What is the most famous Chinese folk dance?

The oldest Qiang "Sheepskin Drum Dance"

The He Family Ancestral Burial Mound, located in Ma Stirrup Village, Wenchuan County, Sichuan Province, is the graveyard of a large family of the He surname of the local Qiang people. According to the records, the ancient burial custom of the Qiang people is mainly cremation, which is usually carried out after sunset. During cremation, relatives sat around and cried, and then turned to singing funeral songs to send their condolences, followed by dancing with hands and feet to pray for the gods to bless the deceased to enter the other world for blessing. The songs and dances continue until the next morning, when the ashes are buried in the ground. This kind of funeral customs in the "Lu Shi Chun Qiu - Yi Shang" in the "氐羌之虏也，不担心其系累，而忧其死而不焚也 "的记载，可为左证。 Among the ethnic minorities, the Qiang's "funeral dance" and the traditional ritual dances held in honor of their ancestors are very distinctive.

When the sun reduces the long shadows of the tall pine trees to a minimum, the men and women of the village and the shamans who come to worship the ancestors of the He family follow the master of the He family to a cemetery surrounded by pines and cypresses one after another, and put all kinds of offerings in front of the graves in the forest, and then waited for the arrival of the "hour" of the sacrifice.

Only to hear a single drum of sheepskin sound, a team by the hand carved with the head of the gods and goddesses of the "Krimiwazi" staff, wearing a placed sacred hat of the sorcerer as the head of the road, followed closely by the head of a golden monkey head, the Qiang language is called "Huupi Er" monkey Skin cap, holding an eagle's claw and other evil things "plate bell" of the great sorcerer, beating the Qiang language called "Rib" sheepskin drum, waving a stick type of magic weapon of six or seven sorcerers of the team, from the pine forest outside the jumping. They danced the "Golden Monkey Dance" with the thumping of sheepskin drums and the ringing of bells. The shaman wearing the ginormous head cap was responsible for directing the other shamans in the direction and number of times they should perform the various dances during the ceremony, while performing the dance himself. These sorcerers each dance is not the same, some swinging the magic weapon in all directions while bowing and bending their backs to worship; some take turns replacing the left and right legs to do before and after jumping, some are in situ, left and right ......, seems to be in the performance of their own "one-man dance". In the entire performance process, all the witches only consistent is, each mouth with non-stop chanting mantra and scripture accompanied by their own dance.

In the Qiang ancestor rituals, there is a big sorcerer must wear a golden monkey scalp hat, and at the same time beat the sheepskin drums of special customs, and the origin of this custom there is an interesting mythological story based on.

It is said that a long time ago, the Qiang people were a people with their own writing. At that time, the very old ancestor in order to get from the God of the sky all kinds of scriptures and related to the earth's clothing, food, housing and transportation of all the learning, spent great effort to record and save in a roll of birch bark, ready to pass on to the Qiang descendants. In the spring of this year, the grandmaster was afraid that these birch bark scrolls would get damp, so he took them out and put them on the hillside to dry. Actually do not know when to run to a goat, all the birch bark scrolls are chewed and eat a full meal and fled. And so the grandmaster to collect the scrolls in the afternoon, found that all the scrolls were all lost and shocked, looking around and could not be found and anxious to beat their chests and feet, grief. At this time, a golden monkey climbed down from a high tree and told the Master that it had seen a goat eating the scrolls. From then on, the Grandmaster resolved to find this sinful goat in his lifetime, no matter how much effort he had to expend. Later on, after a lot of hard work and with the guidance and assistance of the golden monkeys, he finally found this sinful goat. In order to punish the goat, the ancestor made the skin of the goat after slaughtering into a single drum "Ribu" for sacrificing to the gods, so that it would be flogged by the descendants of the Qiang tribe for eternity. From then on, whenever the ancestor played the drum, the scriptures written on the birch bark would appear in front of his eyes. In order to make these valuable scriptures never be lost again, the ancestor master memorized all the scriptures and passed them on to the future generations of shamans by the method of oral transmission without using words again, so the Qiang people have only their own national language without words so far. At the same time, in order to thank the golden monkey to lead the way to find the goat, so that the Qiang descendants through the ancient scriptures and doubly blessed by the five gods of heaven, it will be in the death of the golden monkey's head and skin made of hats, decorated with small copper mirror can drive away evil spirits and suppress the devil, conch and other magic weapons, as the rituals indispensable to the cult of the object.

After every ancestor worship, the shaman must wear a golden monkey head cap, its position is arranged in the immediate after the "Krimi wa Zi" after the scepter, as a way to show people's respect for the golden monkey, and through it to the shaman to lead the way with the gods. Moreover, the dance performed by the shamans tells the story of how they found the sinful goat with the help of the golden monkey.

Beating the goat-skin drums for the dance is the "patent" of the shamans when they perform their magic. In addition to the ancestor worship shamans beat the sheepskin drums, dance "golden monkeys looking for sin goat" dance, and then to appreciate the "sheepskin drum dance" style, it is not Suomo River upstream of Li County, Muka Township, the "Braz" is none other than.

Famous for hundreds of miles around the Muqa Township sheepskin drum dance "Braz", also belongs to the "witch dance" of the ranks, must be really mastered by the sixteen volumes of scripture and all the skills of the law, with a certain amount of medicine, astrological knowledge, and can preside over the traditional sacrificial rituals of the sorcerer to perform. This kind of sorcerer is called "Shibi" by the local Qiang people.

The Qiang village families, such as "petition", "return the wish" or drive away the ghosts and epidemics, we must hire "Shibi" to jump sheepskin drum dance "Braz". The number and size of the shamans depend on the economic ability of each family. Among the various legal acts done by "Shibi", "sheepskin drum" is an indispensable magic weapon, and also the only accompanying instrument when "Shibi" jumps "Braz". Li County, two of the most famous Muka Township "Shi than" not only a pair of brothers, and the joint jump "Braz", the dance of the beautiful, elegant style of the dashing, in the local is second to none.

See, two dressed in lake blue right lapel robes, waist tie white linen pleated skirt, head wrapped in white wrapped head of the "Shibi", in the hand hit the sheepskin drums under the thumping sound of the dance lightly. Throughout the dance, they look as focused as in no one's land, dance light and airy, robust and calm. When the two danced together, they danced in an orderly manner, like flowing clouds and water; in the pair dance, they danced in a graceful manner, like colorful butterflies flying together. All the dances in the knees constantly trembling, continuous performance of "holding the drum around the head", "bending the legs left and right rotation", "swinging hips" and other complex and varied movements. Their clean and sharp movements are in perfect harmony with the accelerating rhythm of the sheepskin drums. The harmony of the dance posture is perfect, the accuracy of a move in place and through which the simple, unadorned and inner charm, can not help but make people marvel at the depth of their skills, which is difficult for any professional dancers to reach and can be embodied.