Festivals
Festivals include (Wei 2003:xix):
- tsjə1 twə3 (Duan festival) - This harvest festival is similar to the Chinese New Year. It is held from around September (start of the Sui New Year) to November (second month of the Sui calendar). Livestock meat is not eaten during the Sui New Year's Eve (hət7). On New Year's Day (ʁaai3), antiphonal choirs, horse racing, and other festivities are held. Since Sui in different areas celebrate Duan at different times, this festival actually lasts for more than two months when festivities from various locations are combined together. A total of five different Duan's are celebrated in the following locations (Wei 2003:xx).
- Wangsi in Duyun (Pandong) City
- Malian, Layou, Miaocao, Shuidong in Sandu County
- Tingpai, Hengfeng, Heyong, Tianxing in Sandu, Libo, Dushan Counties
- Zhonghe, Dixiang, Jiuqian in Sandu County
- Sandong, Shuinian, Xingxiang in Sandu County.
- tsjə1 mau4 (Mao festival) - This four-day festival is celebrated by those who do not celebrate the Duan festival. It occurs after the transplanting of rice seedlings on the tenth month of the Sui calendar. Mao Day is celebrated in the Libo County villages of Shuili, Yaoqing, Shuirao, Shuipu, and Yongkang. Antiphonal-style choirs sing traditional Sui love songs during this festival. However, by tradition married women are not allowed to perform in the choirs.
- tsjə1 tseŋ1 (spring festival) - This festival is especially elaborate in the Sandu County locales of Bannan, Shuimei, Yanggong, Zhouqin, and Yang'an. These villages, however, do not celebrate either the Duan or Mao festivals.
- su3 njen2 hi5 (small Sui new year's festival)
- tsjə1 ʔau4 hmai5 ("eat new rice" festival)
- Liuyueliu ("six month six day," or June 6, festival)
- si3 ming2 (Qingming) festival
- Duanwu
- sup8 hi5
The bronze drum is often played during festivals, and singing, dancing, slaughtering livestock for food, and giving thanks to family ancestors are typical of these festivals (Wei 2003:xxii).
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Famous quotes containing the word festivals:
“This is certainly not the place for a discourse about what festivals are for. Discussions on this theme were plentiful during that phase of preparation and on the whole were fruitless. My experience is that discussion is fruitless. What sets forth and demonstrates is the sight of events in action, is living through these events and understanding them.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“Why wont they let a year die without bringing in a new one on the instant, cant they use birth control on time? I want an interregnum. The stupid years patter on with unrelenting feet, never stopping—rising to little monotonous peaks in our imaginations at festivals like New Year’s and Easter and Christmas—But, goodness, why need they do it?”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)