? Dance is of great importance in the life of primitive tribes? , it is closely linked with religious activities. I will take you to see the origin and development of folk dance!
I. Origin of Dance
The mother of all arts? Dance, when did it originate? Just how long a history? This is a mystery. General researchers believe that the dance began in the Paleolithic Age, or perhaps earlier. In our country's ancient legends have Zhu Rong's son Changqin began to make music and wind; some say that the eight sons of Emperor Jun began to sing and dance, Yan Di (Shennong's) heavy grandson of Yan Di began to music and wind; others say that the Yellow Emperor created the music and dance. In fact, the founder of the dance should be a group of human beings. People in the struggle with nature, in order to survive and engaged in labor, through the human body has produced rhythm, rhythm? The most primitive dance movements can also be regarded as instinctive? Human behavior. Therefore, dance and labor have a natural and inseparable connection. It arose much earlier than the legendary era.
? Dance is of great importance in the life of primitive tribes? , it is closely linked to religious activities. Fossil Homo sapiens preserved artifacts of religious activities tens of thousands of years ago? European Late Paleolithic cave murals, painted witches naked, holding a horn seems to be held in the ritual, and other witches with their hands up five fingers forked, the dance action is extremely infectious. Cangyuan rock painting in China's Yunnan Province, there are hands up, five fingers open half squatting or nude male statue, under the exposed male roots, head inserted feathers; Zuojiang cliff mural, there are also two hands up, stretching five fingers of the dance. These can be determined as ? Frog festival? The remains of the Guangxi region still retained? Sacrifice ants? The custom and dance of the ant-carp is still preserved in Guangxi. The dance of the ant-carp is still preserved in Guangxi. Our country in 40,000 to 50,000 years ago gradually stepped into the period of clan communes, the pre-matriarchal communal period, the late Paleolithic caveman, there are burial decorations, indicating that the people's aesthetic consciousness and religious awareness has been gradually strengthened. Accompanied by the emergence and strengthening of religious consciousness, there must be ritual activities, and the ritual activities at that time were mainly dances. Although they did not leave a specific image, but we can be based on the subsequent excavation of the dance image and the preservation of the ancient folk dance, imagined that those mysterious color and charm of the most primitive dance.
Second, the dance and totem
Totem (Totem) was originally an American Indian dialect, that is ? His blood clan? Totem is the clan **** the same sign or symbol, is the external meaning, but also the internal meaning of worship totem as the originator. They are mostly animals, plants or inanimate objects and natural phenomena as symbols, and believe that the totem dominates the fortunes and misfortunes of all their members. The Indians have the eagle as their totem, and many Australian aboriginal tribes have a totem as their name, such as rain, water, kangaroo, turkey and so on. The Chinese nation has also experienced such a course, far before the Xia and Shang, totem that is for the primitive people's beliefs and symbols, the Huangdi clan that the cloud as a totem symbol:? In the past, the Yellow Emperor's to cloud discipline, so the cloud division and cloud name? (Zuo Zhuan? Zhaogong seventeen years"). On the origin of totem, scholars have recently had a new exploration. Ethnographer Yang Koon believes that: ? Totem is a symbol of the woman's genitalia or ? homunculus? Totem is a symbol of women's fertility, and totem worship is the worship of women's genital symbols, as well as the clan itself? deification and worship? (Folk Literature Forum) Zhao Guohua, on the other hand, believes that: ? In primitive society, certain symbols of female and male genitalia evolved into totems, i.e., into symbols of the patriarchs of certain clans.? ("Reproduction Worship Culture")
Primitive clan totem worship and dance and martial arts activities are very close, rituals, celebrations have to dance to the totem, and later gradually evolved into a simulation of the totem dance, which produces a large number of figurative boxing and dance programs. Such as the Yellow Emperor clan to cloud as a totem, and produced the name of the "Cloud Gate Roll" music and dance to worship the Yellow Emperor. The original Xia people's totem is dragon. Jiu Ji died? Jiu Ji turns into a yellow dragon, which is used out of Yu. Jiu Ji, the Dragon Dance, has been passed down till now, and the dragon has become the symbol of the Chinese nation. The dragon is a virtual animal, the base of the dragon is snake, which can be proved by the image of dragon disk unearthed in Tao Temple belonging to Xia culture. After that, it absorbed the four legs of beasts, the head of horse, the tail of quail, the horn of deer, and the scales and whiskers of fish (Wen Yiduo, "Fuxi Kao"). This shows that the Huaxia nation is a composite image formed by the merger of different totem tribes, and is a product of tribal mergers. The 6,000-year-old stone dragon unearthed in Houwa on the Liaodong Peninsula is the earliest image of a dragon totem ever seen, and the earliest record of a dragon dance appeared in the Han Dynasty (see Dong Zhongshu's "Spring and Autumn Dew"). In fact, the dragon dance appeared much earlier.
