[News Page-Taiwan Straits Network]
Climbing knife ladders, jumping fires, building orange towers, playing sand flowers... From the 10,000-pound orange pagoda in Jiangdong Village, Licheng, at the beginning of the first month of the first month, to the knife ladder stabbing ball in Jiangtou Village in the first two days of February, in Putian, Fujian Province, the time span of the people celebrating the Lantern Festival lasted for more than a month, which was the longest in the country.
Putian Lantern Lifting Shrine Jumping Fire Folk Performance. Photo by Cai Hao
The thousand-year-old dance tour lights opened the road, the ten thousand bench dragon lanterns prayed for blessings, the fire trees and honeysuckles prayed for peace, and there were "sword mountains and down the sea" style stunts such as barefoot fire, climbing knife ladders, iron balls hitting the back, lifting the car to rush the sea, etc., which can be described as "ten miles of different winds, one village and one custom".
The iron flower performance in Jindun Village, Xindu Town, originated in the middle of the Ming Dynasty, when the performers would sprinkle the prepared molten iron on the branches of the lychee or banyan tree with special bamboo pieces, and the molten iron and the branches collided with each other, splashing thousands of golden flowers. Photo by Liu Chaoyang
It is said that the trees that have been thrown not only do not damage the branches and leaves, but also have the effect of removing insects, and the growth trend is often better and better every year. Photo by Chen Jinwen
As early as the Tang Dynasty, Putian had the custom of making lanterns. "The deeper moonlight is on the head, and the lights fill the building with the sound of song and dance." If you want to live and go home late, spring supper is a drunken tour. "There is a building that is bustling and prosperous, and the lights are brilliant and the city that never sleeps." Today, we can get a glimpse of the past grand situation from "Bamboo Branch Words".
In Jiangdong Village, Licheng District, where the Lantern Festival was the first, villagers would fold a gold-shaped tower with oranges on the rectangular incense case in front of the statue. More than a dozen orange towers, weighing 10,000 pounds. Photo by Huang Minghong
Counting the lantern customs of Putian, there are grand tribute sacrifices such as orange pagodas, cane pagodas, and large red balls, as well as folk activities such as jumping fires, climbing knife ladders, and inviting gods to patrol. Bounded by the "mountains and seas", there is a ceremony of rushing the sea in the floating leaf village of Nanri Town to ask the gods to lift a palanquin and gallop at the head of the tide; there are also inland cruises that climb mountains and ascend to exchange fires to pray for prosperity in the coming year.
According to the cruise time, the Lantern Festival in Putian has a difference between day tour and night tour. During the day, men, women and children in the village will wear various costumes, or hold flags and honor guards, or play gongs and drums, or guard the incense burner Luan, or play theatrical characters and parade around the border. At night, there are iron flowers in Jindun Village, Xindu Town, vegetable head lamps and centipede lights in Fengting Town to light up the night; folk performances such as setting up brown palanquins, jumping on fires, and stepping on fires to light up the night...
These folk customs, which have been passed down for thousands of years, together form the "Thousand Faces" Lantern Festival, which is jubilant and enthusiastic in Putian. According to folklore expert Lin Chunrong, many of the long and rich lantern forms in the Putian area are related to long-term resistance to the Wo. According to the data, from the eighth year of Ming Yongle (1410) when The Wukou invaded Pinghai, to the forty-second year of Ming Jiajing (1563), When Qi Jiguang destroyed the Wukou under xianyou Castle, Putian suffered repeated plagues for more than 100 years. Jumping into fires, climbing high ladders, etc., or the remnants of self-resistance to inspire morale and ascend to the wind, all show the national spirit of the putian people who are not afraid of violence, resist foreign insults, and make unremitting efforts to improve themselves.
In the Yanning Palace in Hanjiang District, villagers peeled sugarcane, cut it into cane blocks with a thickness of only one to two centimeters, and piled them into octagonal cane towers more than three meters high, posing the words "Shangyuan Prayer". Nowadays, the "Yanning Cane Pagoda", a folk craft that is on the verge of being lost, has been included in the list of intangible cultural heritage of Fujian Province. Photo by Chen Jinwen
From the tenth to the fourteenth day of the first lunar month, the people on Meizhou Island invited mazu's golden body from the Tianhou Palace, and the clairvoyant tail was escorted left and right by the wind and ears, and toured Anbufu. Photo by Ma Jinyi
Soap li opened the road, the five emperors paraded. Photo by Cai Hao
Soap Dance. Photo by Lin Meiqin
On the eighteenth day of the first month, the floating leaf village in Nanri Town will invite the gods to travel from the village's anle society, and after the detour is completed, the young people will carry the shrine into the sea, and rush at the head of the tide to mean that the next year will go to sea safely and return to the port. Photo by Ma Jinyi
On the day of the Lantern Festival, men, women and children in the village will wear various costumes during the day, or hold a flag ceremonial guard, or play a gong and drum, or guard the incense burner, or play a theatrical character, and parade around the border. In the Lantern Parade that has been passed down to this day, you can see the relics of various dynasties and generations. Photo by Qian Xiaoyan
On the fifteenth day of the first month, the Lantern Festival was held in the ten miles of donghai town in Chengxiang District. Photo by Cai Hao
On the fifteenth day of the first month, the people of Donghai Town, Chengxiang District, lifted out lanterns with their respective surnames printed on them, connected with each other, and formed a long line, like a giant dragon. Photo by Lin Wei
From the thirteenth to the seventeenth day of the first month of the year, there are vegetable head lamps made of white radish and centipede lamps made of bamboo pieces and cloth strips. These special lantern customs are now among the national intangible cultural heritages. Photo by Guo Zeyu
A brown palanquin is a light palanquin made of bamboo and blades of grass, usually bound to small idols, carried by two palanquins for a dance on a flame. In front of the burning bonfire, the priest car followed the steps of lifting the car and the jumping step of the car, lifting the car high and falling, running and jumping. Photo by Guo Jinyu
Every year on the seventeenth day of the first month, the Hanjiang Wutang Songdong people light a one-person high firewood wall in the square, and the young people in the village will repeatedly rush into the fire with barefoot and lift the shrine. Photo by Guo Jinyu
Fire stampede show. Photo by Xu Lei
In the town of Baitang and Huangshi, Xiajiangtou and other places, the local Lantern Custom still retains the Qi family army to encourage the people to learn martial arts and resist the "iron ball". Photo by Mao Xinhua
From the fifteenth to the sixteenth of the first month, the Lantern Festival in Huadong Village, Licheng District, is flowered. Photo by Guo Jinyu
The servants of the City God Temple would climb the four- or five-story sword ladder with their bare hands during the Lantern Festival, and finally sit on the blade at the top, throw copper coins at the crowd below, and give Xiangrui. Photo by Cai Guowei
Source: People's Daily News