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A vernacular way of “safeguarding”intangible heritage: the fall and rise ofrituals in Gouliang Miao villageHua Yua

a Institute of Linguistics, Shanghai International StudiesUniversity, Hongkou Campus, Dalian West Rd. 550, Shanghai200083, ChinaPublished online: 09 Jul 2015.

To cite this article: Hua Yu (2015): A vernacular way of “safeguarding” intangible heritage: thefall and rise of rituals in Gouliang Miao village, International Journal of Heritage Studies, DOI:10.1080/13527258.2015.1048813

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A vernacular way of “safeguarding” intangible heritage: the falland rise of rituals in Gouliang Miao village

Hua Yu*

Institute of Linguistics, Shanghai International Studies University, Hongkou Campus,Dalian West Rd. 550, Shanghai 200083, China

(Received 12 August 2014; final version received 3 May 2015)

This paper documents a vernacular method of interpreting and safeguardingintangible heritage in an ethnic Miao village in China. Tracing the conflictingdiscourses of ritual in different stages of the past and the present, it shows howritual practices were transformed by imperial Qing officials in the mid-nineteenthcentury, demonised and denounced as feudal superstition during the CulturalRevolution (1966–1976), exploited as cultural resources for ethnic tourism sincethe early twentieth century and involved in the evaluation system of intangiblecultural heritage in the twenty-first century. Based on ethnographic materials col-lected in 2008 and 2009, this paper argues that it is the inherited vernacularnarratives and ritual performances that are negotiating with the state’s constanteffort of shaping the ritual through various discourses, constructing the meaningof inheritance and safeguarding the intangible heritage within the community.

Keywords: ritual performance; vernacular way of safeguarding; intangibleheritage; local community

Introduction

In the UNESCO Convention on the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Her-itage (2003), rituals are listed as one of the forms of ‘intangible cultural heritage’(ICH) to be ‘safeguarded’ in Article 2.2 of the convention. P.R. China ratified theconvention in 2004 and passed the Law of Intangible Cultural Heritage Preservationin 2011, clearly listing ritual as a practice afforded legal protection. Before this lawwas enacted in China, rituals have undergone regular transformation since the Qingdynasty. Since the importation of the discourse of ‘intangible heritage’, ritual hasgradually gained its due respect in public discourses. The term ‘safeguarding’ isdefined in Article 2.3 of UNESCO 2013 Convention as meaning:

… measures aimed at ensuring the viability of the intangible cultural heritage, includ-ing the identification, documentation, research, preservation, protection, promotion,enhancement, transmission, particularly through formal and non-formal education, aswell as the revitalization of the various aspects of such heritage. (italicized by theauthor)

The measures to safeguard intangible heritage require experts who know how torecognise and document ‘intangible heritage’, and to tease it out of the myriadintangible cultural expressions in a messy sea of everyday life. It also requires

*Email: yuhua@shisu.edu.cn

© 2015 Hua Yu

International Journal of Heritage Studies, 2015Published with license by Taylor & Francis.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13527258.2015.1048813

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officials and experts who should know how to research, preserve, protect, promote,enhance, transmit, educate and revitalise various aspects of heritage to fulfil therequirements of their job. Safeguarding seems to be a game dominated by theexperts, officials and volunteers who are responsible for the evaluation and selectionprocess. Kurin (2004, 74) pointed out that the actions the Convention proposes ‘missthe larger, holistic aspect of culture – the very characteristic that makes cultureintangible’. The holistic approach necessarily involves a subtle understanding of ‘theintricate and complex web of meaningful social actions undertaken by individuals,groups and institutions’ (Kurin 2004, 75). The ‘intangible’ nature of the heritagerenders this official ‘safeguarding’ process, especially the nomination and evalua-tion, even more tricky (Kurin 2004, 70; Seeger 2009). There are cases that show thewell-intentioned ‘safeguarding’ resulted in some debacles. The embarrassmentgenerated by these ‘good intentions’ has been a focus of scholars’ attention. Kurin(2002, 145) pointed out that the ‘ethnographic literature documents many cases inwhich well-intentioned efforts to help actually harmed local traditions’. The vernacu-lar way of interpreting and safeguarding the local intangible heritage is differentfrom the governments’, which follow the international and national conventions andpractices of tourism professionals (Grydehøj 2010, 77). Blake (2009, 45) proposesthat cultural communities, groups and individuals associated with ICH should begiven the central role, as per the 2003 Convention. In search of an alternative wayof interpreting intangible heritage, this paper focuses on the vernacular practices of‘safeguarding’ and interpreting the intangible heritage, from the past to the present,in a Miao village. The study covers both before and after the Convention’s interven-tion, showing a constant power struggle and dynamic balancing between the nationstate and the local community. As a tentative attempt to identify vernacular ways ofapproaching and inheriting ritual, this paper intends to invite reflections on the link-ages, as well as discontinuities, between how the ritual was named and shaped as inthe national and international discourses, and the vernacular way of experiencingand inheriting the ritual in the local ritualists’ narrations. The tone of my argumentharmonises with critical perspectives on heritage as experts’ discursive games, whichare ‘alienating the local communities from their own cultural resources’ (Bellocq2006; Oakes 2013). I am primarily interested in reflecting on the complexities of themanipulation, preservation, and inheritances of the ritual performances, both in thestate’s and the locals’ discourses and narrations. This is also an exploration of a cul-turally specific approach to understanding a vernacular way of safeguarding andinheriting intangible heritage, if ICH can indeed be ‘safeguarded’.

Established in 1957, West Hunan Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture is anethnic area in South West China. With the Tujia and Miao ethnic groups constituting77% of its total population, this prefecture was the only part of Hunan to beincluded in China’s Western Development Programme, which was inaugurated in2000. The Hunan provincial government regards it as the ‘main battlefield for pov-erty alleviation’ and a key area for regional development. Ethnic tourism, hailed as asolution to slow economic growth, is one of its significant projects to develop theprefecture (McKhann 2010, 183). The government website and roadside billboardspromoted West Hunan as a land of Mystique and as ‘China’s Best Tourist Destina-tion’. As parts of these initiatives, the towns and villages were encouraged toexplore their rituals and customs as cultural resources and a means to relieve pov-erty. Gouliang village, the largest Miao village in Fenghuang town in West Hunan,was engaged in the exploitation of cultural resources in 2002. Villagers in Gouliang

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were quick to point out that the name Fenghuang was derived from FenghuangMountain in Gouliang, which resembles the shape of a Phoenix.

