Ancestral Song and Dance
Ancestral Song and Dance by Peng Xueming. In Xiangxi, there is a Tujia dance called Maogusi. When performed, the dancers are completely naked, draped in straw, and hold straw sticks tied from straw. The dance is divided into scenes such as cutting with knives and burning with fire, plowing and sowing, hunting and driving away, sweeping away plague and seizing brides, singing in antiphonal style at the turn of the year, and celebrating a bountiful harvest. It is rough and bold, and is an agricultural epic of the Tujia people. ——Preface. Now, my ancestors are draped in straw from head to toe, singing and dancing. They are all in this ancient song and ancient dance...
Ancestral Song and Dance
Peng Xueming
In Xiangxi, there is a Tujia dance called Maogusi. When performed, the dancers are completely naked, draped in straw, and hold straw clubs bound from straw. The dance is divided into scenes such as slashing and burning, plowing and sowing, hunting and chasing, sweeping away plague and seizing brides, singing antiphonal songs at the New Year, and celebrating the harvest. Bold and unrestrained, it is an agricultural epic of the Tujia people.
——Prefatory Note
Now, my ancestors, draped in straw from head to toe, are singing and dancing. In these ancient songs and dances they tell me of our ancestors, of our homeland, of labor, and of that unforgettable historical legend whose umbilical cord can be cut but whose navel eye can never be severed.
Because of a war, for the sake of a paradise, my ancestors, barefoot, crossed mountains, forded rivers, ate raw meat, and smeared blood, arriving here, arriving at this Xiangxi mountain land that has given birth to and raised countless generations of my forebears, creating and leaving for us such a peaceful and gentle home. Heaven and earth are the spirits of all things, and the five grains are the foremost of all beings. So my ancestors worshipped heaven, earth, and the God of Grain with songs, dances, and the finest offerings. When the God of Grain smiled, the weather was favorable; when the God of Grain did not smile, famine struck year after year. Therefore, my ancestors, naked, bound with straw or wheat stalks or millet stalks, began to dance. From the first day of the first lunar month to the fifteenth, from this year to the next, generation after generation, passed down through all ages.
It is an agricultural song and dance depicting the production of the five grains.
It is a splendid scroll revealing pastoral life.
It is a national ancient symbol, primitive and ever more primitive, rugged and ever more rugged.
Amid the rumbling drums, my ancestors appear one by one, beginning to commune with nature and fall in love with the soil. A long row of slash-hooks cuts down, and patches of thorns fall back; a long row of pole-tips thrusts down, and patches of wasteland are reclaimed. Slash-and-burn farming, yes. Inevitably, piles of mountain fires blaze up. As a group of ancestors chop, dig, and burn, an ox and a plow accompany my ancestors in laboriously writing poetry on the land, and heavily composing pictures within the verses. Facing the seasons and the soil, my ancestors' sweat drips in strings, making the newly
cultivated land moist and bright, teeming with radiance. The breathing of man and land is equally hot and humid.
The sunlight, moved, pours down, licking my ancestors' dark, dark backs; the rain, moved, sprinkles down, gently massaging my ancestors' dark, dark backs. After the rain, a rainbow rises from one end of the mountain to the other, erecting a colorful beauty. My ancestors farm in this sunlight, in the rain, within the rainbow's shadow. When rice is sown, rice grows; when corn is sown, corn grows; when wheat, millet, soybeans, mung beans are sown, the five grains and miscellaneous crops grow. Spring flowers, spring birdsong, spring scenery all vie to grow out and insert themselves into the fields. As my ancestors walk among the five grains, the sound of the grains gnawing at the earth seeps out from beneath their feet, the branches and leaves of the grains gently brush my ancestors' faces, the stalks lightly touch my ancestors' bodies, and my ancestors, while weeding and fertilizing, hear the sound of the years jointing and growing. They hear the sound of crops calling the sunlight, the sunlight calling autumn, autumn calling ripeness. Hearing this sound, my ancestors all grin, then raise their heads to look at the blue, blue sky. In the distance, where their backs are straight, are another mountain and another field of five grains they have reclaimed.
