Dimen Village- an enclave nestled in the mountains of Guizhou, in Southwest China is home to five clans and 528 households of the Dong minority. The Dong people, who have persisted in the valley for over a thousand years, have no written form of their language- which is commonly compared to the song of cicadas that dance through the fields and mountains near the village. Seasoned elder women, simply called Za, sing the songs of the village, and teach it to all the village children- most are able to sing a Capella, in rhythm and in key by age 5. However, it is reported that only one living women can sing the entire hours-long saga of the Dong people. Many fear that the traditional stories and songs sung by the za will be forever forgotten with an increasingly disinterested youth who label the historic songs as boring and passé.
The Dong people also rely heavily on Feng Shui masters who cleanse the disheveled spirits that often haunt and plague the village. In an excerpt from "Village on the Edge of Time," published in the May 2008 edition of National Geographic Magazine, Amy Tan recounts a divination ritual preformed to restore harmony in Dimen after a tragic fire and other unfortunate events. Below, blindfolded men, in a trance- ride ghost horses to Yin, the underworld, in search of the cause of events, hoping that upon emergence, they will be able to restore Dimen to a more tranquil place.
"During Spring Festival, and for the first time since 1979, the village would be cleansed again by the same ceremony, Guo Yin—“Pass into the World of Yin.” In the dim light of an assembly hall, 11 blindfolded men sat on black benches. The Chief Feng Shui Master called out incantations from the Book of Shadows. As fragrant rattan burned under the benches, assistants gave the men a rope of twisted straw to hold at both ends. More incantations were murmured, two bells rang, bowls of wine were stirred, and the 11 men slapped their bouncing knees, as if goading a horse to move forward. Soon they were galloping in a frenzy, and the oldest of them, a 73-year-old man, whinnied like a spooked horse, shot up, and leaped backward onto the bench. He had mounted a ghost horse and was racing toward the World of Yin. Assistants kept the frenzied rider from falling. Soon more riders mounted their ghost horses. The Chief Feng Shui Master sprayed water from his mouth to light the way. With more incantations the ghost-horse riders could go to deeper levels. At each level they could see more.
In 1979 the riders had gone to the 19th level, where they saw their dead mothers and fathers. Stay with us, their parents urged. If a Feng Shui Master provided the wrong incantation, the riders would not return. This time, the master would take them no further than the 13th level. It was still possible for them to find the illegal burials. At that level they could also see the backs of maidens, the Seven Sisters, as beautiful as fairies. Chase them, the Chief Feng Shui Master said, to urge them to go farther into the underworld.
That day the riders discovered where the illegal burial lay. After the ceremony they left the hall and walked to a slope that was shaped like the back of a comfortable sofa. At the top of the sofa was a small rice field, and buried several feet into its wall was a large ball with a thick crust. Unlike the Eldest Son of the fire starter, someone had placed the happiness of ancestors above that of the village. It must have been the doings of a greedy family from another village. The Chief Feng Shui Master broke the ball open, removed the ashes, and mixed them with rice wine, pig and human feces, and tung oil. The mess was thrown into the public latrine, and those ancestors who had once occupied the best place were now stuck forever in the worst."
(photo credits, Lynn Johnson)
Read the full text here.
Listen to the "Cicada Song," which won the silver medal of Natural Singing Style on the 12th National Youth Singing Contest hosted by CCTV in 2006. So awesome.