Fenghuang was nominated as a ‘national historical and cultural town’ in 2001.Its fame, however, predated the national nomination. A renowned painter and writer,Huang Yongyu, claimed that his old friend, the New Zealand writer Rewi Alley, hadtwice praised the place as one of the two most beautiful small towns in China(Huang 1998, 127). Fenghuang, as a phrase, has been popularly used in weddingcouplets calling for a harmonious marriage. The presentation of Feng (the malephoenix) and Huang (the female phoenix) would predict an auspicious omen to thestate according to The Book of Rites (Liji) which can be traced back to 51–21 BC(trans. Legge 2010). In 1920, an influential early modern China revolutionary scho-lar and poet, Guo Moruo, borrowed the legend of the phoenix from the Arab andpublished a poem, The Nirvana of a Phoenix, to symbolise the rebirth of China aswell as the rebirth of himself in the new China (Chen 2008, 59). Since then, theimage of the phoenix that was reborn from the burning ashes has been widely publi-cised and distributed in China. Metaphorically, the phoenix is used in this paper toepitomise the ritual cultures of the Miao area that descended into poverty and tur-moil during the Daoguang period (1820–1850) of the Qing dynasty; were then dis-missed as superstition during the May Fourth Movement (1919) and the CulturalRevolution (1966–1976); and rebounded in strength in the name of religion in the1980s, spreading their wings in the name of ethnic tourism and the safeguarding ofICH after 2004.

The fall and rise of ritual in the Miao village, from the eighteenth-century lateQing to twenty-first-century Peoples’ Republic of China, represents the main shiftsin the interaction between state and ordinary people in manipulating, preserving andsafeguarding cultural heritage. While the rituals underwent transformation during thelate Qing dynasty and Cultural Revolution, they have, since the 1990s, been turnedinto cultural commodities to be sold, and ‘intangible cultural heritage’, to be evalu-ated and safeguarded. This paper aims to examine the ramifications of the ritualsfound in different state discourses and the vernacular ways of ‘safeguarding’ therituals in everyday life. It aims to gauge how, and to what extent, ethnic Miao ritualpractices were transformed under the coercion of the Qing state, and the ideologicalupheavals of the state during the Cultural Revolution; whether the publicly stated‘Socialist Spiritual Civilization’ actually disciplined ritual practices in local contexts;whether popular ritual can maintain its sacredness in a commercial atmosphere; andwhether the standardised categorizations of ‘intangible cultural heritage’ (ICH) canembrace the vernacular way of ‘safeguarding’ the ritual in people’s everyday livesand whether ritual performances can maintain their vitality in rapidly developingChina? How do the vernacular narratives maintain their inherited ritual life in thetravelling instrumental discourses that are trying to turn ritual into a tool of eco-nomic development and cultural regulation?

Research methods

This research is based on an intermittent three-month fieldwork in 2008 and 2009.During the three-month period, the author was an acting primary school teacher, andan acting tourists’ guide in Miao costume in the village during her summer vacation.During the fieldwork, a good relationship was established between the author andthe ritualists’ daughters and sons. Gradually, the ritualists came to accept the

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author’s interviewing and observation. The interviews and conversations wereconducted at the ritualists’ dining room, in the ritualists’ yard and on the way to afuneral.

This paper draws on numerous narratives recounted by the ritualists in the vil-lage, which can activate a vernacular mode of meaning-making of the ritual inheri-tance in their everyday life, and offer an alternative method of understanding thesignificance of ritual as intangible heritage in its immediate cultural context (Smith2006; Stephens 2014). The narratives of their ritual experiences construct why andhow they hold and inherit this ritual tradition in their rural life, and thus a sense ofbelonging to place and the community (Tuan 1991). It also draws on texts from thelocal gazetteers from the past, to understand the ritual status quo in the present.Specifically, this paper interweaves fragments of the past and the present texts toembrace the narrative of ritualists’ practices and lives in a subtle, transparent andcritical way (Wu and Yu 2011; Wu 2014).

Miao ritual and poverty in early modern China

The tension between the central government’s control over the ritual and localcommunity’s vernacular beliefs and ritual practices were already in evidence in theeighteenth century when the Qing empire started to legitimate the expansion of itsterritory, and sought to include the lords of different ethnic and linguistic groups inits rule (Hevia 1995). Hostetler (2000, 624) interpreted the use of ethnographic andcartographic representation of the Miao community as instrumental for ‘the buildingof empire within the context of the early modern world’ to facilitate Qing adminis-tration. The topics and perspectives in the ethnographic inquiry in gazetteers andalbums ‘tended to correspond to those realms of life where prescribed ritual (li)practices determined what was civilised according to Chinese Confucian culture’(Deal and Hostetler 2006, xli).

In the local gazetteers, the Miao were said to fear ghosts and to believe only inwizards. Neo-Confucian court officials and bureaucrats of the Qing dynasty recordedthis information in the category of ‘Defence against Miao’. The records inFenghuang Gazetteer ([1824] 2011, 199), described the Miao and made the pointthat the Miao tended to diagnose health conditions as being caused by ghosts, callon wizards to pray, and make wine and slaughter oxen in attempts to cure disease.Poverty, wrongdoing and turmoil among the Miao were, in the discourse of Qingcourt officials, ascribed to this fear of ghosts and reliance on witchcraft. A Qing offi-cial, Fu Nai (1758–1811), reported to his superior that Miao, brought up on the wildfrontier, were mistrustful and afraid of ghosts, and invited wizards to slaughter anox and gather a crowd to share the ox whenever they suffered illness or disaster; thisis called zuo gui (dealing with the ghosts). Fu Nai reported,

During autumn and winter, licentious sacrifice enjoyed great popularity among almostevery family, the smaller ones attracting crowds of hundreds from neighboring villages,the larger ones gathering thousands of Miao even from neighboring provinces. Thewizards’ rambling divinations impressed the gullible. This madness was the cause ofthe trouble facing the Miao. Every autumn they arbitrarily killed their oxen and in thenext spring they had none to help with the plowing. Then they went out to sell theirbelongings to buy another ox, heading into poverty and distress. Sacrifice and slaughterof oxen for the ghosts were the real cause of destruction among the Miao. Nai educatedand enlightened them and issued a prohibition. The officials in the village reached anagreement and knew the responsibility of obeying the rules. Within one year thousands

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of oxen survived, which benefited agriculture and diminished the evils of poverty. TheMiao’s life is turning comfortably well. They realize that their behaviour in the pastcaused loss rather than benefit. They all regretted. The wizards have also changedtheir trade. The custom in Miao was suddenly transformed.1 Fu ([1824] 2011,199–200)

