Shuangbai County, Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan Province. The tiger lusheng is renowned for its uninhibited, vigorous style, displays the stubborn character of a mountain people, and expresses the Yi people’s worship of the tiger. Its principal movements imitate the various motions of the tiger, fierce and powerful, embodying the totem-worship customs of the Yi people; it is rustic and traditional. The Yi forebears believed that the tiger’s body, decomposed, had created all things; they venerated and respected the tiger and took the tiger as their ancestor, and called themselves “luoluo”, that is, the “tribe of the tiger”. Xiaomai Chong in Fazhen Town of Shuangbai County is the birthplace of the tiger lusheng; the Yi living there hold an eight-day “Tiger Festival” from the eighth to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month each year, during which “tiger worship”, “tiger welcoming”, “tiger dancing” and “tiger seeing off” are held. Those who dance the tiger wear bundles of black felt made to look like a tiger skin, and the exposed parts of the body are painted with pigment in tiger stripes, the whole person being dressed up to look like a tiger. Dancing the tiger lusheng generally requires sixteen people, costumed as eight tigers, two cats, two mountain gods and one Taoist, together with two drummers and one gong striker. The dancers line up in a single column and move in an anticlockwise direction. The dance movements of the tiger lusheng are extremely rich, including not only movements imitating the tiger’s habits such as the tiger kissing, the tiger making a bridge and the tiger rubbing its hindquarters, but also movements simulating farm work such as manuring, ploughing, tilling, sowing seed, transplanting, pulling seedlings and harvesting.
The eight days of the Tiger Festival
From the eighth to the fifteenth of the first lunar month the village holds the Tiger Festival with rituals of welcoming, dancing and sending off the tiger.
Sixteen performers
Sixteen performers play eight tigers, two cats, two mountain gods, a Daoist and three musicians.
Tigers kissing, ploughing and reaping
Movements range from tigers kissing and bridging to spreading manure, ploughing, sowing and reaping.
Yang Jiadan of a bimo lineage
Yang Jiadan, born in Shuangbai in 1962, mastered the whole tiger-cycle ritual and leads the village team.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The tiger lusheng circulates mainly among the Yi villages such as Xiaomai Chong in Shuangbai County, and the Shuangbai County Cultural Centre is the protecting unit. The tiger lusheng team in the village is led by Yang Jiadian, who comes from a family of Bimo ritual specialists; the members are assigned their parts and dress up as eight tigers, two cats, two mountain gods, one Taoist, together with the drummer and the gong striker.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
As living historical material of the Yi tiger totem, the tiger lusheng vividly embodies the Yi forebears’ view of venerating the tiger and their developmental vision of living in harmony with nature; it carries a great deal of Yi historical, cultural and primitive information, and in its long development it has gradually become a platform for transmitting Yi traditional culture, giving it a high research value in anthropology, ethnology and folklore. At present, the rustic and wondrous tiger lusheng is affected by changes in traditional ways of life and by the commercialisation of folk activities; its primitive appearance has altered and its transmission faces a serious crisis, so it urgently needs rescue and protection. Yang Jiadian (as recorded in the official dossier of the associated inheritor): Male, of Yi ethnicity, born in July 1962, a native of Shuangbai County, Yunnan Province. He comes from a family of Yi Bimo ritual specialists and, influenced by his elders from childhood, has loved dancing the tiger lusheng from early on. He thoroughly masters the complete set of dances and sacrificial procedures for the activities of welcoming the tiger, worshipping the tiger, dancing the tiger and seeing off the tiger from the eighth to the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, and afterwards became the leader of the Yi tiger lusheng team of Xiaomaichong Village. He has led the tiger lusheng team many times into various kinds of exhibitions and competitions, greatly increasing the visibility of the Yi tiger lusheng. Representative inheritor of the Yi tiger lusheng, a national-level intangible cultural heritage project in the fifth national-level batch. From 1999 he began taking apprentices and teaching his art; his first-generation disciples Yang Jiaxu, Xu Zhengcun and Xu Zhengyuan are already the main members of the new generation tiger lusheng team, and his second-generation disciples Yang Guangli, Miao Zhengqing, Miao Hongjun, Li Jiahong and others have also become representative inheritors of the Yi tiger lusheng.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Yang Jiadian 05-2268
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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