Hand-Waving Dance
Hand-Waving Dance: In early times, every New Year, in the Tujia villages of western Hunan, people carried dragon-and-phoenix banners, draped themselves in Xilankapu brocade, and amid the hand-waving songs of 'Heheye, yehehe...', men and women joined hands and danced gracefully. This dance is called the 'Hand-Waving Dance,' known in Tujia language as 'Shebari.' Legend says that during the Jiajing era of the Ming Dynasty, Japanese pirates repeatedly raided China's Jiangsu-Zhejiang coast...
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Hand-Waving Dance
In earlier times, every New Year, in the mountain villages where the Tujia people of Xiangxi lived in concentrated communities, people would carry dragon-and-phoenix colored banners, wear xilankapu (Tujia brocade), and amid the hand-waving song of "Heheye, yehehe..." men and women would join hands and dance gracefully. This dance was called the "Hand-Waving Dance," known in the Tujia language as "Shebari."
It is said that during the Jiajing period of the Ming Dynasty, Japanese pirates (wokou) raided and plundered the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang year after year. The government sent troops to attack them, but every attempt ended in crushing defeat. A strategist offered a plan: summon the Tusi of Yongshun, Baojing, Maogang, and Sangzhi in Hunan, as well as Rongmei in Hubei, to campaign against the pirates. In the depths of winter, with snowflakes filling the sky, tens of thousands of Tujia soldiers (among them also Miao and Hakka soldiers) arrived at Songjiang in the spring of the following year. The Tujia soldiers fought bravely and won victory after victory. In the single battle of Wangjiangjing, they killed more than 1,900 enemy soldiers, and the Japanese pirates were completely annihilated. The Tujia soldiers earned the reputation of "First in military merit in the Southeast." When the good news of the victory over the pirates reached the Tujia homeland, the Tujia people were overjoyed and spread the word to one another.
That winter, the Tujia king led the Tujia soldiers back in triumph and reunited with their families for the New Year. The old paopa (grandfather) of the great Tujia village informed Tujia people throughout Xiangxi that the ninth day of the first lunar month in the New Year was an auspicious day, and that a grand celebration would be held that evening for the soldiers.
As night fell, in the great rocky flat of the Tusi city, pine-resin lamps and bamboo-torch fires fluttered like shining stars across the sky. Tujia cannons boomed, bark trumpets blared, and dongdongkui, tree leaves, and gongs and drums accompanied dragon lanterns and lion dances. Tujia soldiers holding knives and hunters carrying birds and beasts arrived. Tujia people from all over Xiangxi came in their finest clothes. Tujia people from the borders of Sichuan, Hubei, and Guizhou also came. Miao and Hakka people from dozens of li around also came.
Old Paopa accompanied the Tujia king and civil and military officials and watched from the city tower for quite a while. Old Paopa thought: "If only we could have a grand scene of singing and dancing! Hey, I've heard there's a girl named Are in Zhihua Village who looks like an October camellia, incomparably clever and extremely capable. Why not have her devise some singing and dancing for us to try?" Old Paopa sent for Are and said to her: "On this great day of joy, can you make the ako (young men) and ada (young women) dance and sing?""
Are was a straightforward person and agreed as soon as asked. She immediately called together a group of young people, who sang mountain songs and danced on the rocky flat, vividly imitating their daily work of slash-and-burn farming, digging the earth, planting millet, harvesting corn, and hunting...
Are then invited another group of soldiers and officers who had returned from the front to sing and dance. The soldiers sang while making movements of battle, such as riding horses, drawing bows and shooting arrows, brandishing spears, wielding shields, thrusting and stabbing, and resting on their weapons...
The songs and dances that Are taught and directed became richer and richer in content, and the dance movements more and more graceful.
The Tujia king and Old Paopa said to Are: "Tonight's singing and dancing scene is grand. What should this song and dance be called?"
Are smiled and said: "Look, hundreds and thousands of hands are all swaying and waving. Let's call it the Hand-Waving Dance!"
"'Hand-Waving Dance'! 'Hand-Waving Dance'! Good! What a fine 'Hand-Waving Dance'!" Amid the singing and dancing, people wildly waved their hands and danced!
(Collected by Liu Liguang)
[Appendix] About the "Hand-Waving Dance"
The "Hand-Waving Dance" is a large-scale dance of the Tujia people in areas of concentrated Tujia settlement such as Longshan, Yongshun, Baojing, Guzhang, and Zhangjiajie, and it has strong sacrificial overtones. According to research, hand-waving activities appeared as early as more than a thousand years before the Common Era. At that time, the ancestors of the Tujia followed King Wu of Zhou to campaign against the Shang at Muye, and "with song and dance they overawed the enemy, and the Yin troops collapsed in great rout." This "song and dance" was the prototype of the Hand-Waving Dance. At the end of the Qin Dynasty, when Liu Bang rose against Qin, the Tujia ancestors used the Hand-Waving Dance to bravely defeat the Qin troops, and Liu Bang considered it to have the lingering style of the Bayu Dance. Thereafter, through generations of evolution, the Hand-Waving Dance gradually matured and became a large-scale folk sacrificial song-and-dance of the Tujia people. In the larger villages of Tujia settlement in Xiangxi, almost all had a hand-waving hall. Every New Year in the first lunar month, hand-waving activities were held, lasting from one night to as many as seven days and seven nights. The dance forms included "single wave," "double wave," and "whirling wave," and the specific movements were derived from agricultural activities, deep-mountain hunting, and combat life. In terms of scale, the Hand-Waving Dance is divided into the grand hand-waving and the small hand-waving. The grand hand-waving gathered people from several or more than a dozen villages to dance together. In the past, during the "grand hand-waving" at Matizhai in Longshan, Tujia people from the borders of Hubei and Sichuan also came, and at its peak as many as fifty or sixty thousand people participated. The small hand-waving was generally held in a single village or stockade.
Opinions differ on the origin of the Hand-Waving Dance. One theory holds that it arose from war. To inspire the soldiers' morale and undermine the enemy's fighting spirit, Tujia military leaders promoted song and dance in the army. During the Tianfu period of the Jin Dynasty, when Peng Shichou, prefect of Xizhou, fought against Wu Zhuchong, he used the Hand-Waving Dance to confuse the opponent. In the Ming Dynasty, when the Xiangxi Tusi were summoned to attack a certain county in Guangxi, "repeated attacks failed to take it, so they temporarily ordered their soldiers to dress as women and sing decadent tunes with bare arms outside the south of the city. The defending soldiers all rushed to watch, their emotions stirred by the songs, and they lost all firm resolve. The Tusi then sent elite troops to launch a surprise attack, and the city was taken." (See Yongshun County Gazetteer.) A second theory holds that it originated from religious sacrifice. The Tujia people revered their ancestors and loved leader figures such as the Great God Babu, Duke Peng, Elder Xiang, Good Man Tian, King Qin Hou, and the Son of Heaven King Xiang. In order not to forget their achievements, they vigorously promoted the Hand-Waving Dance to express their remembrance. A third theory holds that the Tusi loved song and dance, and so created the Hand-Waving Dance for the Tusi's entertainment.
Judging from various sources, the Hand-Waving Dance mainly originated from war.