In Fu Nai’s discussion of the Miao ritual, wizards and ritualists were negativecharacters who uttered and spread rumours to fool the crowds and conduct the ritualto slaughter the oxen. Their ritual performance zuo gui (dealing with the ghosts), inwhich the oxen were slaughtered, was called licentious sacrifice (yin si). In the tradi-tional Chinese ritual book Liji, ‘A sacrifice which is not proper to offer and whichyet is offered is called a licentious sacrifice. A licentious sacrifice brings no bless-ing’ (Legge 1885, 116). Educated in Confucian culture, Fu Nai judged the Miao’sritual to be licentious, and connected the Miao’s with their sacrificial practice ofslaughtering oxen and sharing it with the villagers. The Qing official system and thelogic of Confucian ritual mandated that oxen should only be used in sacrifices fordeceased sons of heaven (emperors), feudal princes or great officials.2. However, inthe Miao area, oxen were sacrificed and shared among the villagers to repel mereailments regardless of the social identity and hierarchical status of the patient. Notinclined to understand this as a cultural difference, Fu Nai directly attributed thepoverty of the Miao regioin to their ritual of zuogui. Accordingly, he ordained thatthe solution to poverty relief was to discontinue the ritual and to transform Miaocustom (Sutton 2000). Fu Nai in his report to the emperor emphasised his success inchanging the ritualists’ trade and transforming the ritual practice in the Miao area,further proposing to punish those who continued the ritual.

Since Fu Nai’s strict policy, the ritual zuogui, in which an ox could be killed andshared among the villagers has been shortened, from the original 14 days to the pre-sent 7, 5 or 3 days. The Chinese state is thought to have a long history of position-ing itself as a legitimate authority over religious matters, creating an administrativespace for religion (Asad 1993; Potter 2003; Brook 2009). Oakes and Sutton (2010,14), however, argue that the imperial state itself was a ‘religious’ entity and reliedon local deities to assist in the maintenance of local order. In the case of the Miao,the Qing emperor’s tight control over the local Miao’s ritual life accordingly, isasserted not in the name of religious propriety, but in the name of poverty relief.

Rituals struggling to survive in the modern state

In modern (1840–1919) and contemporary Chinese history (1919–present), conven-tional and folk ritual as a whole has declined almost to the point of extinction in everysphere of Chinese culture and life. To pave the way for modernity (famously identi-fied with ‘democracy and science’ by Chen Duxiu) in China, traditional Chinese cul-ture, especially ritual, was systematically denounced as feudalistic remains andsuperstitious practice in the New Culture and May Fourth movements (1916–19).The New Culture Movement promoted the elimination of ‘tradition, Confucianism,and classical language’, leading to the rupture of traditional Chinese culture. ChenDuxiu, the first General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), stated thatritual (li) embodied feudalistic morality and ways of life that would wither away bynatural selection. Chen fought fiercely against li to pave the way for modern westernideologies in China. Lu Xun hinted in the ‘Diary of a Madman’ that li (ritual) was adeeply rooted, traditional ‘cannibalism’ in China. Wu Yu published a paper entitled

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‘Cannibalism and Li’, accusing li of devouring humanity. Hu Shi, one of the leadersin New Culture Movement and the President of Peking University, praised Wu Yu as‘an old hero who singled-handedly overthrew Confucianism’.3. Through the move-ment of ‘Destroying the Four Olds’–old ideas, cultures, rituals, and habits, and themovement of ‘Criticising Confucius’ during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976),Chinese ritual tradition has been expunged from the ideological and political domainin the process of Chinese modernisation (Hu 2011, 61). Feuchtwang and Wang (1991,253) also identify the period of ‘unconditional condemnation of religion and old cus-toms as feudal superstition in the decade of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76)’ andascribe it to the Marxist epistemology. They point out that the experts use the conceptof ‘health’ as a scientific guise for a moral judgement, and classified some popularreligious practices as ‘bad customs and habits’ (buliang fengsu xiguan) (Feuchtwangand Wang 1991, 254).

The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) did not leave Gouliang village untouched.Two main ritualists were sent to ‘study classes’ in Phoenix County and all theirritual books were confiscated and burnt. Ritualist Wu Jinzhi told us of his father’sexperience with great interest and some pride during our casual conversation,

When they returned from the ‘study class’, the official followed them home. The offi-cial said, ‘If you still have any book or utensils, hand them in.’ They had submitted allthe books. Ritualist Wu Zhengzhong said, ‘I do have some.’ The official was surprisedand said, ‘You still have some? Where are they? Where do you hide them?’ RitualistWu Zhengzhong replied, ‘In a very good place. They are all hidden in my stomach. Ifyou want them, come over and open it.’ Those officials could do nothing with him,since he had learnt it all by heart. (Interview Note 2009)

In the 1980s, the local government issued religious certificates for the ritual special-ists. Ritual performances were allowed some legitimate space. Ritualists at that timecould apply to the West Hunan Regional Administration for Religious Affairs for acertificate to perform rituals legally. Ritualist Wu Jinzhi said his father Ritualist WuZhengzhong (1922–2008) and his colleagues gathered together and rewrote the ritualbooks according from memory. The ritual books Ritualist Wu Jinzhi currently usesare mostly his father’s manuscripts (see Figure 1). However, we can infer from thecontent and style of the texts that they are similar to ‘surviving’ texts from neigh-bouring areas, such as Guizhou. Another set of books left by Ritualist Wu Zhang-quan’s father were damaged by bookworms and deserted and neglected at the cornerof his bookshelf. The two groups of ritualists who currently service the village sharethe ritual texts recollected by their fathers.

The young Ritualist Wu Tianchi plays a more active role in collecting new textsfrom his colleagues in the religious community in Phoenix County when he isinvited to join their ritual performances. While still in primary school, he learnt theritual from his grandfather because his father was not allowed to learn it during theCultural Revolution (1966–1976). A popular anecdote has it that once in a Chineselanguage lesson, he bent over the desk and recited loudly the ritual texts in the class-room. He quit Primary School at 11 and began to learn the traditional Chinesecharacters in the ritual texts from his grandfather. He learnt ritual performance inreal-life situations – for example, at funerals. At the age of 12 or so, his grandfatherbrought him along to a burial to perform the ritual. Ritualist Wu recollected, ‘I wasnervous and scared at that time’. Naquin (1990, 57) also noted in her ethnographythat in North China that there was ‘no systematic training for the ritual special-ists besides apprenticeship, no set canon of their books, and no fixed set of

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responsibilities’. As a process of both practising and learning (bian zuo bian xue),Ritualist Wu Tianchi is still learning and inheriting the esoteric art of chanting andperforming the ritual from his colleagues in the neighbouring villages and countieswhen he is invited to join their ritual performances in the wider areas in Hunan andGuizhou provinces.

