Hung-chiu Ceremony in Fan Ling Wai
(The 15th and 16th days of the first lunar month)

Fan Ling Wai is a walled village in Fan Ling, New Territories, whose native villagers are surnamed P'aang. According to written genealogy, the P'aangs migrated to Guangdong Province in the Song dynasty, then began moving to the New Territories seven hundred years ago. In the New Territories, they first settled in Fan Ling Lau, but soon moved out to their newly-built walled village nearby called Fan Ling Wai. The author of this paper has observed the Hung-ch'iu ceremony for over five years. The following description is based on his observation, and more importantly, on the analysis by renowned historian David Faure. (Faure, 1986)

The P'aangs hold the Hung-ch'iu ('the great audience') ceremony on the 15th and 16th of the first lunar month every year. The meaning of the term 'hung-ch'iu' is not yet precisely deifined, even the P'aangs themselves cannot tell. The P'aangs regard the ceremony as their communal celebration for new lunar year. Faure argues that Hung-ch'iu is in essence the tso-she (“doing the she), a term referring to the special celebration of the taai-wong at the beginning or the end of a year. Taai-wong is also known as paak-kung (paternal great-uncle, or literally earth gods). They are territorial deities because they are thought to be the spirits of the localities where they stand. To ask for the deities' protection, villagers in the same locality organize a communal worship for the taai-wong. In Fan Ling Wai, the P'anngs call their tso-she as hung-ch'iu, which is financed by a communal trust called the P'aang Taai Tak T'ong, held in the name of common ancestor Kwai on behalf of all villages of Fan Ling. (Faure, 1986, pp. 70-4.)

A. Layout

The matshed (left) and the performing stage (right) (by Marianne P. Y. Wong, 2004)

The ceremony takes place outside the village walls and a matshed is purposely erected. The foci of hung-ch'iu is the territorial deities. The P'aangs invite their earth gods, which are represented on a red paper in their titles and names, to the altar in the matshed. Also invited to the village are the statues of the three deities of Pak Tai, Man Ch'eung and Kwaan Ti.

In front of the deities, the P'aangs place a whole piece of slaughtered but uncooked pig as their major sacrifice. In the old days, when the villagers themselves slaughtering their own poultry and domestic animals for daily meals was common, it is possible that the villagers slaughtered the sacrifice right on the spot.

In less than a hundred meters right opposite to the matshed, the villagers erect a temporary performing stage. Before the Second World War, common entertainment for villagers consisted of a riddles-solving games and 'mountain songs' performance. All villagers, no matter whether they are P'anngs or not, are welcome to the entertainment. Now, the riddle-solving game no longer exists, but the P'anngs continue to invite professional singers, who now entertain the villagers with Canto-pops.

A whole slaughtered but uncooked pig as the major sacrifice (by Sui-wai Cheung, 2004)

B. Rituals

(1) Scramble for rooster feathers (early morning of the 15th day)

Some scholars consider the scramble for rooster feathers as the first ritual on the day of hung-ch'iu ceremony. In the morning of the 15th, a villager, holding a live rooster, climbs up to the top of the major tower at the village's main entrance. He pulls feathers out of the rooster and drops them from one of the window opening. The P'aangs gathering under the tower then scramble for the feathers as they consider that a successful snatch would bring them good luck. In my opinion, the snatch is merely a distribution of rooster feature to villagers for their later use in the ritual of paper boat procession. It itself is not a ritual.

(2) Paper boat procession (late morning of the 15th )

New Year boy and the heads of worship (by Marianne P. Y. Wong, 2004)

Paper boat procession (by Marianne P. Y. Wong, 2004)

A boat procession, led by a Taoist priest and a village boy called 'San Nin Tsai' (New Year boy), who wears a green apron decorated with dragon and phoenix images, passes though all households in the village. According to village elders, they used to make the boat by straw, though now they use paper boat. The New Year boy and the priest enter every household of all the P'aangs. Though the priest and the New Year boy are in the same procession, each of them works individually: the priest gives ritual cleansing to the household and the New Year boy offers good wishes. In return, the villagers give red packets to each of them. They also throw a variety of symbolic rubbish on to the boat. This rubbish includes charcoal, which means dirt, and the most important of all, ma-tau ('hemp-seed'), a homophonic Cantonese word to smallpox. The procession takes a few hours, and after that, the boat with the rubbish is to be burnt outside the village. (See Faure (1986), p. 75)

(3) Taoist ritual (night)

Taoist altar outside the matshed (by Sui-wai Cheung, 2004)

Taoists or nammo in Cantonese (by Sui-wai Cheung, 2004)

Taoist musicians (by Sui-wai Cheung, 2004)

After dinner, the Taoist priests commence their religious ritual in front of an altar in an open space outside the matshed. The villagers are represented at the priests' rites by eight heads of worship known as the ch'iu-shou. The year of birth provides the basis for the rotation of ch'iu-shou. In the beginning, the priests invite their heavenly master and the deities to attend the service. Then he read loudly a long list of the villagers' names written on a red scroll, requesting for blessing by those deities. The ritual ends with a posting of the scroll on the village wall. When it finishes, the time is now around midnight.

(4) Chanting the 'hemp-song' (early morning of the 16th day)

Right after midnight, usually at about one o'clock now, the eight heads of worship, led by one of the priests in ordinary village attire, gather in the matshed and chant the 'hemp-song'. The 'hemp-song' is a lively piece of folk literature, describing the year-long work of growing hemp, and then carding, spinning and weaving it into cloth. They sang the song with considerable improvisation and jesting. It is believed that the song was sung so that children in the village might be safe from smallpox. (Faure, 1986, p. 76.) It lasts for about an hour, but according to some old villagers, it usually ends at dawn.

(5) Divination

In the morning, led by a priest who for this ceremony wraps a red cloth round his head and wears the apron worn earlier by the New Year boy, the eight heads of worship cast the divining cups. There are three different pairs of divining cup. In addition to a pair of kidney-shaped wooden blocks found commonly in temples, the head of worship also makes use of two symmetric halves of a pig's trotter and a pair of metal blocks. The wooden blocks are used to divine if the coming year would be a troubled one; the pig's trotter halves are used to see if the domestic animals would be safe; and the metal blocks, if the villagers themselves would be safe. (Faure, 1986, p. 76.) The villagers practiced the divination every year although they have no longer kept domestic animals for over twenty years.

(6) Kicking the 'sand basket'

After the divination, the same priest performs a ritual of 'kicking the sand basket'. The 'sand basket' is actually a pig's stomach, but being inflated with water. In the ritual, the priest breaks open the stomach with a long axe. It is unclear what the ritual stands for, but it appears that the stomach represents something dirty, and the axing means a removal of the dirt.

(7) Return to proper abodes

At about noon, the villagers invite their earth gods and the three main deities out of the matshed for their proper abodes. The matshed is then to be dismantled, and after that, the hung-ch'iu ceremony of the year comes to an end formally.

References:

David Faure, The Structure of Chinese Rural Society: Lineage and Village in the Eastern New Territories, Hong Kong, Oxford University Press, 1986.

Author: Dr. Sui-wai Cheung
Revised Date: June, 2005
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