Blending the Buddha and the Benzhu in Bai Religion

                                                        by Jim Goodman

Guan Yin Temple near Dsli

       If you ask anyone of the Bai ethnic minority around Dali, in western Yunnan, who is their most important deity, the answer will be Guan Yin.  Also known as Avalokitesvar, Guan Yin is the Buddhist Goddess of Compassion.  The Bai are nominally Mahayana Buddhist, and the cult of Guan Yin is an essential feature of this brand of Buddhism.  But the Bai also venerate Guan Yin because of an ancient legend that credits her with repelling a Han Dynasty invasion of the Dali plain two millennia ago.

       Accordingly, when the Han army arrived in Dali, Guan Yin disguised herself as a frail, old woman carrying a huge boulder strapped to her back.  Beholding this phenomenon, the Han soldiers worried that if this people’s old women were this strong, their male warriors, men the same age as that of the invader’s troops, must be something like super-human.  So they fled.

Guan Yin frightens the invaders

        In gratitude, the Bai erected a modest temple to Guan Yin over the boulder and originally called it the Huge Stone Temple.  Several buildings were added in the Ming and Qing Dynasties.  The compound lies at the foot of the Malong Peak of the Azure Mountains that rise above the western side of the Dali Plain, on the main Xiaguan-Dali road, five km south of the old city.  Two tall, seven-tiered iron pagodas flank the compound’s entrance gate.  Within the yard are temples, smaller pagodas, pavilions, recitation halls, corridors full of images, a small fish pond, a vaulted stone bridge and scores of potted flowers.

Bai villagers worship their benzhu

       While individual worshipers may come here at any time, on the 19^th day of the 3^rd, 6^th and 9^th lunar months the temple is especially active, for Bai villagers come in groups to pay homage to Guan Yin.  And on the 29^th day of the second lunar month the temple hosts its annual grand festival, augmenting the rituals with dance programs and a holiday market.  The large crowds that attend this event clearly demonstrate Guan Yin’s enduring importance to the Bai people. 

       However, if you were to ask who is the most important deity in their own village, the answer will not be Guan Yin but someone else, a deity whose name will be different from village to village, for each Bai settlement has its own protector god.  Known by the Chinese term benzhu, this is the village patron, the guardian of its territory, who may be a deified ancestor, warrior or other leader from the past, around whom local legends and myths have differentiated it from the deities of every other village.

       The Bai adopted their tradition from the classic Chinese cult of the city god.  This was usually a local hero associated with the city, charged with advancing its fortunes, and if it failed in that respect, city officials might berate, chastise or even ‘punish’ the god for its failures.  The Bai didn’t adopt that part of the custom, but did transfer the city god to the village god, with the responsibility of insuring the continuity of the land and its inhabitants.  All major life cycle rituals take place in the temple of the village benzhu, further emphasizing the tie between the benzhu and its village devotees.  And the benzhu is the first deity appealed to for good fortune, bounteous harvests, expulsion of evil spirits and the hope of bearing children.   

    

buffalo-headed guardian

horse-headed guardian

        The cult resembles that of another Chinese-influenced civilization—the Vietnamese.  Villages in Vietnam also conscript a deceased hero as their protective deity, although in their case the guardian spirit is usually a warrior who fought Chinese invaders.  The Dali area was not the venue of so much warfare over the centuries as northern Vietnam, so martial heroes are not as prominent among the ranks of the Bai benzhu personalities, who are more likely to be famous ancestors from the time the village was founded, as well as noted officials, exceptionally filial sons and even virtuous women.  Warrior spirits serve as guardians to the installed benzhu image, but they could as easily be mythical animal-headed soldiers rather than historical figures associated with the village protector deity.

procession for the benzhu

       Every year Bai villages honor their benzhu with a festival.  The dates vary according to each village, but it generally takes place in the spring.  Villagers slaughter pigs and sheep and hold a collective feast.  Entertainment includes traditional dances and songs, perhaps a classical orchestra performance, plus lion and dragon dances. 

