Swing dance popular area

Wave-waving dance is a traditional dance of Tujia nationality with a long history, which is spread in Youshui River Basin and Yuanshui River Basin at the junction of Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing and Guizhou, especially in Youshui River Basin. There are literature records of swing dance activities in Youyang, Xiushan, Qianjiang, Pengshui and Shizhu in Chongqing, Yongshun, Longshan, Baojing and Guzhang in Hunan, Laifeng and Enshi in Hubei, Yanhe and Yinjiang in Guizhou. Ancient swing dance was mainly used for sacrifice and prayer. Except for the Eight Gods, most of the worshippers were worshipping the Tusi King, such as Peng Gong, Tian, Xiang Laoguan and other famous people with surnames in history, with obvious traces of sacrifice and ancestor worship. The name of swing dance varies from place to place. The area around Longshan, Hunan Province is called "Sheba Day", Baojing is called "Tiaonian" and Yongshun is also called "Sheba Ba", which has the same folk meaning-blessing. Nowadays, in Youyang County, which is known as the "hometown of waving dance", and Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture, the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage declaration sites, waving dance activities are the most popular.

There is a clear record of waving dance in the relevant county annals of northwest Hunan. In the twenty-eighth year of Qing Qianlong's reign, "Yongshun Prefecture Records and Customs" contained: "Every village has a wave hall, also known as the ghost hall, which is called the late local government office. Every year from the third day to the seventeenth day of the first month. Men and women get together to dance the Long song, and shake hands. This custom still exists. " Peng Shiduo, a tribute to Yongshun, Tongzhi County in Qing Dynasty, wrote a poem on a bamboo branch, saying, "The city of pumice is a nest, the water waves are on the side of the land palace, and there are thousands of red lights, and there are lingering songs of waving." All these show that waving dance, as a large-scale folk mass dance deeply loved by Tujia people, was quite popular in northwest Hunan in Qing Dynasty. There are detailed records in the Qing Dynasty annals such as Longshan County Annals. There are Langting or Tuwang Temple sites in Maogang, Qing 'an, Luoshui and other Tujia villages in Yongding County. Up to now, Tujia people still carry out ancestor worship and swing dance activities on these sites.