The Wutu dance, an ancient ritual dance to exorcise evil spirits, is still practiced in Nianduhu, a village in Tongren County of Qinghai Province. An extraordinary example of a once-vigorous culture, this dance illustrates the beliefs of the Wutu people and reflects their strong attachment to their own unique ways.

Located in the Autonomous Prefecture of Huangnan, Qinghai Province, Nianduhu is a Tu minority village near the Longwu River at Tongren County. Currently there are 1,300 people in the village living in over 230 households. It lies in an ancient city, where high city walls and cliffs surround winding narrow lanes and tightly packed houses.

The mysterious Nianduhu village

"Wutu" is another name for tiger in ancient Chinese. The Wutu dance is performed every winter by Tu people as a grand sacrificial ritual, aimed to rid the village of demons and bring good fortune.

According to a local legend, the favorite princess of a Huoer King had fallen ill and lapsed into unconsciousness, and neither medical treatment nor magic arts could cure her. To save her life, the king decided to stage the traditional dance in which people dressed up like tigers to exorcise the evil spirits. He ordered his soldiers to take off their clothes, paint streaks on their bodies, and perform the exorcising dance in his palace. Miraculously, the princess recovered. From then on, Huoer King firmly believed in the magical power of the Wutu dance, and ordered that people should carry it out every year to drive away evil spirits to ensure peace and prosperity for the country. The custom vanished during Kublai Khan's reign in Qinghai, and was not revived until Jiaqing's reign in the Qing Dynasty, when a great plague broke out and claimed many lives. In the hope of relieving people's suffering, the third generation of Jiamuyang Abbot Living Buddha, who was born in Nianduhu village, presided over the restoration of the dance, and also moved the village from the riverbank to higher land at the foot of a mountain. In the more than 200 years since its origin, the Wutu dance of Nianduhu has been maintained as a custom without any disruption, and the villagers have enjoyed a peaceful life.

Starting earlier than the Wutu dance was a ritual referred to as "Bang", which was meant to entertain gods and mortals alike. According to this custom, men and women could express their affection to their beloved ones by singing songs. The "Bang" ritual is held in a house selected by "divine intention". No wonder the "chosen family" is deemed to be the luckiest in town. Before the ceremony, a statue of the god Eriang is carried into the house, and then a "Lawa", who presides over the ceremony, will set up an altar, lay out the steamed buns presented by each family, and kill a goat as a sacrifice to gods. Then, on behalf of gods, the Lawa selects the seven Wutus who will perform the dance the next day. Those who volunteer to take part usually have sickness in the family which they hope to cure through the ritual dance. The Bang ritual starts at dusk. The Lawa and the seven Wutus chant, dance, and pray for blessings from gods. Then all lights go out suddenly. In complete darkness, people hear the jingling of small bells tied to a string and the wings of pigeons fluttering, which suggest the arrival of the gods who have come to share their happiness. People sing and cheer wildly. After a while, at the sound of a whistle, they choose their beloved ones with whom they spend a romantic night.

At noon on the day of the Wutu dance ritual, Xin Jianping, the Minister of the Publicity Department of the Autonomous Prefecture of Huangnan, took me to a hike up a hill to the Temple of Eriang, where the ritual was to be held. It was still early, but a lot of villagers were already there. As I was wandering around the altar, waiting for the ceremony to start, I came across a young man who was carving branches into wooden swords to be used in the dance. We spoke, and I learned that the 17-year-old villager named Lankajia was going to participate in the dance. He said more than 20 villagers had volunteered to dress up as the Wutu tigers this year. Little Wutus would be played by young men around the age of 20, and big Wutus by men over 30.

At 2 p.m., the Lawa and the Wutu dancers arrived. As soon as the temple gates were opened, the Wutu dancers began to dress up. In the winter sun of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the young men, stripped to the waist and with trousers rolled up to the thigh, covered their faces and bodies with plant ash. They soon became frightening ashen figures with jet-black eyes. Then an artist drew tiger faces on each dancers with thick black ink, painted streaks on their chest, back and legs to look like tiger stripes, and tied white headbands printed with sayings on everyone. During this process, the Wutus bared their teeth from time to time, trying to look fierce.

