*Panwang Festival of Yao Minority

108.*Panwang Festival of Yao Minority

Nominating Unit: City of Shaoguan

Panwang Festival of Yao Minority originated from the Panwang Festival Songfest. On the sixteenth day of the lunar October, Yao People would get together to sing and dance in order to commemorate Panwang, which has gradually developed into Panwang Festival. However, today’s Panwang Festival has become a party that celebrates harvest and provides the opportunity for young people to express their feelings and find their love through singing.

The Panwang Festival of Guoshan Yao, also known as “fulfi lling the promises made to Panwang”, is held by individual family or a whole village. Panwang Festival lasts either 3 days and 3 nights or 7 days and 7 nights with two main parts. The fi rst part is a series of processes that are named “Qingsheng, Paiwei, Shangguang, Zhaohe, Huanyuan, Xiesheng” with suona band playing all along and sorcerer performing dances like Panwang dance, coppery bell dance, matching and withdrawing dance, Yuebiao dance, Jibing Dance, Catching turtle dance etc.; the second part, which is also the main part of Panwang Festival, is inviting ancestor gods and the entire crowd of Yao to enjoy “Liule” that means all kinds of entertainments in Yao language. The Liule ritual commonly lasts for one day and one night with performers intonating the historic poem “The Grand Song of Panwang” that manifests the myths, history, politics, economy, culture and art as well as the social life of Yao Minority.(https://www.daowen.com)

The ritual of Panwang Festival is presided by four chief Shigongs (sorcerers) who perform their own duty respectively: the first is Huangyuan master who performs to help fulfi ll people’s promises; the second is called Jibing master; the third is Shangbing master; the last one is Wugu master. Each of the four masters has an assistant, there are altogether 8 people. Besides, four singers (male and female), six girls and boys, a long drum performer and a suona band also attend the festival. The skills are mainly passed on from masters to disciples and from the older generations of the family.

As an ancient and extensively distributed folk festival, Panwang Festival is the essence of traditional culture and a humanistic feast that strengthens the solidarity of Yao Minority.

Panwang Festival of Yao Minority was enlisted into the list of the fi rst batch of state-level intangible cultural heritage in 2006.