Whether the state approved of the ritual performances or not, ritual specialistscould manage a way to inherit the trade from generation to generation in differentdiscourses, such as the wise response of putting the texts in the stomach. There is aproverb in modern China that could explain the policy appropriation and imple-mentation process, ‘Up, there is policy. Bottom, there is countermeasure’ (shang youzheng ce, xia you dui ce). This public secret, widely known and used among theritual specialists, and even rural officials, shows the constant negotiation betweenthe vernacular power and state discourses.

A free ritual space beyond conflicting state discourses

In 1993, the Chinese Cultural Revival Movement was initiated; by 2010, it hadgained a nationwide reach to encourage the restoration of traditional Chinese culture.In 2013, China’s President Xi Jinping visited Confucius’ hometown Qufu, and

Figure 1. Ritualist Wu’s father rewrote the ritual texts from memory in the 1980s when ille-gal ‘superstition’ had been resurrected as legal ‘religion’. Now they belong to Ritualist WuJinzhi’s inherited collection.

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proposed that traditional Chinese culture should be forcefully promoted. At thenational level, Confucianism seems to be officially endorsed by a socialist govern-ment instead of being demonised and demolished, as it was previously. At the locallevel, Gouliang village was nominated to become an ‘Ethnic Cultural Village’ in2002, and at the same time encouragement was given to develop ethnic tourism inthe village. However, the state discourse of transforming the local traditional cus-toms persists, and still seeks to penetrate popular ritual practices. The May FourthMovement’s ‘modernist’ instrumental rationality and secularism thus linger on.

The following textual analysis will show how the traditional transformative andeducational power of ritual and custom was turned into the object of transformationby the socialist administrative discourses. A large billboard entitled ‘Village Rulesand Folk Covenants’ (cungui minyue) hangs on the wall of one of the tourist sites,an old mansion of the so-called ‘Miao King’. The second floor of the mansionhouses the offices for the Gouliang village administrative officials and cadres. Theserules and folk covenants prescribed what the villagers should and should not do.Under the third category, ‘village customs’ (cunfeng minsu), six requirements areproposed concerning socialist spiritual civilisation, red and white happy events.4

keeping away from feudalism and superstition, building a civilised and sanitary vil-lage, building private houses according to the village plan, attracting investment andbringing in funding.

The first rule reads, ‘Promote socialist spiritual civilization. Move the wind andtransform the customs. Oppose feudalistic superstition and other uncivilised beha-viour. Set up good customs and habits’. The national political discourse of ‘socialistspiritual civilization’ was cited at the very beginning to regulate the villagers’ habit-ual behaviour in their customary practices. Deng Xiaoping suggested the state dis-course of ‘socialist spiritual civilization’ in order to complement the discourse of‘socialist material civilization’ in October 1979. While material civilisation repre-sents economic development, spiritual civilisation stands for ‘the modernization ofthe Chinese citizenry itself, focusing on moral, cultural and ideological “advance-ment”’ (Dynon 2008, 88). Ritual practices must therefore develop under the bannerof spiritual civilisation, public morality (gongde), patriotic spirit (aiguo zhuyijingshen), collectivism ( jiti zhuyi) and the ‘four haves’ (siyou), i.e. ideals, morality,culture and discipline. The multiplicity of meanings that emerge as times change hasbeen updated on the village board.

The evolution and interlinkage of these ‘civilising’ discourses may provide anindication of this. The ‘four haves’ (siyou) were originally promoted in every sphereof Chinese life, but were later included in Jiang Zemin’s political ideas during thelate 1990s; the civilising narrative subsumed all-round progress (quanmian jinbu),an all-round well-off society (quanmian xiaokang shehui), good civil manners(renkou suzhi), education in proper conduct (suzhi jiaoyu) and rule by virtue (dezhi).Hu Jintao incorporated the socialist spiritual civilisation discourse into his notion of‘scientific development’ (kexue fazhanguan) in 2003, and later in ‘harmonious soci-ety’ (hexie shehui) in 2004. As Dynon said after his systematic analysis of the dis-cursive function of ‘civilization’ within CCP ideology,

Civilization theory (albeit often in its most unsophisticated forms) finds itself replicatedin innumerable, diverse and often spontaneous ways, providing a coding for both pre-scribing and describing ways of acting, doing, and being – from bodily functions togoverning the people. (Dynon 2008, 109)

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The powerful state discourse of ‘socialist spiritual civilization’ is positioned asthe first sentence to legitimise the action of ‘transforming the customs’. It is fol-lowed by the four-character idiom ‘move the wind and transform the custom’(yifeng yisu), which means ‘foreign or barbarian “winds” and “customs” could betransformed’ (Sterckx 2000, 5) by the ‘socialist spiritual civilization’ in this context.After the thorough exegetical analysis of the character 風 (feng wind) Sterckx(2000, 31) noticed that ‘“wind” or “air” is presented as a generative agent thatbegets through transformation’. In the Great Preface (Da Xu) to Shijing (The Bookof Poems), ‘“Feng” means the wind; it means teaching. With the wind, [things orpeople] are moved; with teaching, [things or people] are transformed (hua)’ (Cook1997, 28). The ancient context of this idiom was in the discussion of music, whichshared the same aim with the discourse of ‘socialist spiritual civilization’ – govern-ing the people. Confucius said, ‘In putting at ease those above and governing thepeople, nothing is better than ritual. In altering customs and changing habits, nothingis better than music’ (Cook 1995, 3). As well he also stated, ‘Thus when Music iscarried out, human relations are clarified, ears and eyes are perspicacious, blood andenergy are harmonious and even, habits are altered and customs are changed, and allunder Heaven is peaceful’ (Cook 1995, 121). Cook understood Chinese ritual andmusic as political notions, rather than the aesthetic duality of Apollo/Dionysus ofthe Greek world. Inspired by Yueji (the Book of Music), Cook (1995, 14) perceivedthe ritual and music as ‘the two most important tools for the enlightened ruler withwhich to govern the populace’. He brings Chinese ritual and music into dialoguewith western political and discursive expressions and renders the idiom yifeng yisuin its music context more intelligible for the modern Chinese when he writes,

While the differentiation imposed by Ritual is needed to allow society to properlyfunction, the harmonizing power of Music is needed to ensure that Ritual does not leadto estrangement. Conversely, the ideal Music is that which itself exhibits the charac-teristics of Ritual – a well-balanced society should function like a well-balanced pieceof music, in which each member maintains its position in such a way as to allow forthe harmonious operation of the whole. (Cook 1995, 14)

The contemporary political discourse ‘socialist spiritual civilization’ is hybridisedwith the voice from the past (yifeng yisu) to communicate the transforming power ofpolitical discourse. Ironically, the original content of yifeng yisu, which is ritual andmusic, have been marginalised as ‘custom’, some of which have been demonised as‘feudalistic superstition’. Thus, the ritual and music are transformed into somethingaesthetic. Traditional and socialist spiritual civiliation attempts to fill in the blanksand take on the function of making a harmonious society. This may be understoodin terms of Lévi-Strauss’s bricolage (1966), a concoction of discourses already ladenwith significance from the conflicting realms of the state and ritual (Chao 1999,513).