The Yi people of the Mourning Mountains and the Liangshan Yi people in Southwest Yunnan call themselves the "Lolo". Luo Luo? which means tiger. The Yi people named themselves as tiger, and some of them worshiped the stone tiger as their ancestor, reflecting the fact that the Yi people once used the tiger as their totem. Gansu Province, unearthed tiger patterned pottery is a totem worship of physical objects. Yi, Naxi, Lisu and other ethnic groups to the black tiger as a totem. The Ba people and their descendants in the southwest region of the Tujia and Pumi, the Bai people to the white tiger as a totem. The Yi people use the twelve phases of the solar calendar, with the tiger as the first. The Dance of the Twelve Beasts and Gods is still preserved today. This is performed by a witch, and the dance culminates in the performance of the tiger god descending and pouncing on domestic animals, so one can imagine the original Tiger Totem Dance. When the Yi people "sing", they chant while dancing. Luo Li Luo, Luo Li Luo! meaning "Tiger, tiger, tiger, tiger! The Yi "beat song" while dancing and chanting "Loli Luo, Loli Luo!
The Ewenki of the Heilongjiang region in the Northeast are bear totems, and initially they banned bear hunting, but later, as a last resort, hunted and slaughtered to feed the hungry. Japan's Hokkaido Ainu tribe is also a bear as a totem, they first catch young bears raised, the annual bear festival, kill to pray for blessings, bear sacrifice accompanied by song and dance, mostly female dance, some wear bear masks, wearing a bear patterned clothing, the dance name of the "U baby".
China's bird as a totem of the clan is also a lot of Yangshao culture half-slope type of ceramic sculpture with a bird's head. Legend has it that Fuxi's descendant, Shaoao? The bird life official? , there are Phoenix Bird Clan, Xuan Bird Clan, Green Bird Clan and so on 24 kinds of, may be birds as totems of 24 clans combined together, all have a certain official position. The dragon and phoenix totems were the two most basic categories of ancient peoples, and the phoenix was the Xuanbird. The poem "Ode to Shang" (诗经商颂? Xuanbird": ? The bird of the sky, the Xuanbird, descended to give birth to the Shang. Legend has it that the founder of the Yin Shang in the lower reaches of the Yellow River, Qi, was born when his mother, Jian Di, swallowed the egg of the Xuanbird, so the Yin people used the phoenix as their totem. The totem of the Manchu is the magpie, and legend has it that the first ancestor of the Manchu, God, was born when his mother swallowed the vermilion fruit carried by the magpie. Manchu worship and? Shaman? Jumping gods have to set up? God pole? Feed the magpie, the shaman dance under the pole. The Mongolian people to white sea green as their tribal totem (see Ulanjie "Mongolian ancient hunting songs and dances"). It is a very old custom for the Mongols to release the sea green to take the swan. It is said that the Mongolian dance of running forward with broken steps and smooth turns, both of which imitate the sea green, is a relic of the totem dance. Bird as a totem in the world there are many, such as: Canada, Vancouver Indian descendants are still retained owl totem dance, not only a large wood carving of the image of the owl, but also dance, dancers clothing pattern for the owl, the whole body draped in its prey mice.
