Drum Concealment Festival Origin and Development
----------------------------------------------------Xijiang Thousand Household Miao Village
The exact time when the Drum Concealment Festival started is unclear, even to the elders in various villages. They only know that it has been passed down from generation to generation. Many village elders and drum concealment heads recount hearing from their ancestors that the Miao people's Drum Concealment Festival originated from ancient times when the Miao ancestor Jiayang publicly sacrificed his mother “Mei Bang Mei Liu” (Butterfly Mother). It was said that after Jiayang and his family had children, every year was bountiful with grain full of warehouses. But later, there were two consecutive years of drought where no crops survived. To find out the reason, Jiayang invited a shaman who said it was because Jiayang’s eldest son did not properly manage the water buffalo, which had stepped on Butterfly Mother's grave multiple times, angering her. She demanded Jiayang sacrifice a water buffalo in her honor during the New Year. Jiayang followed the order, and the next year, indeed, the weather was favorable, and there was another good harvest. From then on, the Miao ancestors began to annually worship their ancestors.
Xijiang Thousand Household Miao Village
A few years later, Jiayang and his descendants, inspired by the use of hollowed-out logs as coffins for burial, combined this with their frequent relocations and sacrificial requirements. Since Butterfly Mother was born from the heart of a camphor tree, they hollowed out the core of a camphor tree to make a cylindrical wooden drum symbolizing her soul's dwelling place. One or both ends of the drum were covered with animal skin and tightened with bamboo nails. People called this drum the Ancestral Drum, representing the resting place of ancestral spirits. The Ancestral Drum was a sacred instrument that could not be struck casually unless it was time for the ancestral worship festival, when the ancestral spirits needed to be awakened to enjoy sacrifices and share joy with their descendants. After the ceremony, the drum would be returned to a special cave for safekeeping. Because it was often left outdoors, it easily deteriorated and almost every few years had to be remade. Since the Drum Concealment Festival involved rituals such as awakening the drum, replacing the drum, sacrificing, and concealing the drum, it was called the Drum Concealment Festival. Because it was held by a single drum society, it was also known as the Drum Society Festival. And because it was a festival to worship ancestors and praise their achievements, it was also referred to as the Ancestral Worship Festival.
In Li Tinggui's article "A Brief Discussion on the Social Organization of the Miao," he pointed out that the basic unit of Miao ancient society was the drum society. The earliest Miao ancestors only worshipped female ancestors, and the camphor wood drums used by the drum societies merely symbolized the resting place of the female ancestor Butterfly Mother. Wei Qiguang wrote in "A Discussion on the Origins of the Miao Drum Society" that this indicates that the Drum Concealment Festival (Drum Society Festival) originated from the matrilineal clan society period of the Miao ancestors, during which the drum society was an exogamous group.
Later, the Miao ancestors specially made another type of wooden drum – the offspring drum – to worship Jiayang Gong and Jiayang Nai, hoping for prosperity and peace within the tribe. This drum could also be used by people during the New Year or the Drum Concealment Festival for dancing and entertainment, both pleasing the ancestors and themselves. After the ceremonies and entertainment, the drum could be stored safely in houses, and thus, except for reasons such as fire or war, it could last over a hundred years before needing replacement. People realized through experience that to celebrate the Drum Concealment Festival well, it must be organized by democratically elected drum concealment leaders and assistants.
Tang Chunfang wrote in "The Meaning and Origin of the Miao Drum Sacrifice Festival" that the Miao drum sacrifice custom originated in the early maternal power system, and the wooden drum evolved from a coffin. One of the authors of this article, Li Guozhang, discussed this in "Miao Wooden Drums," stating that the drum concealment custom was already very prevalent in Shandong's Mount Tai, Mount Lu, and the Yimeng Mountains during prehistoric times. However, due to limitations in productivity and calendar civilization, the drum sacrifice customs in the early maternal power system lacked fixed regulations, varied in form, and were spontaneous. It can be said that after the lunar calendar was established, a more standardized Drum Concealment Festival formed. The Drum Concealment Festival began with Jiayang's sacrifice to Butterfly Mother, and the time should have been in February when butterflies start gathering flowers. Currently, some Miao villages in Leishan County still celebrate the Drum Concealment Festival in February.
Perhaps because of the numerous and complicated rituals associated with annual ancestral worship and harvest celebrations, including waking the drum, raising the drum, establishing the drum (rotating the drum), sacrificing to the drum, sending off the drum, and concealing the drum, the Drum Concealment Festival gradually changed to a small annual celebration (Miao New Year) and a grand celebration every several years (3, 5, 7, 13, 25 years; currently 13 nominal years in Leishan), which has been passed down to today.
Later, Chi You, the cultural ancestor of the Miao people, engaged in a decisive battle with the Yellow Emperor around Zhuolu, Hebei Province. Chi You was defeated and killed in mid-October of the lunar calendar. His remains were secretly collected by a dragon-totem Miao clan and buried in Puyang, Henan Province. Thereafter, the Miao people across various regions began to celebrate the New Year starting in October, the month Chi You was killed, and to worship Butterfly Mother, Jiayang, Chi You, and their clan ancestors. Most Miao villages in Leishan County still adhere to celebrating the Miao New Year and the Drum Concealment Festival in October according to the lunar calendar.
After the defeat of the Jiuli tribal alliance led by Chi You, large numbers of Miao ancestors had to flee and migrate. Thus, the clan leaders and village elders decided that after splitting into different branches, each branch would independently host the festival according to the cyclical years of a single earthly branch (the twelve zodiac signs) and the hours of the day, rather than returning to the original settlement for the festival. Some drums were changed from camphor wood (black drum) to nan wood or camphor wood (white drum). White represents snow, symbolizing coldness, sadness, and sorrow, marking a mourning sacrifice. This was because when Chi You was captured, Ying Long intentionally used the camphor tree, revered by the Miao people as the drum society tree, to humiliate him. Hence, the Miao people avoided using camphor wood for making drums and instead used nan wood or camphor wood. This is why it is said that the white drum evolved from the black drum in the Miao drum societies.
Due to countless long-distance migrations, the clans continuously split and subdivided. Different branches and clans settled in different places, leading to slight differences in their treatment of wooden drums. Some still maintained the ancestral drum and the offspring drum, separately stored in nearby caves and homes; others combined them into one, stored in the drum tower, drum hall, or the home of a respected elder; yet others used the drum both for ancestral worship and as an accompanying instrument for dance, such as in Wuliou Village in Leishan today.
Approximately since the appearance of bronze drums in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, the Miao people also commonly used them during the Drum Concealment Festival. In modern times, some Miao villages even replaced wooden drums with bronze drums, kept in civilian homes. Besides continuing to serve for ancestral worship, these bronze drums also celebrated bountiful harvests, summoned the unity and progress of the clan, and provided entertainment, enriching the content and atmosphere of the Drum Concealment Festival.
Nowadays, when hosting the Drum Concealment Festival, some Miao villages still follow the procedures of the drum-raising year, drum-rotating year, and drum-sending (concealing) year, but most Miao villages have simplified the three-year cycle to just the third year. These various evolutionary processes, from simple to complex and back to simple, formed in different historical periods, can all be seen in the Drum Concealment Festival celebrated in various Miao villages in Leishan County today.
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