Buyi Chabai Song Festival

Buyi Chabai Song Festival

The Buyi Chabaige Festival is a commemorative festival of the Buyi people in Xingyi, southwest Guizhou Province. It is held in Chabaichang, Dingxiao Town, Xingyi City, from June 21 to 23 of the lunar calendar every year. The festival was named in memory of a couple of young men and women, Chalang and Baimei, who had killed for the people and resisted violence and martyrdom in ancient times.

On May 20, 2006, the Buyi Chabaige Festival was approved by the State Council to be included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.

Festival History

Holiday origins

Buyi people mainly live in Guizhou Province. Chabaige Festival is held every year in Chabai Village, Dingxiao Town, Guizhou Province, on June 21 of the lunar calendar. It originated from the Buyi oral folktale Charang and Baimei. Legend has it that in ancient times, Charang of Chabaichang (formerly known as Huchangba) saved Baimei's life and they became affectionate companions. The wild Bobcat of Baiyan Zhaitou killed Charang in order to rob Baimei. Bai Mei set fire to the wild bobcat and died in the sea of fire herself. She became a white crane flying in pairs with Chalang, flying for nine days, becoming a purple cloud song fairy. In order to commemorate the loyal couple, people linked the surnames of Charang and Baimei, renamed Huchangba as "Chabaichang", and designated June 21 as "Chabai Song Festival".

Every year these days, 340,000 people of all nationalities in the surrounding counties and adjacent areas of Guangxi and Yunnan come to the festival. The Festival is grand in scale, warm in atmosphere and magnificent. The main activities of Chabai Song Festival are: Song Festival, visiting relatives and friends, eating soup pots, catching up with watches and offering sacrifices to mountains, etc., which lasts for three consecutive days. The first day is the climax.

Related Legends

Chabaige Festival originated from the Buyi oral folktale "Chalang and Baimei". Legend has it that long ago, there was a big slope called Huchang on the Bank of Nanpan River. On the dam was Chalanghe, the son of a hunter.

A family's daughter, Bai Mei, has been playing together since childhood. They are like brothers and sisters. When they grow up, they love each other in their hearts, so they give each other gifts and make private orders for life. At that moment, the tiger monster appeared in the stockade. It took the livestock and the dolls. Everyone talked about the tiger's color for a while. The brave Cha Bailang organized the descendants of the whole village and killed the tiger monster. He invited the young and old people of the whole village to eat tiger meat and drink tiger soup.

A wealthy man in the village saw the beautiful young white sister and asked the matchmaker to go to the White House to propose marriage. The white sister refused. But the rich man did not give up his mind. He sent a message saying that whether the white sister obeyed or did not obey, he would marry her back on July 28. Faced with the forced marriage of the rich, Bai Mei and Charang agreed to get married before that day. The wealthy man thought of a poisonous plan: when Charang and Baimei went to the fields, he sent his family to shoot Charang with an arrow and snatch her home.

When Chalang returned home, he invited all his brothers to discuss the countermeasures and decided that Chalang would go to the rich man's village to fight with himself. The rest of the people took advantage of the emptiness of the village to rescue the white sister. Bai Mei was rescued, but Charang was caught by the wealthy man because of his arrow wound, tied to a big sugar pear tree and killed.

After learning the news, Bai Mei went home to say goodbye to her parents. She took advantage of the darkness to return to the property court and set a fire on the firewood pile. The more the fire burned, the more prosperous the rich man came to catch Bai Mei. Seeing that the whole Chuang Tzu was about to turn into ashes, Bai Mei jumped into the fire and died for Charang.

Later, in order to commemorate the Buyi couple who devoted themselves to love and feared violence, they renamed the Tiger Farm Dam they lived in as "Chabaichang", and designated the day of Baimei's death as "Chabaige Festival" on June 21 of the lunar calendar.

Festival activities

Before the festival, each family took apart and washed clothes, hung around the village, symbolizing white clouds, purposeful and clean. During the festival, men, women and children gather in Chabaichang to eat dog broth pot, five-color glutinous rice and wrongdoings. They go to Chabaijing to get water and purify their hearts, and to Chabai Temple to honor incense. On this day, villagers of Cha surname invite Princess Magongduan to hold sacrificial activities. Middle-aged and old people sing Chabai with Buyi ancient songs under Chabai tree, sacrificing Chalang and Baimei, so as to inherit the story of Chabai. Buyi young men and women wear Festival dress, to Chabai Bridge, Chabai River, Songlin Slope, Chabai Cave, Chabaijing and other scenic spots to blow wood leaves, flower bags, whistle friends. At night, every farm household sat full of relatives and friends, drinking and singing all night. On the 23rd, the young men and women reluctantly left after delivering each other's messengers.