Following yifeng yisu is the slogan of ‘opposing feudalistic superstition and otheruncivilised behaviours’ on the village publicising board. The sentence ends with‘building up good folk “wind” and village “wind”’. The two characters fengjian(feudalism) have been generalised and demonised as the equivalence of backward-ness, stupidity, barbarian performances and some other adjective antonyms of pro-gress and modernity in modern China. Thus, it was naturally something to beopposed and eradicated all over China since the May Fourth Movement of 1919. Onthe basis of a historical and cultural semantic study of the two characters feng jian

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feudal, Feng (2007) traces its travelling meanings and semantic transformations incultural conflict, and shows how the name of an institution has historically beenturned into the name of an historic period, the judgemental phrase to generaliseChinese culture, and the equivalent of backwardness, the synonym of lack of civil-isation and barbarism. Wu (2008) pointed out that the feudalism discourse pene-trated the whole process of transforming modern Chinese language as well ascultural values, obtaining a power to dominate Chinese culture and its interpretation.He argued that: ‘Such a discourse is irrelevant to Chinese tradition and in sharp con-flict with the history composed under the influence of Yijing’ (Book of Changes)(Wu 2008, 527). The travels and transformation of the meaning rendered the phrasefengjian mixin (feudalistic superstition), a ‘naturalised’ entity in everyday Chineselanguage. Feudalistic superstition and uncivilised behaviours thus become concate-nated strings under the controlling power of a feudalistic discourse. The traditionalritual discourses and performances were turned into the objects to be opposed anderadicated in public discourses.

Following the guiding discourse of ‘opposing feudalistic superstition and otheruncivilised behaviours’, the second sentence on the board specifies the rituals to betransformed. It reads:

In case of red and white happy event, the happy event should be carried out in a newway and the funeral should be held in a simple way. Break away from old rules andcustoms. Oppose extravagance and waste. Oppose making it a big deal.

Confucius also preferred frugal to opulent rituals. When asked about the root ofritual by Lin Fang, Confucius exclaimed, ‘What a noble question! When it comes toritual, it is better to be spare than extravagant. When it comes to mourning, it is bet-ter to be excessively sorrowful than fastidious’ (Slingerland 2003, 18). In acceptingthe sparing form of ritual, the state was emphasising the material waste, whileConfucius cares more about the emotion involved in the ritual. Ritual, which wasoriginally used to transform the people together with music, is now the object oftransformation itself. The state issued the regulations to simplify the life ritual prac-tices in the name of frugality, without considering the ritual meaning in every perfor-mance of the ritual, not to say emotional involvement in it.

However, the state’s regulations and rules pasted on the wall are mostly nominaland posturing. They mainly serve to signal compliance in the event of inspectionsby superior officials. Paradoxically pasted on the wall of the old mansion, which isalso a tourist destination, it is difficult to tell who will actually read it seriously. Thestate’s discourses of simplifying and transforming rituals appeared to claim para-mount authority in imperative sentences. Yet they are situated in a place aiming forthe tourists to gaze and to have fun. Very few villagers would be interested in goingto the office to read the regulations. Thus, the state actually holds a loose controlover the ritual practices in the individual’s everyday life. Also, in the name ofdeveloping ethnic culture tourism, the local government actually encouraged thepopular ritual practices, rather than seeking to control them. Ashiwa (2009, 59)noted that, ‘activities involving popular beliefs that are acknowledged as having“historical” and “cultural” value are permitted so long as they are defined as “cul-tural” rather than “religious”’. Oakes and Sutton further addressed the trick playedby the local government to allow a free space of ritual practice. They wrote, ‘Re-framing religious sites as tourism destinations allows the local state to reconfigure alocal popular belief with questionable “superstitious” attributes as a “local custom”

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with cultural and historical value’ (Oakes and Sutton 2010, 16). Further to this, asthe local officials are also among those living in the local culture, some of them didbelieve that their rise to the post of government official was due to the blessing ofthe local deities, according to the ritualists who helped perform corresponding ritualsto bring blessings to their families.

Rituals as tourism commodity and intangible heritage

Gouliang has been included in the provincial project of ‘Ethnic Culture Village’ andhas received corresponding financial support from the government to develop villagetourism since 2002. The cultural strategies of development have resulted in pri-vatisation of the village, as the site of struggles over ownership of lucrative culturalproduction and the source of corruption at the village-level governance in China’sreform era (Oakes 2006, 34). Gouliang was set up as a model village and ‘ethnicculture demonstration project’ by the Ethnic Affairs Commission of Hunan Pro-vince, and was claimed to have achieved notable results with the revenue ofentrance tickets totalling over 100,000 RMB.5 As ethnic tourism failed when it wasmanaged in the name of the village, the village CCP secretary proposed to contractthe village tourism business to a businessman. A local businessman established atourism company to cater for tourism. Most of the officials of the village are share-holders of the company. The company designed the welcoming rituals at the artifi-cial ‘entrance’ of the village and trained 10 teenagers in the village to perform themto welcome the tourists. The same group of teenagers was also trained to performMiao dances and drum sessions during public performance hours every day.

Among the performances for the tourists, the tourism company has always publi-cised the performance ‘climbing up the knife ladders and jumping into the fire sea’as part of Miao wizard cultural mystique and a unique Miao stunt in West Hunan.The performances of ‘climbing the knife ladder’ (shang dao shan), in which thebarefooted ritualist climbs up a ladder, the rungs of which are knives, and ‘jumpinginto the sea of fire’ (xia huo hai), in which the ritualist steps barefoot onto a red hotiron board are the grand finale in every single Miao culture performance for tourists.The ‘risky’ and ‘adventurous’ performances attract the tourists’ gaze. The tourismcompany appropriates them as climaxes to the ethnic cultural show in order not tolet the tourists down. For, while they may not be interested in Miao dances anddrums, they are invariably startled by the stunts and eager to record them with thecamera. Some of them even left their seats and walked close to the ritualists toobserve the knife and hot iron closely, and comment how extraordinary the perfor-mance is. On hearing the scorching sound of burning skin, some tourists dare notwatch the ritualist’s feet step on the hot iron and turn their heads around with vexedexpressions. Some stare at the performances with open mouths. The anguishedexhilaration among the tourists is the intended effect of this performance.