       The climax of the occasion is a long procession, the dance troupes part of it, with the image of the benzhu, either as a sculpture or a portrait, carried in a special palanquin.  In some cases, two or three villages with strong kinship relations may share the same benzhu.  Then the procession will proceed to one of the villages sharing the deity and spend the night there.  Villagers living close to a major town like Dali or Xichou may take their procession there and afterwards return home.  Or the procession route may be just all around the farms of the village and back to the temple.

carrying the benzhu's portrait

       Male elders wear Chinese-style silk jackets and caps.  Younger men may dress in the traditional Bai vest, jacket and turban.  Women dress in the Bai style, the older generation in blue and black, the younger ones in white-sleeved blouses with red or pastel-colored vests.  The women carry small percussion knockers that they beat rhythmically while they march.  The procession often stops for brief performances of the dancers and generally lasts several hours altogether.  More than just a religious festival, the event binds the villagers together in a shared, very localized identity.

       While benzhu celebrations are strictly village affairs, another major Bai festival, incorporating many of the same themes, features the participation of Bai people from all over the Dali Plain.  And for most of them it is the biggest social event in the year.  Called Raoshanling in Chinese, Gweusala in Bai, Visiting Three Spirits in English, it occurs every year from the 23^rd to 25^th days of the 4^th lunar month.  Three different villages successively host the event and the most devout participants will spend a night in each of them.

traditional Bai dance in the procession

       Ordinarily, this is the period between the end of the wheat harvest and the transplanting of rice seedlings.  But the weather patterns are never entirely predictable and in some years there might be some of either activity going on when the festival falls due.  Having evolved from its original concept of honoring an ancient king who defended the land from Burmese invaders, the traditional purpose of the festival is to promote fertility, both in terms of the coming rice crop and the fertility of the women.

Bai dragon dance

       In the past, this was also a time for romantic liaisons in the woods, made easier by the custom of overnight stays in three different places.  Entertainment in the daytime programs, with openly suggestive dances and very risqué song lyrics, enhanced the atmosphere for sexual dalliance, not to mention the underlying fertility theme of the festival. 

       Because of these aspects, puritanical Chinese Nationalist officials tried to ban Raoshanling in the 1930s.  Though the festival was strictly a Bai affair that Han Chinese never attended, their view was doubtless influenced by their preconceptions of ’barbarian’ sexual mores.  The Bai ignored the edict and continued to celebrate it the old way until the Cultural Revolution.  Fanatical Red Guards then transformed it into a political event.  Visiting Three Spirits became a celebration of the Three Constantly Read Articles—Mao’s ‘Serve the People,’ ‘In Memory of Norman Bethune” and “The Foolish Old Man Who Tried to Move the Mountain.”  Red Guards organized mass rallies to recite one of the articles in turn at each of the three festival sites. 

to an from Qinglong for Raoshanling

       That aberration didn’t last long, though, and the festival has been back to normal since the early 80s.  While there may not be so many romantic escapades in the woods these days (plenty of other venues for that, anyway), some of the mildly licentious festival atmosphere persists in the disheveled clothing of the male dancers, feigned drunkenness, erotic dance gestures and suggestive singing.  And much like the benzhu celebrations, the program includes both rituals and entertainment.

        The opening day is above Qinglong village, at the foot of Wutai Peak.  In the past people came here the evening before, in processions that stopped briefly at various benzhu temples and shrines to nature deities like the Mountain God and the Dragon Deity of the Lake.  This is the biggest day and the path to the temple is lined with market stalls, food shops and vendors selling the paraphernalia of the festival--tassels of grains and flowers, cloth pendants of hearts and figurines and the round stickers of the Eight Trigrams that people affix to their brows.  Inside the temple devotees offer incense and prayers, bring trays of food to be blessed and form groups that chant sutras.

preparing messages to the gods

       At the entrance to the temple courtyard a few older men act as scribes to write prayers to the gods for the devotees.  These are done on yellow paper, with the donor's name and address at the bottom.  The prayer is placed into a rectangular paper box.  The devotee takes this to the courtyard and sets fire to it by lighting it from the top.  If the flames crackle while the box is burnt that indicates the god has already acknowledged receipt of the message.

       Inside the temple Bai women in rows chant prayers and beat clackers, punctuated by a woman drummer and a male horn player standing next to the altar.  Another group of women sit in the courtyard outside the temple entrance.  These sessions can last a couple hours, after which the women take a break and then resume.  They dress in their best and cleanest traditional jackets, ornamented with pendants hanging down the front and the back.

