uizhou
is a province with many ethnic groups. According
to statistics, ethnic festivals are as many
as over 1000 every year. The main festivals
for ethnic minorities are as follows: the
June 6th Singing Festival of the Dong people;
the Dragon Boat Festival , the New Rice Tasting
Festival and Sister¡¯s Meal Festival of the
Miao; the Duan Festival and Mao festival of
the Shui; the new Year Celebration by the
Tujia; the Torch Festival of the Yi; Scarifying
the Holly Tree by the Gelao; the Festival
of the Yao; the Wedding Celebration of the
Dong, etc. With various types and magnificent
forms, bright and colorful ethnic festivals
demonstrate the pursuit of beautiful life
by ethnic minorities. On the festive occasions,
minority people wear their holiday costumes
and conduct different kinds of activities,
for example, singing, dancing, lusheng playing,
bronze-drum beating, bull fighting, horse
racing, wrestling, dragon-boat racing, dragon-lamp
playing, ground opera performance, etc. The
scene of their celebration seems like a multicolored
painting on plateau.
The
Ethnic Sing and Dancing, Opera and Ballad
singing
ing
and dancing of ethnic minorities of Guizhou
is characteristic. The Miao songs with varied
tunes and tones are heard all year round such
as flying songs, Youfang songs, ancient songs,
wine songs and so on. The forms of dance are
lushen dance, wood-drum dance, drum-beating
dance, stool dance, etc. The ethnic groups
of Buyi, Shui, Tujia and Gelao also have their
own exciting dances. The Buyi people can sing
in dozens of kinds like major, minor, antiphonal
chorus, etc. The Shui is known as sing like
running water. The Dong is reputed for their
antiphonal chorus without music accompaniment.
The lushen dance of the dong can be solo or
collective. The collective one may have as
many as more than one thousand people dance
together.
The main operas in Guizhou
are the Dong opera, Buyi opera and Nuo opera.
The Dong opera originated from the Ladong
in Liping County. It started in the Qing
dynasty and spread far later. Now it becomes
popular among the Dong people. The Buyi
opera was born in Buyi¡¯s religion and sacrificing
ritual. In the reign of Emperor Qianlong,
some folk artists combined the stool opera,
decorated tones and ground opera to form
the Buyi opera. There are more than ten
kinds of Nuo opera. The most characteristic
one is the Nuotang opera of the Tujia people,
which is called as "the living fossil
of the Chinese opera¡±. Now the Nuo opera
can be found in mountainous Tujia villages
in the counties of Dejiang , Sian, Yanhe
and Yinjiang. The ballad singing of Guizhou
appears in south Guizhou. The forms are
talking and singing, solo cross talk, single-person
performance, rhymed dialogue, clapper talk,
etc. The contents include stories from the
beginning of the world to people and events
in reality. Amateur artists make up the
stories and perform themselves. These stories
are passed down generation after generation
from mouth to mouth.
Ethnic
Architecture
any
ethnic architectural styles exist in Guizhou.
The major ones are pole-supported building
of the Miao, stone house of the Buyi, drum
tower and covered bridge built by the Dong,
house over water by the Shui, earth-walled
house of the Yi, round depository of the Yao,
and others. Among them drum tower and covered
bridge in the Dong area are the most amazing,
regarded by domestic and overseas experts
as ¡°the ethnic essence of the architectural
art¡±, ¡° the treasure f the ethnic culture¡¯
and ¡°the wonder in architectural world¡±.
The covered bridge, or roofed bridge, has
a spacious floor. Its roof is covered with
tile and the ceiling is painted with color
pictures. There is not any iron nail or rivet,
but connected with wooden tenon and mortise.
Its building needs skillful hands. The drum
tower, where villages gather together, is
a symbol for the Dong village. The tower does
not have any iron nail or rivet, either. The
strong, tall and large China fir log is used
as the major pillar, directly from the ground
to the top. The tower can be divided into
hexagonal tower, 8-eaves octagonal one and
4-eaves quadrangle one. The number of their
story will be odd like three, five or seven.
The tallest one is seventeen stories. The
existing tallest tower is the one in the Gaoqian
Village of Congjiang County. The tower has
fifteen stories. Its lower section is like
a pavilion and the upper part is like a pagoda.
Decorative figures as a bottle gourd, a roc,
etc stand on the top of the tower, symbolizing
lucky.
Ethnic
Handicraft
he
following are well-known ethnic handicraft
made in Guizhou----batik, knife and ground-opera
mask from Anshun, lacquer of Dafang, bamboo
flute and vertical one from Yuping, clay whistle
of Huangping, sand earthware of Zhijin, scented
folding bamboo fan from Chishui, Yazhou pottery
of Pingtang, cool mat from Libo, bamboo carving
of Wanshan, jadeite from Qinglong, earthware
from Puding, white paper and stone carving
from Yinjiang, stacked picture by ricepaper
pith from Zunyi and Guidong, stone inkslab
from Sizhou and Pu¡¯an, etc. Of all these
things, the best-known is batik from Anshun.
Batik is so named because it comes from wax
painting and dyeing, which is a traditional
folk handicraft art with a history of more
than 1000 years from ethnic minorities of
Miao, Buyi and Yao. The feature of batik is
simple and plain, graceful and tasteful, and
full of life. After many years¡¯ development
and deep study on material, dyestuff and color,
batik shows its special charm.
Batik from Guizhou
sells well not only on domestic market,
but also to more than twenty countries and
regions. In addition to batik, cross-stitch,
embroidery and brocade by ethnic people
are better known, too, especially for the
Miao and the Dong embroidery. Exquisite
is the brocade belt made in Liping County,
around Zhongchao, whose patterns of flower,
grass, bird and animal are formed with 5-color
silk thread. The silver ornaments worn by
Miao and Dong people express rich local
flavor. Ethnic silversmiths are specialized
in making and selling silver ornaments.
Villages of Magao, Maliao and Kongbai in
Dagou Township of Leishan County are famous
for their silverware producing. Villagers
there are good at fabricating silver ornaments.
Ethnic
Tourist Villages
here
are many ethnic villages in Guizhou, for example,
the Buyi village of Xiangzhigou in Guiyang,
the Xijiang Miao village in Kaili City, the
Heitu Miao village Qingzhen City, the Buyi
village of Shishao in Zhenning County, the
Qing Miao village and Haiping Yi village in
Shuicheng County, the Buyi village of Bawan
in Liuzhi County, the Loujiazhuang Miao village
in Anshun City. All of them have their unique
cultures and life styles. Their customs, food,
houses, wedding ceremonies, funerals, rituals
and architectural pattern are of their own
characteristics. The Langde Miao village has
the most outstanding features. It is a kind
of ethnic village museum. The village is noted
for stool dance, beautiful surroundings, natural
landscape, as well as stone paths and pole-supported
buildings. Visitors may have a special feeling
for the rich and colorful ethnic fashions.
Compared with ethnic groups in other provinces
of southwest China, the ethnic customs here
are more primitive, simple and more mysterious.
Not a few minority people in ethnic regions
still remain in a kind of natural economy
with the characteristics of self-support and
self-sufficiency. They have maintained hereditary
living styles and conventional customs. For
instance, there is a subgroup of the Miao
people in Suoga Township of Liuzhi County.
Outside people know little about these people.
They are about 3000 composed of more than
700 households scattering in twelve villages.
These Miao people live in a tribe life, primitive
and mysterious. In order to protect effectively
the local customs, the first eco-museum in
China was set up there by the World Museum
Foundation.