The same Daoism performance of ‘climbing up the knife ladders and jumpinginto the sea of fire’ has been included in the intangible heritage representative workat the West Hunan Prefecture level, in the category of ‘acrobatics and aesthetics’(Huang 2012, 173). There are altogether 107 instances of intangible heritage recog-nised at the prefecture level. The prefecture government allocates funds of one mil-lion CNY every year to preserve and protect intangible heritage. However, themoney tends to flow to the application process, and the expenditure of invitingexperts to write up the application report to bid for the next and higher level in the

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intangible heritage programme. The acknowledged inheritor will get only a 800CNY grant per year, which is not an effective stimulus for the young to inherit theskills (Huang 2012, 174).

The performance of ‘climbing up the knife ladder and jumping into the sea offire’ was and is an indispensable part of the hereditary ritual practice qian ga, whichis an initiation ritual for the young to inherit the family altar and become anacknowledged and authorised ritualist in the area. As a ritual for identity transforma-tion, the ritualist-to-be demonstrated extraordinary skills to mark the transition per-iod (Turner 1967). As demonstrated in the above case, local officials and tourismcompanies market what might be called local religion as ‘mysterious wizard culture’in tourism and ‘acrobatics’ in intangible heritage, selecting portions suited for dis-play in onstage or offstage performances, and augmenting them with mysterious ele-ments. Oakes and Sutton (2010) argued that when religious spaces are opened fortourism, the experience is meant to be thoroughly secular. For the tourists as well asthe heritage experts and investigators, this selected experience is indeed secularsince it is named ‘acrobatics’. However, for the ritualist who is performing on theknife ladder, it is not a simple performance on stage. Ritualist Ma, who performedthe ‘knife ladder and fire sea’ twice every day in Gouliang, said: ‘Every time Iclimbed to the top of the knife pole (7 m high) and blew the ox horn, the image ofmy deceased master came into my mind. I beg for his blessings’. As Ritualist Madid not have an altar in his family, he is not an authorised ritualist in the eyes oflocal villagers. He admitted that he did not have the spirit troops to protect himwhile blowing the ox horn as the hereditary ritualist would. However, he believesthat the spirit of his deceased master is protecting him and watching him every timehe climbs up the knife ladder (see Figure 2). The reverent and sacred sense of feel-ing in the ritualist is juxtaposed with the tourists’ curious gaze in the shared spaceof ritual performance.

Ritual as a concerted effort in the local community

As an initiation ritual for the young to inherit the family altar and become anacknowledged ritualist in the area, qian ga presents a ritual requiring the cooperativeeffort of the master ritualists and the local community. Ritualist Ma, who learnt theskills of ritual performance but did not have an altar, described the initiation ritualas ‘the ceremony of prince’s succession to the throne’. It is obviously a sacredmoment for the villagers as well as the ritualist.

According to Ritualist Wu’s narration, before the ritual qian ga, the family mem-bers and friends of the ritualist-to-be walked to every family in the village andneighbouring villages to beg for a litre of rice and put it in two large baskets. Theycarried two empty baskets to visit the villagers’ home one by one and chanted Miaosongs to inform the villagers of the event qian ga. According to Ritualist Wu, theychanted in Miao: ‘Thank you for your assistance for the auspicious qian ga. Afterthe qian ga the ritualist will look after the villagers. Much or little, we accept itwithout a murmur as long as your kind heart is here’. The family would put a litreof rice in the basket and reply with a song whose general meaning is as follows:‘Wish the ritualist-to-be a successful qian ga. After qian ga, he will have plenty oftroops and horses. Wish the ritualist will bring benefit to the villagers’. The manwho asked for the rice had to return a song and pour the rice into the basket.

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In Ritualist Wu’s recollection, after begging for rice, they need to invite 36 maid-ens to embroider 36 flowers on a rectangular piece of red silk cloth to be used as atool to exorcise the ghosts. After a month, the maidens deliver the flowers and aretreated to a dinner in the ritualist’s home. The master ritualist will wrap rice, vermil-ion and tea in the flower cloth and print his red stamp on it. The ritual device willassume its power once the master ritualist chants his incantations upon it. On theday of qian ga, a masked exorcistic nuo drama (Dean and Zheng 2010; Li 2011)will be performed at one o’clock in the morning. A pig, a sheep, a chicken and afish will be killed as a sacrifice. The pig will be positioned in the yard. The sheepwill straddle over the pig. The experienced ritualists from the neighbouring villagesoffer sacrifice to the altar in the ritualist-to-be’s family. After the ritual performanceof fulfilling the nuo wishes (huan nuo yuan, the making and redeeming the vows tothe deities), the ritualist-to-be puts on the red gown and headdress and parades tooffer sacrifice to all the deities and temples in the village, such as the local earthdeities, the Gong An Temple at the top of Phoenix Hill, Flying Mountain Templeand so on.

After all the deities have been worshipped, they parade to a piece of earthenground. The carpenter erects a wooden pillar in a hole in the earth on top of an egg.Then 36 knives are mounted on the pillar. The master ritualist selects every knifethrough divination blocks. Any knife that has hurt a man or a woman or been

Figure 2. Ritualist Ma performs the Daoism ritual of ‘climbing up the knife ladder’ twice aday for the tourists in Gouliang village. He believes that the spirit of his deceased master isprotecting and watching him every time he does the performance.

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contaminated by blood should not be used. At the 26th knife ladder, three knivesare intersected to form a ‘knife through the heart’ (chuan xin jian). When the auspi-cious time for climbing up the knife ladder arrives, the guiding ritualist (yin du shi)climbs to the top of the ladder first and blows the ox horn, reporting to the deities,troops and horses. After the guiding ritualist comes down from the ladder, the ritual-ist-to-be climbs up the ladder and blows the ox horn aloud, summoning his spirittroops and generations of masters and announcing the ritualists’ competency ofassuming the post of ritualist and inheriting the ritual altar. Then the guiding ritualistdirects the ritualist-to-be to ‘jump into the sea of fire’ (xia huo hai). Seven ironploughshares are heated until they are glowing red. The ritualist-to-be steps on themafter the guiding ritualist. Villagers play horns and drums on it. The ritualist-to-bemay faint on the eighth diagram. The guiding ritualist should carry him on his backbefore he falls to the floor. Ritualist Wu said: ‘I cannot remember what happenednext. I did not wake up till later in the evening’ (Interview Note 2009). The guidingritualist will ask the ritualist how many troops and horses he has and how long hislife span will be during his trance. The answer will be sealed up until the end of theritualist’s life. After this ritual, the ritualist-to-be officially takes over the altar fromhis father or grandfather.