       Most visitors spend less time with the rituals and enjoy the fair.  They check out the numerous stalls in the markets, have a meal on the grounds, quaff a few drinks and watch the occasional traditional dance performances.  The crowd only starts thinning out in late afternoon, when most go home, though some may head for Xichou to spend the night and catch the next day’s event.

ornaments worn over the back

       The second day's venue is Hesichong, a small village below Xichou.  Market stalls line the street to the temple again, but of a more modest size and fewer in number. The activity within the temple is the same as the previous day's, but this day has one additional feature--a procession through the streets of Xichou.  Some participants wear funny masks, false noses and the like.  But the groups always include several women singing and dancing.  They periodically stop to perform, making a ring, some twirling batons, others rhythmically knocking their hips against each other.

       On the third day, smaller still, but perhaps the most enjoyable because of its intimacy, the host is Majiuyi, a pretty lakeside Bai village 6 km northeast of Dali.  Throughout the morning, while devotees from Majiuyi and nearby villages make offerings at the temple, an 18-member Bai orchestra plays classical dongjing music.  There is no vocal accompaniment, but a spoken prayer precedes each tune.

Bai musicians at Majiuyi

       At mid-morning a procession winds through the village and performs in the temple courtyard.  A troupe of middle-aged Bai women, wearing dark glasses with their traditional clothing, dances in loops or in pairs, wielding decorated staffs and bumping hips together.  After that they gather in front of the orchestra and a pair of older women, in high-pitched, quivering voices, sing call-and-response songs.  The smirks on their faces and the sniggers and smiles of the audience indicate the raunchy nature of the lyrics.  Following a couple more tunes by the orchestra, the show concludes and the last act of the program is the collective feast for the musicians and performers.

       In these modern times, the traditional Raoshanling retains its popularity.  While Chinese tourists may show up to watch the dances, it is essentially a festival for Bai participants, with special Bai characteristics that serve as a proud assertion of the Bai ethnic identity.  Religiously, too, it’s still relevant, adding the protective power of the Three Spirits to that bestowed by Guan Yin since her personal intervention on behalf of the Bai two millennia ago, the intercession of nature gods, Buddhist and Taoist deities residing in the area’s many temples, and the vigilance of their own village guardian benzhu.  That’s a lot of allies to help face any potential misfortune in life.  Spiritually speaking, the Bai feel secure.

rituals for Raoshanling

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The Third Month Fair in Dali

                                                   by Jim Goodman

    Of all of Yunnan’s many annual festivals, the Third Month Fair in Dali ranks as the biggest.  In a good year around a half million people swarm into the city for the event, beginning on the full moon (15th day) of the third lunar month and running at least one week.  While the festival features a variety of entertainment—concerts, stage shows, songs, dances, horse races and equestrian shows—its main draw is the variety of goods, especially medicinal herbs, for sale in the special market created for the event at the foot of Zhonghe Peak of the Cangshan Mountains, just across the road from the old town’s West Gate.   A great number of the Bai and Yi minorities from Dali and surrounding counties come for the fair, but the crowd is dominated by Han from all over China, here not so much for the shows as for the opportunity to buy items like rare medicinal plants, for which the province and the Dali vicinity have long been famous.

northern entry gate to the fairgrounds

    The Third Month Fair is also one of the oldest festivals in Yunnan, having originated back in the 7th century during the reign of Xinuluo in the early days of the Nanzhao Kingdom.   The state was small then, basically just present-day Weishan and Midu Counties, and it would be another hundred years or so before Dali became its capital.  According to local legend, the plain beside Erhai Lake at that time was under the control of a monstrous demon named Luosha.  On the full moon day of the third month the goddess Guan Yin came to the area in disguise, tricked and imprisoned Luosha in a sealed cave and freed the local Bai people from his ravages.  In gratitude, every year on this day the people came to the foot of Zhonghe Peak, the site of Guan Yin’s triumph, to honor her and leave offerings.  As festivals imply crowds, and crowds draw merchants, eventually the event morphed into an annual trade fair that eclipsed its original religious significance.
    A more romantic account ascribes the origin of the Fair to a love affair between a fairy princess and a local fisherman.  She was the third daughter of Erhai’s resident Dragon King, who fell in love with and married a poor, but industrious and honest fisherman named Ashan.  Some months after their marriage, she invited him to accompany her to the Moon Festival, changed into a dragon and flew him there.  Changing back, she walked with him past a fantastic landscape, the likes of which he had never seen, to a pair of blue trees, 
    Suddenly people began arriving from the four corners of Heaven, riding lions and phoenixes and then setting up a fair.  Stalls offered coral, gemstones, pearls, clear liquor and rare elixirs and special food from the mountains and the seas.  After getting over his initial bedazzlement, though, Ashan noticed the market didn’t offer any farming tools or fishing gear, which disappointed him.