China's central and southern regions of the Yao people to the dog as a totem, every year, there is a custom of sacrificing to the ancestor Pangu. Lu Ziyun "Dongxi fiber Zhi": ? The first of the year sacrifices Pan gourd, rubbing fish and meat in the wooden groove, buckle groove group number as a gift. Many of the patterns in Yao embroidery are dogs, and the custom of snapping wooden grooves to beat long drums and dance as a sacrifice to King Pan has been passed down to the present day. Frog (Guangxi and other places called? Frogs (called "ants" in Guangxi and other places) ), is also the totem of some ancient clans. Northeastern ethnic minorities have? Golden Frog? Zhumeng? , Guangxi Zhuang Donglan, Bama, Fengshan, Tian'e and other counties have retained the ceremony of the frog, the first month of the old calendar to hold an annual ? The ant-turning festival? , in Tian'e County with the rows of township Yunbang Village, still retains the totem dance "ant crutch dance" (Jin Tao, "the legacy of totem dance culture"). Lijiang, Yunnan Naxi worship totem in addition to the tiger, lion, and frog as a totem, they are wearing sheepskin to be cut into the frog's body shape (wood Lichun, "Naxi totem clothing? Sheepskin" in "Dongba culture collection"). It is also stated in the hieroglyphic dance score of the Naxi Dongba Sutra that ? the origin of the dance of the human beings who inhabit the vast and rich land was inspired by the sight of the leaping of the golden divine frog? (see Shen Shou Ye and the Dungpa Dance Genealogy). This is enough to show the close relationship between totem and totem dance.
Totem with the clan tribal division, annexation, migration appeared at different levels, different cultural circles, a clan also more than one totem. Totem is the earliest of all the members of the clan *** with the ancestors, into the feudal dynasty, became the supreme ruler of a family name of ancestors, the use of this totem Ruirui become their prerogative, the emperor with the dragon, the empress with the phoenix. But as the dragon and phoenix (including some bird dance) of the dance has become millions of people enjoy the national dance. And the totem dance for the Oriental culture? The totem dance has laid the foundation for the oriental culture's principles and laws laid the foundation.
Three, the birthplace of diverse dance culture
From a large number of archaeological data, the cultural birthplace of the Chinese nation is diverse. In the 1970s of this century, in the Central Plains region of Henan Maoyang Jiahu Neolithic culture site, found 8000 years ago, more than ten seven-hole bone flute, the hole for the six big and small. From the appearance of the bone flute, we can presume that the dance at that time must have entered a relatively high level, because song, dance and music were inseparable in ancient China. In the labor of primitive groups, music is mainly rhythm, dance is rhythmic physical movements, and musical instruments are changes and deformations of labor tools. The group dance accompanied by the bone flute is better than the simple, rhythmic physical movements, and reflects the hunting activities of ? Striking stones and patting stones? The group dance with the bone flute is more progressive than the simple, rhythmic body movements and the group dance reflecting hunting activities. The group dance is more progressive than the simple rhythmic movements of the bone flute and the group dance that reflects hunting activities.
Let's look at the situation in the border areas.
China's northeastern Liaodong Peninsula, the Yellow Sea coast of Dandong District, after the depression of the Neolithic site, excavated 6000 years ago, the original stone dragon and human ceramic statues. One of the two sides of the carved human head (one side of the female, one side of the male) reflects the primitive society of the concept of fertility worship and ancestor worship. Niuheliang in the western mountains of Liaoning Province unearthed 5000 years ago the Hongshan culture? Goddess temple? , altar and cumulus mound site, in which the goddess head intact. This is a product of the rise of farming and the gradual settlement of mankind, and is the earliest statue of a female dancer ever seen. The altar is a place for witchcraft and primitive religious activities, while the goddess is in charge of the sacrifice, which is called "witch" in ancient China. Witch? , is a bridge between man and God, and its means of communication is dance. The statue of the goddess is an illustration of? Women enjoyed a relatively respectable status in earlier times? (Engels, "The Origin of the Family, Private Ownership, and the State"). The Oracle's ? Dance? character is a man dancing with a bull's tail in his hands, the same as? Wu? The character "Wu" is the same as the character "Wu". Wu? What's the character for "Wu"? Kung? is the earliest altar, like two people dancing on the altar, witch is the earliest dancer, she can pass the god, entertain the god, and can entertain people, so she has an extremely important position in the primitive tribes.
China's northwestern Gansu Qin'an Tianshui Dadiwan, unearthed in the 80s, 5000 years ago, the late Yangshao geoglyphs, three (one of the image has been blurred) nude forefathers, the right hand holding a stick, legs crossed, toes cocked, is dancing, and this dance has a left and right swaying, the center of gravity of the two feet left and right interchangeable characteristics. The hair is thrown to the left to indicate the intensity and boldness of the dance movements. The following two reptiles, according to the location of the geoglyphs in the center of the house foundation directly in front of the fire pit, reflect the custom of primitive sacrifices. This kind of specialized for clan meetings and rituals? Big House? s appearance indicates that it has taken the shape of a clan temple. The three figures are worshipped as ancestors, and at the same time they are also three ancestors who entertain the gods with dances. Hunting was a common practice throughout primitive society, and people survived by hunting birds and animals collectively. The ancestors met and celebrated to imitate the forms of birds and animals, reproducing the hunter's bravery and the joy of victory, as described in the Shangshu? Yiji" about? The "Yiji" in the Shangshu (The Book of Songs), for example, says The description of the "Yiji" in the "Shangshu" faithfully reflects the heroism of the first hunters. The description faithfully reflects the dance activities of the ancestors.