As the ritualist who successfully passed the initiation ritual is to serve at funeralsand other critical life occasions for the local community, the sacred ritual iscooperated with and supported by the whole community, including the neighbouringvillages. The process of begging for rice from every household, inviting 36 virginsin and around the village to embroider 36 flowers on the rectangular red cloth usedto exorcise the ghosts, and the master ritualists’ critical assistance render the initia-tion ritual a concerted effort of the whole community. My contention is that thissacred ritual performance exists exclusively in the villagers’ life domain, beyond thepenetration of state power and global capitalism. They won’t beg rice from a tourist,nor would they charge money for viewing the climbing the knife ladder in the initia-tion ritual. The viewers in the ritual are coming to see whether they can have acompetent ritual specialist in their future life besides enjoying the mere ‘stunts’, andthe ritualist-to-be in this initiation ritual is to gain acknowledgement from thevillagers.

The acknowledged inherited ritualists strive to keep the sacred ritual from thelure of the market economy. Ritualist Wu Jinzhi was once invited by the manager ofthe tourism company to perform the ‘stunt’ for the tourists. He refused to perform itin the secular domain, rather he insisted in preserving these performances in thesacred initiation ritual. He said his inherited practice was to serve the villagers,rather than show it to the tourists. Currently, it is performed by Ritualist Ma, whowas not an inherited ritualist. Seeing Ritualist Ma’s newly built house, funded withthe money earned in the performance, Ritualist Wu regretted a little about his initialrefusal and said: ‘He learnt it from my father and showed it off to the tourists. Nowhe has benefited a lot from it. I get nothing’. Ritualist Wu commented on the dailysecular performance as ‘tricky stunts’ now and then. In the bitter remark uttered inour casual conversation, the hereditary Ritualist Wu is not only constructing aboundary between the secular ritual learners (such as Ritualist Ma) and the sacredritual inheritors, but also a borderline between the entertaining ritual display for thetourists and the serious ritual in service of the villagers’ special moment in theireveryday life. In this boundary construction, the sacred ritual space is discursivelypreserved in the capricious world of economic and political interconnection, though

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under constant negotiation with his yearning for improved standards of living(Oakes and Sutton 2010; Oakes 2013). While Li and Wall (2009) argue that moretraining and education programmes for entrepreneurial development should be pro-vided for local communities, especially for minority people to develop their culturalgroup’s self-confidence in safeguarding their distinctiveness when exposed to tour-ism, this paper argues that the local community’s distinctive understanding of theirown culture should be considered before modern business and cultural knowledgeare imposed on them. Tapp (2014) expressed his doubt over how the spirituality ofritual practices would be preserved once the ritual was turned into the expert’sknowledge of culture. This thought-provoking doubt urges us to rethink the relation-ship between the vernacular way of maintaining ritual in the life of community andthe experts’ systematic ordering of ritual knowledge, between the state’s discourseof regulating ritual and the entrepreneur’s manipulation of ritual. Whether thespirituality of ritual could be maintained in a vernacular way will be explored inthe following section.

Ritual performance, inheritance and the absence of belief

Ritualist Wu Zhangquan was born into a ritualist family that possesses a hereditaryritual altar and a set of ritual texts at home. He went out to work as a migrantworker for 2 years and then came back to the village, fixing household appliancesfor the villagers to earn a living. Despite learning the ritual texts and performancestogether with Ritualist Wu from the same Master Ritualist Wu Zhengzhong afterquitting secondary school, he did not attend the initiation ritual to inherit the ritualaltar. He repeatedly said: ‘What ritualist am I? That kind of thing. I do not believeit. I still do not believe it’ (Interview Note 2009).

Proficient in chanting and performing the texts in the death rites, he neverrefuses invitations from villagers to perform the ritual.

The female spirit-medium (xian niang) told me that if someone dies and they invite meto help with it I have to go. When I heard this point I felt scared. If they ask me to go,I will go. I am afraid of it if I do not go (to the funeral). (Interview Note 2009)

It seems that it is the spirit-medium’s words that have forced him to perform thedeath rites for the villagers, even though he did not perform the initiation ritual toinherit the altar and did not believe what he is chanting. The other reason to forcehim to serve in the funeral is one of his dreams about the Master Ritualist WuZhengzhong. As Ritualist Zhangquan’s father did not inherit the ritual position fromhis grandfather due to the Cultural Revolution, Ritualist Zhangquan learnt the ritualchantings and performances from his grandfather’s peer, Ritualist Wu Zhengzhong.The deceased master taught him how to chant the texts and perform the ritual. Herefused and said in the dream: ‘Do not teach me. I do not want you to teach me. Ido not like to learn your stuff’ (Interview Note 2009). He quarrelled with the masterand had a fight in the dream, yelling at him about his reluctance to learn the ritualperformance. ‘After I woke up, I think I need to go to do the stuff. I am a littleafraid of him’ (Interview Note 2009). For his active role in the ritual performance,he had another reason to justify himself: ‘Being a ritualist, like me, is taking a fancyto money. I can earn some money as a ritualist. When I perform the ritual for them(at a funeral), they give me 100 RMB or 200 RMB’.