herbs and spices on sale at the Fair

    He mentioned that fact when narrating his adventures to his fellow villagers when the pair returned to earth.  He suggested the people set up their own fair for farmers and fishermen.  His princess wife seconded the idea and then proposed they simply move the Moon Festival to Earth.  Villagers then planted two trees at the foot of Zhonghe Peak and inaugurated a modified Moon Festival of their own.  Supplementing the rare and precious items from the market on the moon, the people added farm tools, livestock, fishing gear and medicinal herbs.
    Simply because people started coming from great distances to attend, the Fair grew in duration from a single commemorative day to a whole week.  And to keep the crowds in a good mood to stay longer and buy more goods, Fair organizers enhanced the event with various kinds of entertainment.  In recent times stages have gone up at each end of the market area and a stadium built north of the fairgrounds for the group dances, horse races, archery contests and equestrian shows. 

Dali West Gate, decorated for the event

    Nowadays the Fair is bigger than ever.  Thanks to airplanes, trains and buses people can reach Dali easily from all over the country.  Old town merchants this week hear the Chinese language spoken a hundred different ways.  Besides the chance to buy medicinal plants and animal parts that they cannot find in the places they live, they come for the attraction of Dali itself.  Lying at around 2000 meters altitude, backed by the Cangshan Mountains with 4000+ meter-high peaks, adjacent to the blue waters of Erhai Lake, a walled city with significant historic value, with its classic Chinese and Bai-style architecture, Dali is one of Yunnan’s premier tourist destinations.   And in April the weather is warm and balmy, hardly ever raining, when it’s still cold in most of China.
    The city gets all spruced up for the event and merchants start setting up a day or two earlier on the slope outside the western gate.  Just opposite this tower a smaller gate marks the entrance to the northern road to the fairgrounds, while four blocks south another gate marks the southern road up the hill.  Shops or stalls line the roads gong up to the fairgrounds, which is just below the wooded area.  But activity remains rather slight until after the official opening at the stadium on full moon morning.
    The stadium starts filling up by sunrise, but for those too late to get inside Dali TV films the event, so they can watch it on their hotel televisions for the next few nights.   After the speeches the show consists of several performances by large dance troupes of Bai or Yi in costumes that combine the elements of several sub-groups.  None of them are actually traditional, but instead modern creations, choreographed in forms of bursting stars, geometric patterns, etc, sometimes with three troupes at once.  The equestrian shows that follow are more interesting, with riders climbing on the shoulders of the jockey and each other, sometimes seven on a single horse.

Tibetan herbal medicine vendor

    The show concludes by noon and the crowd then swarms into the fairgrounds.  Besides medicinal herbs, concentrated at the southern end of the grounds, stalls offer various kinds of food like dried beef and mutton, sweets, pastries and pickled vegetables, as well as farm tools, nets and musical instruments, with a few restaurants set up at the north end.  While most of the crowd consists of Chinese Han visitors, ethnic minorities make up a large portion, mostly the prefecture’s Bai and Yi sub-groups, but also those from further away, like Naxi from Lijiang, Tibetans from Shangrila, Lisu and Miao.