Sleeping in the ground as long as 5000 years of China's northwest region of Qinghai Datong on Sun Jiazhai dance pattern painted pottery pots unearthed and the subsequent Qinghai Zongri dance pattern painted pottery pots unearthed in the dance world caused a sensation is not accidental, it is the Neolithic Majiayao culture treasures (accompanied by sea shells, bone square wheel, cow tail bone, etc.). The former colored pottery basin inside the upper layer, there are four parallel banding, painted on the top of three groups of hand in hand in the performance of ? Collective dance? The dancers, a group of five, **** fifteen people. They braided hair hanging on the left side, tail ornaments (a male root) is a style thrown to the right side, facing the same, the same direction, the pace is neat and tidy, to the left and dance, harmonious movements, indicating that the dance in the clan society has matured. These dancers chose to dance under the willow tree and by the stream in a quiet environment, with their arms in unison. Each group of dancers is separated by five to eight inner arc lines on both sides, and there is a diagonal row of willow leaf-shaped broadband lines in the middle, centered on the hook-and-leaf dot pattern, from which it can be assumed that people at that time were engaged in hunting (as evidenced by the tail ornaments) and also already engaged in agricultural production labor. The transition from animal to plant decoration is one of the greatest advances in history? (Grose, cited by Plekhanov). The colored pottery basin excavated in Zongri has two groups of female dancers with skirts on the inner wall, one group of thirteen and one group of eleven, which are products of the same period as the former. The historical value of the dance pattern pottery basin is that it is a typical dance artifacts of the alternating period of hunting dance and agricultural dance. As for the dance of the ancestors of the genus problem, many scholars believe that the ancestors of the ancient Qiang, which seems to reach *** knowledge.
1.7 million years ago (said 730,000 years ago), ? Yuanmou people? lived in Yunnan Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture to the north, near the Jinsha River, Wumeng Mountains region of Yuanmou County. It is believed that the ancient Qiangrong in Gansu Province moved from here. Therefore, the owners of the geoglyphs of the ritual dance in Qin'an in Gansu and the colored pottery pots with dance patterns in Qinghai cannot be excluded as the descendants of the Yuanmou people. And the Qiangrong people later flowed backward to the banks of the Jinsha River, which is now the Naxi people in the Lijiang area. Naxi women still retain tail ornaments and shawls of the sun, moon and stars, and when the sun sets and the bonfire is lit, they step on their arms and sing (called? jumping feet?) When the bonfire is lit, they step on their arms and sing (called "jumping feet"). Wo hot hot? and? A Li Li? and from slow steps to wild dancing, all night long. Cangyuan in Yunnan Province and the petroglyphs in Black Mountain, Gansu Province, belong to the hunting period of the dance.
In the history of the development of the Chinese dance occupies an equally important position is the lower reaches of the Yangtze River along the southeast coast of the Liangzhu culture (about 3300 ~ 2250 BC), in Zhejiang Yuyao Hemudu unearthed a large number of cultural relics, 6000 ~ 4000 years ago, the ancestors here have created a rich material and spiritual civilization, this is also the development of China's early culture of another center. Jiangsu wuxian jiangling mountain liangzhu culture tombs unearthed a large number of jade jade jade jade jade, there is a carving through the crown dance pattern of jade ornaments, under the five holes for the use of connecting. In the center of the translucent carving is an animal-face pattern, flanked by two symmetrical dancers wearing crowns and dancing with fluttering sleeves, which is quite similar to the style of the witch dance. The animal motifs on the jade ornaments contain the meaning of warding off evil spirits and driving away evil spirits.
