About Guangxi

Dong

(chinaculture.org)
Updated: 2009-08-13 11:02

Lantern Festival

It is the lantern festival of the Dongs in Jinping. The dragon lanterns and flower lanterns are daintily made. The lantern players visit one village after village. The Dragon Lantern Team will sing the Dragon Lantern Song, and each lantern is accompanied with a riddle, which is about the astronomy, geography, or propagation.

Newly-Married Festival

The festival falls on lunar October 1. There are often several ten young couples who get married on this day. It is similar to today's Collective Wedding. This custom is still practiced in Xiaoguang and Huaao of Jianhe Country in Guizhou Province.

Bridging Festival

It is said that the ancestors of the Dongs developed their family via bridge construction. The date of bridging happened to be lunar February 2. In order to commemorate this day, the Dongs have appointed it as the Bridging Festival.

Fresh Tasting Festival

The Dong ethnic minority preserves the custom of celebrating the Fresh Tasting Festival. It occurs mostly in June and July. When the early paddy gets ripe, every family reaps fresh grains, tastes fresh rice, and worships the forefathers with offerings of chicken, ducks and fish. The entertainments such as singing Dong songs, Dong opera and bull fighting are organized at the meantime.

March Third

The Dongs have a great festal event on March 3. The festival lasts five days. On lunar March 1, every family is busy with the preparation.

On the second day, girls will go to the riverbank together to fetch fish and prepare for the picnic on the slope with boys.

On the morning of the third day, girls carefully get dressed up, and go to the kale yard with refined bamboo basket to collect shallot and garlic. They wash them at the spring. Afterwards, they stand in line on the path near the river. They shyly wave the basket and look around waiting for their lovers to ask for their baskets.

On the slope stand crowds of people, among which there are family members of the girls, who try to find out which boy will get the basket. Boys, dressed up, walk in a group on the path one after another.

When a boy gets the basket from the girl he likes, the crowd will cheer at him. The boys and girls stealthily make the date for returning the basket. The boys that fail to get any basket will be laughed at by people. Then, boys and girls sing in antiphonal style, and look for lover via songs. They keep singing till the daybreak. On that noon, people gather together on the ground. They dance and sing to their hearts' content.

On the fourth day, a large make-up dance party will be held. On the afternoon of the fifth day, the ceremony of seeing off will be held for the guests from the neighboring villages.

According to a tale from the Dongs about the March Third Festival, in the past time, the Dongs set the flowering season of the tung trees as that of the paddy seedling transplanting. However, one year tung trees failed to bloom, and as a result, the farming season was delayed. People had no other choice but to flee to Baojing area. In order to draw lessons wherefrom, people play the Lusheng and sing, visit friends and relatives and remind each other of the farming business on March 3 of each year.