Fire Dog Dance

34.Fire Dog Dance

Nominating Unit: City of Huizhou

Fire Dog Dance is a folk dance performed on young females’ adulthood ceremony of Yao Minority in Lantian Township, Longmen County of City of Huizhou. It was originated from the worship toward dogs by the Yao people in Lantian. Legend has it that a long, long time ago, the tribe leader lost his mother when he was still a child, and his father raised him up with dog milk. To forever remember the dog’s nurturing and let everyone in the Yao tribe remember that the dog was everyone’s “second mother”, he stipulated that on the night of every fifteenth of August on the lunar calendar when the moon is the fullest, the tribe should perform fire dog dance. According to the local elderly, this tradition already has a history of more than 300 years.

During this night, young maids would first gather at certain places, and two elderly ladies considered it auspicious to put makeup on them. Each one’s arms and waist would be sticked with yellow ginger leaves and bound by ivies. They would wear bamboo hats with incense sticked in it to play “fire dogs”.

When the dance begins, a male tribe leader would first present sacrifice to the ancestors of this family in the shrine. The girls would line up according to their body heights, and bow as well. Afterwards, the leading girl would lead them to an open space, and they would sing old Yao songs back and forth while walking. After circling the place several times, the girls would walk around the village to go to each household and do praying dance in each family’s kitchen to wish for the ever lasting of the kindling. After paying tribute to the kitchen, the fire dog team would be led by the leading girl to each family’s garden to perform sincere praying dancing to show their gratitude and respect for the dogs, because the Yao people in Lantian love and respect dogs, and have a custom to bury them in the family vegetable garden after their dogs are dead. At last, the fire dog teams of each village would come together and the whole formation is like a long and winding dragon, wandering and dancing to the river bank out of the village. The girls would throw ginger leaves, bamboo hats and incense all into the river and wash their hands and feet in the river to symbolize a whole body bath to wash off evil spirit and play in water with each other.(https://www.daowen.com)

During the whole fire dog dance, young men would light up firecrackers on the side to boost the morale of the girls. When the fire dog team reaches the river bank, they would be waiting there too. After the fire dog girls have washed their hands and feet and come back on the river bank, each man would find a partner to his interest and sing with her until the sun rises.

There is no accompaniment for the fire dog dance, and the dancing moves are simple, but its songs ancient. What matters are the formality and its programme. The atmosphere is solemn and serious, the scene warm and spectacular. It is a special form of adulthood ceremony of Yao maids in Lantian. Every Yao maid will attend fire dog dance 2 to 3 times before she can be considered for marriage.

Fire Dog Dance is a ceremonial dance closely related to the customs of people’s lives. It is also a representation of ancient worships and folk beliefs of Yao people in Lantian Township, carrying special values in anthropology, ethnology, and dancing art.

Due to changes of living styles and the impact of imported cultures, now the old worships toward ancestors are fading away in the Yao community. Yao girls only know about the existence of Fire Dog Dance, but already foreign to the spiritual, cultural and historical connotations stored therein. This ceremonial dance is faced with a question of survival, and is calling for attention from the authorities.