Four, the dance of fertility worship
? According to the materialist point of view, the determining factor in history is, in the final analysis, the production and reproduction of direct life. But production itself is of two kinds: on the one hand, the production of the means of subsistence, i.e., food, clothing, shelter, and the tools necessary for this; and on the other hand, the production of mankind itself, i.e., the reproduction of the species.? Reproduction is the instinct of human beings, and in the primitive times, when the level of productivity was low, people wished to be prosperous. And to do this, in the conditions at that time is extremely difficult, therefore, people will be reproductive reproduction as a mysterious phenomenon, and even to the sex organs worship. This culture of fertility worship has had a great impact on the cultural history of the Chinese nation, and has had a profound influence on the development of dance from ancient times to the present day. In the primitive clans, the cult of reproduction has its own peculiar manifestation, that is, the homogeneity of the two sexes. The indigenous Yekoyi people of Guinea and Cameroon, when buried, use a double-sided person, the black side representing the male and the white side representing the female. A 6,000-year-old ceramic head sculpture unearthed at the Houwa Neolithic site in Dandong, China, has a male figure on one side and a female figure on the other. In addition, the pottery pots with human faces unearthed in Sanpingtai, Liuwan, Ledu, Qinghai also have statues of both men and women. Until 3,000 years ago, Xinjiang Hutubi rock paintings also have male and female body stone carving. Many scholars believe that the emergence of the Houwa double-faced people and other things, indicating that the core of the primitive philosophy of the Chinese people? The philosophical concept that yin and yang coincide to produce all things has been born. Scholar Zhao Guohua linked the origin of the Bagua to the fish motifs at Xi'an's Hemipo (see Zhao Guohua, "A Treatise on the Culture of Reproduction Worship"). The Yangshao culture site in Xi'an's Half-slope (about 6,080-5,600 years ago) unearthed colored pots painted with a human face with fish motifs (a human face with a fish's head merged into a body) in the 1950s, and colored pots painted with a double-bodied fish motif and a frog motif were also unearthed in Jiangzhai, Lintong, Shaanxi Province, in 1972. The ancestors of the Half Slope (Neolithic Yangshao Culture) used the fish as a symbol of the female genitalia and practiced fertility worship, as well as frogs, for which fish sacrifices were held in order to seek reproductive reproduction (because the ancestors realized that the fish was highly reproductive), and the painted pottery pots containing the fish were the sacrificial vessels for the fish sacrifices. From this, Zhao Guohua deduced? Bagua orientation map? Hetu? Luoshu? This is a new and unique insights, which for the study of the relationship between the culture of fertility worship and dance culture provides an important idea. Qian Xuan Tong proposed early: the original "Yi" trigrams, is the genital worship era.? Qian? and? Kun? The two trigrams are the mark of the genitals of both sexes Shandong stilts in the Green Snake, White Snake stick and dance is the male root in disguise, while the clam dance is the female Yin in disguise. Henan Huaiyang Ancestor Temple (worship Fuxi Nuwa) to retain the "pick flower basket" sacrificial ancestor dance, which? The "Scissors" dance is a variation of the "Mussel" dance, which is the female yin. The dance is a performance of the "shearer", which shows the crossing of tails. Inside the temple, there is a round hole, named Zisunyao (symbolizing the female yin), for people seeking children to touch. The natural cracks in the Jianchuan Grottoes in Yunnan Province are called "A Yangbai" by the Bai people. A Yangbai? , is also a symbol of the female yin, touch to seek children. Hutubi County, Xinjiang, large rock paintings, in more than 120 square meters on the screen, full of different sizes of male and female figures hundreds of people, most of them made regular dance movements, almost all nude, male exposed male roots and testicles, five fingers upward forked (the first people to five for the number of poles, and prayed for more births), some men and women with the same body. Some women dance, some stacked on top of the man or coitus, this is a large petroglyphs praying for population reproduction. Rongshui Miao in Guangxi circulated genital worship customs and dance, the Spring Festival must be performed "Mang Artemisia Dance", Mang Artemisia for the strange face of the people, the performance to wear a wooden plate carved into the strange face, by seven or nine men playing Mang Artemisia, with the drums, Mang Artemisia more and more intense, deliberately chasing young women, and symbolic action of sexual intercourse (Qin Guiqing, "Ancient Genital Worship of the Miao"). There are also remnants of similar customary dances among other ethnic groups, such as the Bai? Around the Mountain Forest? of the Bai, the Yi, the Yellow Mud Drum Dance of the Yao, and the March 3 Dance of the Li. March 3rd? etc.