**5. Bixia Temple Festival**

While the beginning history of the Bixia Temple Festival in Jiacun remains unclear, there is evidence that by the late sixteenth century at the latest, a highly sophisticated protocol of ritual and theatrical performances had been developed for village festivals, as shown in the *Lijie chuanbu*, a liturgic handbook copied in 1574 by Cao Guozai 曹國宰, a ritual specialist of Jiacun, from a master copy datable to the Jiajing 嘉靖 era (1522–1566) of the Ming dynasty (Han et al. 1987a, p. 56n3). Discovered in 1985 in Nanshe, a member village along with Jiacun of the above-mentioned Eight Big Village Worship Associations, the text was originally owned by the Niu 牛 family in Jiacun, and in 1956, it fell into the hands of Cao Zhan'ao 曹占 and his brother Cao Guobiao 曹占標, diviners and geomancers of Nanshe village (Du 2011b, p. 235). Dated on its cover page 'Wanli second year, first month, thirteenth day' (4 February 1574), the text refers to itself on its first page as *Zhou yuexing tu* (Figure 19). This manuscript served as a practical guide for local ritual organisers and performers for more than three hundred and fifty years until the War of Resistance Against Japan (1937–1945) (Han et al. 1987a, pp. 53–54) and has continued to do so since it was recovered in 1986 (Du 2016; Song 2016a).

**Figure 19.** Cover and First Pages of *Lijie chuanbu*/*Zhou yuexing tu*. Source: *Zhonghua xiqu* 3 (1987), pp. 2–3.

Temple festivals are an integral part of village life in rural North China (Overmyer 2009). Jiacun is no exception. There are various ceremonial and festival events. Some of them are family-based rituals and ceremonies, such as funerals, weddings and ancestral rites, and some of them are community-based temple festivals, such as the Double-Second Burning Incense Festival (*Eryue'er xianghuo hui* 二 月 二 香 火 會) and Double-Fourth Temple Festival in Jiacun, both held in honour of Bixia yuanjun with the Bixia Temple as the major venue for ritual and theatrical performance during the festival. As its name suggests, the Double-Second Burning Incense Festival falls on the second day of the second lunar month, but it is actually a three-day event starting on the thirtieth day of the first month and running through until the second day of the second month when it peaks (Du 2011a, pp. 68–78). The Double-Second Festival is celebrated in its own right and at the same time as a prelude to the Double-Fourth Temple Festival, the most important *sai* in Jiacun, which is held to celebrate the birthday of Bixia yuanjun.

In history, the annual Double-Fourth Festival was normally celebrated as a three-day *xiaosai* 小 賽 or small *sai*, and every forty years there would be a large-scale celebration called *dasai* 大 賽 or big *sai* held over the course of six consecutive days in the fourth lunar month. The last time the big *sai* took place was 1917 (Du 2016). However, the centuries-long tradition failed to carry over to the next fortieth year. In early 1957 when villagers planned to hold a big *sai*, according to Du Tonghai (Du 2016), a highly revered local Community Head, an order came from above to call it off. The year 1996 witnessed the restoration of the Double-Second Festival for the first time since it was last held in 1945, and the following year witnessed the 'large-scale re-enactment of ancient temple festivals', which ran over six days from the first to the sixth day of the fourth month on the Chinese lunar calendar (Wang 2007, pp. 49–55). The Bixia temple festival has since been held annually but usually on a smaller scale than before because many people leave for work in cities and only return home for the Spring Festival once a year (Du 2016). Although staged on a smaller scale than before, Jiacun temple festivals remain fundamentally unchanged in form and function from the past, with the procedure and programme stipulated in the received liturgical texts faithfully observed whenever possible, as I was told by Du Tonghai (Du 2016). Noticing a look of surprise on my face, he showed me a stack of papers containing detailed instructions, invocations and prayers in verse and prose for the Double-Fourth Festival and kindly let me take a photograph of each and every page he had copied from the liturgical texts, with notes, signs and symbols densely written in the margins.

I do not have the slightest doubt that there is any substantial change made to the general structure and procedure of the temple festival, but to believe that the temple festival in its newly reconstructed form resembles what was presented a century ago in every respect would be nothing but wishful thinking, as cautioned by Johnson (2009, p. 39) in his observation of the New Year festival in the village of Renzhuang in southeastern Shanxi, which was restored based on a liturgy discovered in 1987. In any case, however, the Double-Fourth Temple Festival has once again become an important part of village life in Jiacun, albeit in a reconstructed form, through which traditional ritual and theatrical performances that would otherwise have been lost are revived and reintegrated into the mainstream of local religion.

