Mountain Celebrations

Among the contingents parading in Jinghong's streets during the Water-Sprinkling Festival are the Jinuo. This is one time they will likely be in their ethnic costume, rarely seen otherwise. And that's mainly because they are paid to do so by the county government, for the benefit of both the hosts and the guests. The mood may strike them again, though, at the Jinuo's own New Year celebration in late winter, held in honour of the blacksmith.

In the unsophisticated world of traditional mountain people anyone who had apparent control over the forces of nature merited special respect. The blacksmith, with his mastery over fire and metal, made the tools people required to farm effectively. In return the recipients of these tools donated a certain number of days of labour in the blacksmith's fields. His role as toolmaker was thus considered essential to their well-being. Consequently he was accorded a special position in the tribal hierarchy. He plays a part in selected Aini ceremonies, for example. But among the Jinuo, where he is believed to have power over rivers and seas and can lock demons behind their doors by pounding the doors shut with golden nails, the year's greatest celebration is held in his honour.

Called Temaojie in Chinese, the festival's timing is decided by village elders. On that day the most respected male (zhousi) and female elder (zhuoba) announce the coming of New Year by beating the "solar drums," large drums of wood and cattle hide mounted on crossed beams. Hearing the drums people assemble at the houses of the two elders to make plans for the festival, the buffalo sacrifice and so on. Then they sing an ancient Jinuo song of how they learned to cultivate rice.

Men dispatch the sacrificial bull in a grove beside the village, butcher it on the spot and cut it into small pieces to be distributed to all village households. People then prepare a grand feast, cooking the meat several different ways and serving it with plenty of strong liquor. Dancing occupies the youth's time after the feast, while the drinking continues, inside and out, both boys and girls imbibing.

While the buffalo dies for the sake of the whole village, another sacrifice takes place specifically for the sake of the blacksmith. Invited to have a good dream the night before the festival, the next morning, as guest of honour in the zhuoba's room, he is asked to narrate his dream. The zhuoba then interprets the dream as auspicious or not for the coming year's harvest. A feast follows and then the blacksmith, his apprentices and a senior male of the zhuoba's family go to the blacksmith's workshop for the sacrifice of a cock. Its blood and feathers are sprinkled on the bellows, furnace, hammer and tongs. The party then cooks and eats the chicken, following which the blacksmith mimes his work and shouts, "Hammer out the old year, hammer in the new." And with that recitation the New Year officially begins.

The Aini also ring in the New Year with a festival they call Gatang Pa. In Lancang and Menglian Counties they hold this in late November, beginning on a Buffalo Day with the drawing of water from a specially consecrated source. Xishuangbanna Aini have recently fixed the beginning of their Gata Pa-eu on 2 January. This is because the provincial government disburses money to the autonomous Aini townships to pay for a big celebration. Presumably it would be too difficult for outside guests to make it the 1st, when they're still hung over from parties the night before, so it was scheduled for the 2nd.

Lasting three days altogether, the festival includes feasting, top-spinning, the settling of debts and the payment of dues into the village fund, and of course much singing and dancing, in the daylight for the guests, in the evening for themselves. Aini songs are slow to moderate tempo in general, accompanied at most by a drum, and have a choreography per number, usually uncomplicated steps and simple body-rocking. In the evenings they will be performed at an open area designated dehaw in the Aini language.

This is the traditional gathering ground for the youth in the evenings after supper. Separated from each other all day in fields far apart, the dehaw provided a venue for meeting each other and making merry with song and dance. In the old days this was the place in the winter months to introduce young men from other villages, who were looking for prospective wives. Schools and television have altered traditional teenage life in recent years, but youth still employ the dehaw for the old reasons now and then, especially at festival time.

Some Aini are still carrying out the annual rice rituals and other old customs, but the situation varies from village to village. Yet all Aini stage the three-day Swing Festival in late September. The old swing frame which has been standing since the previous year's festival, but not with its swing installed, they tear down and erect a new one on the same spot. After the religious chief tests the swing anyone can ride. The boys put one foot in the loop at the end of the swing's rope and kick themselves into the air with the free leg. Girls insert a board through the loop, sit on it and kick their legs to swing.

Ancestral rites, feasting and an active dehaw are the other features of the event. Everyone, but especially the girls, dresses in their best Aini clothes and ornaments. Dances include one with straw hats and an energetic one where youths hold bamboo poles just off the ground while the boy or girl hops over and between them. On one night the youths, as at New Year, go house-to-house drumming bamboo tubes and singing. After the third night the swing is taken down and the frame left standing till the next year, when the Aini are ready to swing skyward once again.

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