The Wutu Dancers dashing out of the temple

The climas of the wutu ritual dance- al the evil spirits being driven out of the village.

After that, the grandly costumed Lawa and the seven Wutus knelt in front of the statue of Eriang, chanting and praying for power. Then the Wutus took huge gulps of liquor from a big bowl held by the Lawa, and were soon drunk. Wagging long "tongues" made of raw meat and brandishing the wooden swords, they dashed out to a clearing in front of the temple and danced wildly to the Lawa's drumbeat. At the sudden sound of a gunshot coming from the village below, they stopped dancing and rushed down the hill. The rugged mountain roads were no obstacles for them.

They climbed over the high, steep city walls into the village, and then entered the courtyard of every household. They danced from one house to another. If there happened to be a sick person in the family, they would jump around the patient to drive away the pestilential spirit. Then they climbed up to the rooftops, where a villager who had been waiting there stuck doughnut-shaped buns to the tips of their swords. The thick ring-shaped buns are specially made by villagers for the ritual, and each villager must touch the dough. I followed three Wutus into the house of an elderly woman named Xiawujie. I was surprised to see that they could climb up high walls and jump down from roof with remarkable ease, as if they had really gained some magic power.

The Wutu dancers cannot enter the villager's courtyards through gate, but they can climb over walls with great ease.

At about 5 p.m., the Wutus gathered at the east entrance of the village and danced wildly. Swarms of villagers crowded the lanes and even stood on the roofs, shouting and cheering. For a while, the cheers mixed with the sounds of the drums and firecrackers, pushed the dancing ritual to a climax, which excited both gods and people, and suggested that all the evil spirits had been driven out of the village. Then the ceremony was over.

After that, the Wutus ran to the riverbank, threw the ring-shaped buns and the swords into the river, and washed the paint and ash off their bodies in the ice-cold water. This symbolized that bad luck had been removed from the village, so that in the coming year all of the villagers would be blessed with peace and happiness.

The Wutu dance has its origin in primitive ritualistic dances in whichnature is worshipped. It is the ancient cultural connotation that arouses the interest of the scholars.

Mr. Qiao Yongfu, who discovered and has researched the Wutu dance, believes it developed from an ancient dance in the Chu State, because Chu people referred to the tiger as "Wutu" in Zuozhuan, a classic book of Chinese history. He says migrants who were sent from inland to Qinghai to defend the border started the Wutu dance in Nianduhu village. Mr. Ma Shengde, from the China Institute of Arts Studies, basically agrees, but he also wonders why, if the dance was introduced from inland, it was not preformed in other villages where there were also inland migrants. Other scholars, such as Liu Kai, think the Wutu dance was a custom of the ancient ethnic Qiang people.

According to Ma Guangxing, a scholar devoted to the preservation of national folk cultures in Qinghai province, and Zhao Qingyang, who researches folk customs of the autonomous prefecture of Huangnan, the Wutu dance had also been performed by some nearby Tibetan and Tu villagers, but gradually died out. And in a village called Ningba in Qinghai Province, a similar ritual also had taken place, but statues of tigers were used to replace real men. Among some national minorities in south China and in some regions around Xinbin in Liaoning province, there also existed some folk art designs in which the tiger appeared as a figure of worship.

These scholars believe this custom that can be found in different regions must have originated from the Tiger Totem in the Qiang culture. The Gansu-Qianghai Region was the birthplace of this minority. For some historical reasons, Qiang people had been moving out of the area since the Shang and Zhou Dynasties. They moved into Sichuan, western Hunan and Hubei provinces, Ningxia autonomous region and central China regions in the east, into Xinjiang Province in the west, and into Tibet, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces in the south. Along with the migration, culture, religious beliefs and customs also spread over those areas. Some special customs remained while others were lost over time. These scholars think that any nationality with a trace of "tiger culture" can find their origin in the history and culture of the ancient Qiang people.

Though the true origin has yet to be verified, the Wutu dance has become an extremely rare example of Chinese folk custom. It possesses profound cultural and historical values and needs to be protected carefully.

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