The ritual procedure and programme of Jiacun temple festivals are organised around the Twenty-Eight Mansions (*Ershiba xingxiu* 二 十 八 星 宿) in the Chinese constellation pantheon, beginning with the mansion of 'Horn Represented by the Wood Dragon' (Jiao mujiao 角 木 蛟) and ending with that of 'Chariot Represented by the Water Earthworm' (Zhen shuiyin 軫 水 蚓), as described in the 1574 liturgical text, where each mansion is given a name, followed by a mythical creature or guardian deity, according to the Chinese astrology.<sup>34</sup> Under the name of each mansion is a list of ritual, musical and theatrical performances including the ritual of offering cups (*gongzhan* 供 盞) and performing variety shows (Du 2011b, pp. 246–83). Recorded in the ritual text are a total of 245 titles of melodies, songs, dances, dance dramas and dramas, 198 of which are dance dramas and dramas with

their origins datable to the Song, Jin, Yuan or Ming dynasty (Han et al. 1987b, pp. 131–36; Huang 1987, pp. 137–43; Zhang 1987, pp. 153–67).

The theatrical performance may be classified into three broad categories in terms of liturgical procedures and functions: (1) full-length performances presented on temple theatre stage after offering the seventh and final cup to deities, (2) short interlude performances presented in front of the hall for offering sacrifices, respectively, between offering the fourth and fifth cups and between offering the fifth and sixth cups, and (3) music and dance dramas in processional performances. Dramatic pieces staged after the completion of the ritual of offering cups<sup>35</sup> are categorised, respectively, as *yuanben* 院本 (farce, lit. 'court text'),<sup>36</sup> *zaju* 雜劇 (sketch comedy) and *zheng duixi* 正隊戲 (main group skit) in the liturgical manual. The *zheng duixi* is so named to distinguish it from the *gongzhan duixi* 供盞隊戲 (group skit for offering cups) and the *ya duixi* 啞隊戲 (muted group skit) (Huang 1998). The *gongzhan duixi* is meant for the interlude performance between offering cups, and the *ya duixi—*an ancient form of unspoken and unsung music and dance drama datable to the Tang and Song dynasties (Dou 1987)—is presented in processions by the Entertainers as warm-ups or rehearsals for the temple festival according to local ritualists (Li 1993b, 1993c).<sup>37</sup> I had the good fortune to find all the three forms of theatrical performance presented during my fieldwork in Jiacun on the Double-Fourth Temple Festival in May 2016. It was a year for small *sai* though, and accordingly, the procedure and programme reserved for the six-day big *sai* was simplified and adjusted to accommodate the form of a small *sai.*

The temple festival involves a grea<sup>t</sup> number of people. Most prominent among them are the Chief Community Head (*weishou* 首), the Chief Master of Ceremonials (*zhuli* 主禮), the Leader of Entertainers (*qianhang* 前行), Masters of Ceremonials (*lisheng* 禮生 or *sili* 司 禮) and Incense Elders (*xianglao* 香老) (Figure 20).

**Figure 20.** Jiacun Ritual leaders (left to right)—Du Tonghai: Chief Community Head and Chief Master of Ceremonials; Wei Qianxiu 衛前秀: Master of Ceremonials; Song Huaizhi 宋懷支: Leader of Entertainment; Zhang Kaitai 張開泰 and Feng Chunsheng 馮春生: Incense Elders.