Dali Bai girls running a stall

    Dali Bai women are the most recognizable, for their ethnic style of clothing-- white pants, long-sleeved, side-fastened red, blue or green tunic with matching apron and red and white headdress with a long white tassel--is one of the main images used in tourist literature advertising the place.  They tend to wander the fairgrounds in groups of three up to fifteen, often dressed in matching color tunics.  Bai women from Jianchuan wear a maroon vest over a blue blouse, a longer apron and a cap of several layers.  Those from Heqing are less colorful, maroon vest over white blouse and an army cap.
    The largest group of Yi is the still very traditional Tuli sub-group, from the hills south of Xiaguan and from Midu and Weishan Counties.  Their women dress in bright colors, green and red dominating, and wear tall turbans, plain black  or heavily embroidered and decorated.  Other Yi groups, such as the dance troupe, hail from Yangbi County, just over the Cangshan Mountains, notable for the lavishly embroidered aprons the women wear.
    The southern part of the fairgrounds is the busiest, a zone dominated by stalls hawking medicinal plants, spices, seeds, herbs and animal parts.  Tibetans run many stalls here, also

Bai women from Jianchuan

colorful Tuli Yi woman

selling, besides herbs and exotic animal parts like seahorses and starfish, butter churns, decorated yak and buffalo skulls, saddle carpets and animal pelts of fox, red panda and leopard cat.  Yi, Bai and Han also manage stalls here, their herbs packed in big bags with the tops open and the odors of their contents wafting into the air, making this area the most fragrant in the Fair. 
    While entertainment proceeds regularly throughout the week at several venues, the second morning features one-time only performances by local Bai and Yi.  The Bai put on a spectacular dragon dance, with two dragons, one black, one golden, with women carrying the dragons.  One woman baits the dragon, which moves around in

Bai Dragon Dance

Bai Fan Dance

various patterns, sometimes ducking its head under its writhing tail, or coiling under its raised head.  Other dances feature red lions and the use of props like riding whips or fans.  The Yi perform ring dances, women on the outside, men on drums and gourd-pipes in the middle.
      Both shows are over by noon, and the area doesn’t see any more, but a short distance away is the mini-stadium set up for performances by village orchestras from the vicinity playing traditional dongjing music.  The groups number about 25 and usually include at least one female musician, who may double as singer.  Each orchestra performs about an hour, two in the morning, three in the afternoon. 
    At the other end of the grounds, near the top of the southern entrance road,  are two more entertainment venues.  A huge tree stands near the edge of the medicine stalls and from a makeshift stage in front of it Bai and Yi singers, male and female, solo or in duets, take turns performing, with a small Bai troupe puts on dances in between the songs.  And about 70 meters down the slope other troupes and soloists perform on a regular stage, with curtain, flanking one of the market lanes.
    The staged dances are sometimes traditional, sometimes new, even if in ethnic dress.  Bai troupes of women dance with props like parasols, fans lutes and water jugs, each set choreographed differently but often ending with one lady hoisted high above the rest of the group clustered at her feet.  Miao girls perform wearing typically Miao pleated skirts and fancy silver headdresses from Guizhou province.  Yi troupes from Yangbi put on various shows, soloists perform on flute or gourd-pipe and a group of local Han girls do a modern dance in short, tight, slanted skirts and matching, off-the-shoulder halters—the sexiest stage costume of the week.

Non-ethnic dances are also part of the show.

    The stage shows take place in the afternoon and, after a short break, again in the early evening.  But nothing stays open very late in the fairgrounds and attendance is much smaller.  During the day, though, it can be difficult to move around on the main market lanes.  People are constantly stopping to examine goods or jamming up to watch the stage shows, putting their children on their shoulders to give them a better view.  This blocks the view of those behind them, of course, but other than that, in general the crowds are well-behaved.  Nobody is in a hurry, nobody pushes, and nobody tramples on the feet of others.

Dali Bai troupe on stage at the Fair

    It’s no wonder, then, that the Third Month Fair grows in popularity every year.   The physical setting alone is one of Yunnan’s most splendid and the area is replete with genuine attractions that bring in tourists year-round.  The abundant presence of ethnic minorities in their best traditional clothing during the Fair sprinkles the crowds with color and accents the already exotic atmosphere of the event.  The array of goods on sale and the variety of both merchants and customers makes a day’s wandering through the fairgrounds one of continuous fascination.  And as a bonus, a visitor might just find that special herb or plant that will treat or cure a long-standing ailment.  That alone would make the trip worth it.    
                    

dongjing orchestra singer

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