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The medium’s tale, the dream and the money could all be persuasive reasons forRitualist Wu Zhangquan to take up a trade he does not like. The former two couldbe seen as traditional forces, and the last one the practical one. However, he doesnot need a definite reason to perform the death rites as his master taught him. Ebrey(1991) noted the sharp differences between Christian and Islamic clerics andChinese ritualists, which could help understand Ritualist Wu’s ‘loose’ belief and‘careful’ performance,

In both Christian and Islamic societies there were liturgical texts that described howrituals should be performed and experts who claimed special knowledge in the inter-pretation of these texts. China’s experts, however, were not clerics, invested with spe-cial powers beyond literacy. In China there was no institutional structure comparable tothe ecclesiastical establishments of the West or the Islamic world able to rule on theinterpretation of canonical texts, to enforce adherence to Confucian liturgical sched-ules, or to provide trained experts to officiate. In China the Family Rituals may havebecome orthodox, but interpretation of it remained elastic and adherence to it remainedvoluntary. (Ebrey 1991, 7)

Neither Buddhist nor Taoist discourse is embedded in Ritualist Wu Zhangquan’sbelief. Nor does he offer any definite interpretations to the texts he performs andchants. His performance, rather than his belief, leaves the interpretive space for theattendants of the ritual to interpret the meaning of ritual in their life. Watson andRawski (1990) proposed a unified ‘cultural China’, due to the state and local elitesemphasising standardisation of ritual practices (orthopraxy) rather than beliefs(orthodoxy). My ethnographic evidence in the Miao village, especially Ritualist WuZhangquan’s attitude, shows the continuity, if not orthopraxy, of ritual performancesconducted and inherited by ritual specialists despite the transformation in collectivebeliefs and religious ideas.

As well, there is a powerful narrative to maintain the ritualist inheritance in thevillage. More than one time, I heard the stories about a son or grandson who wasreluctant to inherit the altar and fell seriously ill. Xiaojie’s father-in-law, who did notinherit his family ritual altar, could not be cured at the hospital. After he burnedsome paper money and offered some meat to the altar, he recovered. Xiaojie saidthat the whole family went to tear down the old shabby house, but did not dare totouch the corner with the altar. The altar is still where it was and sacrifice is stilloffered on festival occasions (casual conversation 2009). In an interview withRitualist Wu Tianchi, he repeated:

I fell ill in my primary school years. After I learnt the ritual I got fully recovered. Itcannot be told clearly. … As long as you believe it, it is there. If you do not believe it,it is not there … Once I did not learn it I fell ill. As long as I began to learn it I gotwell. (Interview Note 2009)

Xiaojie and her family member’s experience made them fear touching the altar whiletearing down the old house. Their respect for the altar was the respect for theirancestors as well as the fear of punishment from the lost tradition in their family. Ithus want to borrow the word ‘power’ from Foucault who understood power as aset of relations. The ritual altar at the west corner of the living room could be under-stood as ‘hereditary power’, in the sense that it could shape the descendants’ beha-viour through certain narrations. The narration may be one of the reasons why theritualists could pass down their altar from generation to generation, despite theequally strong power of the state discourses across history.

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Conclusion

The case of Gouliang Miao village shows that, despite tight control of the ritualpractices in the Miao area by the Qing government, the destruction of ritual toolsduring the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, the exploitation of the ritual perfor-mance as tourism resources in the late-twentieth century, the identification of ritualas ICH in the twenty-first century, ritual maintains its sacred and secular functioneither secretly or publicly, due to the ritualists’ inherited practices and the power andpersistence of community narratives. Tourism and heritagisation appropriate a por-tion of the ritual and turn it via public display into a commodity (Oakes 1993,2006). The ritual, in its sacred domain, remains independent in the everyday life ofthe community. Instead of arguing that the state exerted cultural authority throughtourism (Oakes and Sutton 2010, 4), this paper presents the phenomenon of how thestate’s discourses are loosely applied so that they do not gain serious traction. Itshows how the local villagers manage a sacred space for ritual practice in theireveryday life, and how the members of the local community wove a web of ritualpractices through resisting the state’s attempt to control the ritual (Watson andRawski 1990). Vernacular narratives, beliefs, spaces and practices have spreadbeyond the reach of the state, even as the country undergoes massive economic andsocial transformation, and the more recent global surge of interest in safeguardingICH. The local ritualists exerted their autonomy in performing the ritual andtransmitting the narratives inherited from their ancestors.

This paper shows a case of how ritual, an unself-conscious heritage, is safe-guarded and inherited in an unself-conscious community in various discourses thattry to shape it. The way of ‘safeguarding’ intangible heritage lies in the concertedeffort of the whole community that lives by and in the heritage. It is said that inGouliang, without a witch, there is no village (wu gu bu cheng zhai). Locals believethat if a witch performed a ritual to poison a villager, the ritualist will come to savethe villager. There is always a balance of power between the witch and the ritualistin the village. Metaphorically, the witch could be the state, tourism, the heritageindustry, the experts or the local merchants. The ritualist could be the unself-con-scious community and the ritualist in their everyday life (Oakes 2013, 384). Theritual life in the village is a web that was spun by the witches, ritualists, officialsand the villagers. The state’s power, exerted in the Cultural Revolution, tourismindustry, and heritage evaluation and preservation, is like raindrops hanging on theweb. The web might be destroyed by some storm, but it will later be restored by thelocal community. The vernacular way of approaching and safeguarding the intangi-ble heritage is in itself an action of inheriting a traditional way of life in a commu-nity, specifically by vernacular narratives told and retold, that construct themeanings of the ongoing community life, beyond the imposed meanings bythe nomination and evaluation of the international and national agents. It may be theright time now for us to present the culturally specific and vernacular voices of‘safeguarding’ heritage in a diversified and globalised world.

AcknowledgementsI would like to acknowledge the villagers in Gouliang for their sincere sharing of their lifestories with me. And I would also like to acknowledge Prof Wu Zongjie and Prof FlemmingChristiansen for their enlightening guidance in this project. Finally my heartfelt thanks go tothe anonymous reviewers and editors’ constructive comments that help greatly improve thequality of this paper.

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Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

FundingThe research was supported by National Social Science Fund of China [grant number13BYY057].

Notes1. Unless otherwise noted, the translation from Chinese to English in this paper is done by

the author. The last two sentences are stressed by the author as well.2. It is recorded in Liji that: ‘The son of Heaven uses an ox of one colour, pure and

unmixed; a feudal prince, a fatted ox; a Great officer, an ox selected for the occasion; an(ordinary) officer, a sheep or a pig’ (Legge 1885, 116).

3. The whole article can be read on the following website: http://book.ifeng.com/special/wusiwenrenpu/list/200904/0430_6351_1134300.shtml, accessed on 10 December 2012.

4. Red happy event refers to the wedding ceremony, while the white happy event meansthe funeral for the deceased who are above 60 years old. If the deceased is less than60 years old, the funeral can only be called a white event.

5. The data are derived from the website of the Ethnic Commission: http://www.seac.gov.cn/gjmw/xwzx/2005-03-29/1170035886556886.htm, accessed on 20 July 2014.

Notes on contributorHua Yu is an assistant professor at the Institute of Linguistics in Shanghai International Stud-ies University, China. Her research cuts across different disciplines with a focus on culturaldiscourses, local practices and place making. She has written on the interactions among lan-guage, community formation and intangible heritage in China.

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