The Chief Community Head is selected from among Community Heads (*sheshou*) and sometimes may concurrently act as the Chief Master of Ceremonials, as is the case with Du Tonghai. As the Chief Community Head, Du is the *sai* organiser, leader and director and, as such, he is also called the Chief Priest in Charge of Sacrifices (*zhuji* 主 祭); and as the Chief Master of Ceremonials, he is also charged with planning for and officiating at ritual performances (Du 2016). The Leader of Entertainers takes the lead in processional ritual performances, and this role is most of time ceremonial (Song 2016a). As shown above in Figure 20, the Leader of Entertainers wears a three-part long black artificial beard, a black gauze hat (*wushamao* 烏紗帽) and an embroidered jade girdle (*yudai* 玉帶, a hoop-shaped belt with jade ornaments) around the waist and costumes himself in a traditional ceremonial red silk robe embroidered with pythons (*mangpao* 蟒袍) as *laosheng* 老生 (lit. 'old man'), a major role type (*jiaose* 色) in traditional Chinese drama and theatre (*xiqu* 戲曲) that often portrays an imperial official. Notably, the Leader of Entertainers holds a bamboo staff (*zhuganzi* 竹竿子) in all ritual performances he is involved in, so he is also called Master Bamboo Staff (*zhuganzi*). As for Masters of Ceremonials, this role is conventionally played by revered Yinyang Masters (*yinyang shi* 陰陽師, a diviner) or Fengshui Masters (*fengshui shi* 風水師, a geomancer also called *kanyu jia* 堪輿家) in the locality, whereas the role of Incense Elders is commonly assigned to village elders, who are also ritual specialists.

Another prominent figure active in the village festival is Mapi 馬疋 or Mabi 馬裨, a spirit-medium who used to have both cheeks pierced with a 15 to 20 cm long steel pin (*kouqian* 口䠪) while performing trance séance in Shangdang village festivals. According to Song Yusheng 宋玉生 (2016), the Mapi of Jiacun,the main responsibility of Mapi is to provide assistance in the ritual of offering sacrifices and help maintain order in processions during temple festivals (Figures 21 and 22).<sup>38</sup>

Also essential to the temple festival are a troupe of professional actors and musicians from the Registered Households of Entertainers (*yuehu* 樂戶) and the Chief Ritual Chefs (*zhuchu* 主厨), the former playing ritual music and performing dance and drama during the festival, and the latter preparing elaborate food offerings and arranging them in an extremely intricate pattern (*chaji* 插祭) (Figure 23) in a colourfully decorated shed called the 'Incense Pavilion' (*xiangting* 香亭) (see Figure 20).

As a traditional saying goes in Shangdang, 'Engaged in competition (*sai*) with each other in a big temple festival (*sai*)<sup>39</sup> are three groups of people: tortoises (*wangba* 王八), chefs and *yinyang* masters.' While the saying contains the word *wangba* as a derogatory term for ritual Entertainers or *yuehu*,<sup>40</sup> it reveals the instrumental role of these three groups of people in temple festivals in the Shangdang region. A Registered Household of Entertainers is usually affiliated with one or more ritual communities (*she*) to perform at temple festivals, although they also perform in domestic ceremonies such as funerals, weddings and anniversaries. Traditionally affiliated with the three Jiacun Worship Associations is the Assembly of Eight Sounds' (*Bayin hui* 八音會) (Figure 24), headed by Wang Jinzhi 王 進枝 (Figure 25), the eighth-generation inheritor of the Wang Registered Household of Entertainers of Xiliu 西流, a village about twenty-five kilometres northeast of Jiacun (Wang 2016a).

Village festivals also involve various ritual attendants and assistants such as Carriers of Spirit Tablets (*tingzi* 亭子), Carriers of Food Offerings in the Courtyard (*tingzi* 庭子), Canopy-Holders (*weizi* 帷子), Escorts of Offering Cups (*yazhan* 押盞), Incense Elders (*xianglao* 香老), Incense Masters (*sixiang* 司香), Tea Masters (*sicha* 司茶), Wine Masters (*sijiu* 司 酒), Candle Masters (*sizhu* 司蠟), Water Attendants (*shuiguan* 水倌), Banner-Holders (*zhiqi* 執旗), Umbrella-Holders (*sanfu* 傘夫), Carriers of Sedan Chairs (*jiaofu* 轎夫) and Ceremonial Guards (*yizhang* 儀仗). Apart from them, there are also numerous procurement personnel (*caimai* 採買) and odd-jobbers (*qinza* 勤雜) involved in the festivals.

**Figure 21.** Song Yusheng Who Plays Mapi in Jiacun Temple Festivals.

**Figure 22.** Mapi in Procession.

**Figure 23.** Food Offerings in the Incense Pavilion.

**Figure 24.** The Assembly of Eight Sounds from Xiliu Village.

**Figure 25.** Wang Jinzhi, Head of the Assembly of Eight Sounds from Xiliu Village.