"Chabaige Festival" is a traditional festival of Buyi people in southwestern Guizhou. On June 21 of the lunar calendar, young Buyi people from Xingyi and several nearby counties and ethnic singers from the border areas of Yunnan and Guangxi gathered together to attend a song party in Chabaichang, the Top-effect area of the county town, more than 20 kilometers away. The number of people is often as high as 230,000. People call this activity "rush to find out". At the beginning of the concert, Suona and trombone played together, gongs sounded loud, firecrackers burst out. Singers from all walks of life went on the stage and competed in the form of individual and collective dialogue, losing when they could not answer the questions. During the festival, unmarried young men and women take the opportunity to find a couple. Once they agree, they will give each other gifts and set a lifetime.

The main content of festival activities is song contest. In the daytime, in the singing arena, in the evening, the residents will sing in the courtyard or house. The host will provide "flower rice" (colored glutinous rice) and "tea" (actually rice wine, Buyi people are used to drinking instead of tea). Meet relatives and friends, eat soup pot. Legend has it that the soup pot originated from stewing tigers killed by Charang, and later stewed beef soup with tiger bones, mostly stewed pork and dog meat in the big pot of mountain*spring water.

Chabai Song Festival is not only a commemorative festival, but also a unique occasion for Buyi youth to talk about love and propose marriage and choose spouses. During the festival, young people not only dress up in dignity, but also with a token of affection, eager to try, looking forward to Chalang and Bai Mei that kind of loyal love. The young man and the girl came to Chabaichang to sing and sing to each other. The song is also called "four, six, eight sentences". It is mostly love songs. It pays attention to asking and answering questions and strictly requires rhyme. The Respondent must begin his song with the last lyric of the questioner and rhyme with the rhyme foot of the lyric.

The Chabai Song Club is a large scale with tens of thousands of participants, which is also an important way for Buyi men and women to socialize. Chabai Song Festival is a unique exhibition space of Buyi traditional culture, which has important value for inheriting Buyi excellent traditional culture. Singing can not be separated from dancing, singing and dancing is enough to express feelings. The traditional dances of Buyi nationality include weaving dance, accompanying marriage dance, lion dance, dragon dance, flower bag dance, bronze drum brush dance, stilt grass man dance, etc. Among them, stilted grass dancing is another interesting one. The whole dance is performed by five people. A couple of stilted couples play the roles of husband and wife. The man carries a knife on his shoulder and the woman carries a colored towel. They waved and danced frequently in the music of "Ten Sending Lovers" and reluctantly sent the boy out. The other two acted as monkeys, wearing monkey masks, holding sticks, the last one dressed as wild hairy man, full of straw, playing with the two monkeys and constantly teasing the young women. When the monkeys and people found the opportunity, they pulled out the straw on the wild hairy man. Finally, they were all pulled out, performing humor and humor, and had a strong three-dimensional cross-aesthetic effect.

In addition to singing and dancing, there are also Buyi opera, local opera and other plays. Buyi opera is the most widely circulated and its characters are alive, dan, ugly, great king, military generals, singing in Buyi language and speaking in Chinese. Local operas, i.e. those performed on flat land, are mostly amateur performances by Buyi peasants. The repertoires are mostly based on historical stories such as "Shuo Tang", "Yue Fei Zhuan" and "Yang Jia Jiang". Local Yang family has claimed to be descendants of the Yang family, Pingtang County also circulated the story of Yang Liulang South garrison. This may be attributed to the admiration of names, which is difficult to verify, but it can also be seen that the Buyi people and the Han people's blood links and cultural blending.

Because of the development of commodity economy, besides festivals and recreations, people also increase the content of tourist shopping. All in all, it comes with pleasure and returns with satisfaction. On August 6, 2004, Guizhou folk songs and dances made a sensation in the 10th International Folk Art Festival in Martini City, Switzerland. When a song of cheerful Buyi Yi songs and dances was presented to the audience, the whole audience gave a long and warm applause and shouted "Oriental Disco!"

Inheritance and protection

The State attaches great importance to the protection of intangible cultural heritage. On May 20, 2006, the folklore was approved by the State Council and listed in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists.