Be the Daughter of the Sea: the Sea Sacrifice Festival in Tianheng
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The Sea Sacrifice Festival originated from Zhougezhuang Village, Tianheng Town in Jimo City of Shandong Province. It has enjoyed a history of over 500 years. Sea sacrifice is a fishing culture with distinctive local characteristics created by the fishermen during the long period of fishing in the sea. Around the sixth solar term Grain Rain in April every year, the fisherfolk will fix the boat and add fishing gears so as to get well-prepared for the production before choosing a dies faustus, and then carry the fishing net on the boat and start to offer sacrifice to the sea, thus the festival is also called "shangwang" (elevating the fishing net).
In the Yongle Era of the Ming Dynasty, as more and more people got concentrated there to form a village gradually, the ritual of sea sacrifice started to be celebrated in a small scale. By the first year of the period of Republic of China, sea sacrifice in Tianheng was developed into a collective activity based on the family clans or the boat teams. With the improvement of productivity, the popularization of science and technology, and the transformation of the fishermen's mentality, the traditional ritual of sea sacrifice is no longer intended to pray for blessing and safety from the God of the Sea alone, but rather to express the aspiration for a wonderful life, thus forming the current distinctive folk festival - the Festival of Offering Sacrifice to the Sea. A dozen days or so before the festival, the daughters-in-law of Tianheng Town will start to make steamed buns with each weighing 1.5 to 2 kilograms, and the steam buns are in different shapes, including the birthday peach, the sacred serpent and the funnel. When the day is around the corner, the men there will be busy choosing three sacrificial animals. The pig had better be a big boar with black fur, which will be killed before scraping the fur with only the fistful of black fur around the neck left, and decorated with a red-flower knot made of red silk around the head and the neck. The chicken should be a big red rooster and the fish a big weever. The captains will invite the prestigious senior in the village to write the "sacrificial text for safety" on a piece of yellow sacrificial paper. One day before, the fisherfolk will clean the Temple of the Dragon King, arrange the censer and the sacrificial table, paste the couplets, and decorate the temple with colorful flags. At the same time, a dragon gate made of pine and cypress branches will be finished on the seashore in front of the temple. Boat owners will drive their fishing boats to the gulf in front of the village, line them up with the heads of the boats facing the sea, put away the fishing gears and nets, fasten the anchor and wait for the ritual next day. On the day of the ritual, the fisherfolk will place their sacrifices with each boat as a unit on the shore in front of the Temple of Dragon King. The fisherfolk will sort out the yellow sacrificial paper, get the censer in place and lift over a thousand firecrackers high in the sky.
When the auspicious moment finally comes, the chief host of the ceremony will announce the opening of the ritual when firecrackers explode at the same time. The folk will start to burn the joss sticks and the paper, set the written "sacrificial text for safety" on fire and kowtow to worship the god. In the noise of the firecrackers, the captains of the boats will throw a large amount of candies into the air. Anyone who picks up the most candies will be blessed with a big fortune in the coming year. The ritual of offering sacrifice to the sea in Tianheng has been passed on from generation to generation, exerting a far-reaching influence and reminding us that China has not only the yellow inland civilization but also the blue sea culture. |
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