The days of harvest are my ancestors' most bitter and sweetest days. On every ridge and slope, my ancestors' silhouettes and backs rise and fall among the five grains. And at this time, a wordless song always shoots into the sky and falls to the earth. Nothing else can express it; they can only use this uniform shout to praise the harvest and sing of the land. “Wu hu hu!” “Wu hu hu!” “Wu hu hu!”
Then they imagine winter, imagine the twelfth lunar month, and hunt in the snow. My ancestor who plays the yellow ox or water buffalo now dons a gray animal skin as prey, fleeing east and west amid the hunters' encirclement. On the winding goat paths to the mountain passes, each of my ancestors' oil-smooth, shiny long spears is a strict watch post; ambushed at every fork and pass are my ancestors' hunting dogs and guns. Amid the ancestors' overwhelming hunting cries, wild boars pace out from the forest and become gentle livestock in my ancestors' hands; wild hares bounce out from the grass, becoming gentle livestock in my ancestors' cages; and there are musk deer, tigers, deer, and many rare birds and beasts, all obediently lining up and running over one by one, intimately touching my ancestors' warm skin. My ancestors are just this brave, this capable, this able to overcome and tame all of nature.
In this process of overcoming and taming, my ancestors' experience grows rich, their roads grow broad, their heaven and earth grow high and far. My ancestors' image becomes perfect and tall, and so they laugh, take up brooms to sweep away plague and deathly air. Sweep! Sweep out illnesses and pains, sweep in peace and safety; sweep! Sweep out famine and disaster, sweep in abundant harvests of the five grains; sweep! Sweep out chicken plague, duck plague, pig plague, cattle plague, sweep in prosperity of the six livestock; sweep! Sweep out ignorance and poverty, sweep in civilization and wealth.
To understand love and life, in the rustling fragrant breeze of the five grains, my ancestors sit cross-legged, longing for a certain woman in a certain place. That woman is the gentlest, most beautiful in the world, able to bear children and work in the fields. The pumpkin flowers on her head bloom yellow and bright, the light in her eyes shoots sparkling and clear, the smile at the corners of her mouth purses charming and lovely. Thus, even more naturally beautiful, she satisfies and stimulates my ancestors all the more, forcing them to swarm forward, seize her, and make her the lady of the stockade.
Although the sunlight has laboriously formed thick calluses on my ancestors' palms, their descendants multiply because of it. They cannot help but pound trough after trough of glutinous rice cakes for the God of Grain, drink bamboo tube after bamboo tube of corn liquor, sing a thousand, ten thousand antiphonal songs, to express their feelings and celebrate the New Year.
Thus, my ancestors exit one by one, and the ancestors' song and dance slowly draw to a close. The entire process and meaning of my ancestors' existence and struggle is condensed into these plowing and sowing, harvesting and celebrating movements, beats, and scenes. For survival, my ancestors pursued beauty just like this; for their descendants, my ancestors struggled unremittingly just like this. In the revelation and implication of this song and dance, there is not only the five grains, harvest, and homeland left by our ancestors, but also faith, will, and the strong character tempered by soil and sweat. It is our ancestors who created history and also wrote
history; it is our ancestors who created us and also remolded us. We should be proud of our ancestors. And when we are undoubtedly pierced by this song and dance until our eyes ache, tears flow, and we shed burst after burst of brilliant respect for our ancestors, we have no words to repay, and can only dance this song and dance once more, sing it once more, and pass it down generation after generation. When we all ride trains and buses to feel the hometown and kinship we share, our ancestors have long since crossed the centuries and understood: the leaves in their mouths have become the tea leaves in ours, and the days of their children and grandchildren are
no longer the days of ethnic migration.