A group of enclosed villages can be found among the depths of huge mountains near Huangguoshu Falls,a famous tourist attraction in Guizhou Province.Named Tunbao mountain villages in Anshun County,they were barely known to the outside world for many years.Only in the past two decades has their mystical veil been lifted a little.The people of Tunbao,who have long been mistaken for a minority group,are actually of the pure,simple Han nationality.They descend from a group of Hans who arrived there 600 years ago.Today,tourists swarm all over.People gasp at the peculiar stone houses and the ancient customs,especially the local opera and the masks used in performing the opera,which is immersed in the ancient culture called“nuo.”
nshun County is located in the central region of Guizhou Province.The typical karst formation has bred the extraordinary mountains and beautiful rivers.Among the mountains and rivers are scattered villages completely of a gray-white stone.The villages are called Tunbao by the local people.The people of Tunbao dress differently from other Han people and,as a result,for a long time they were mistaken for an ethnic minority in the mountains.
Six hundred years ago,in order to suppress King Liang of Yunnan,Zhu Yuanzhang,the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty,gathered an army of 300,000 from the lower reaches of the Yangtze and Huai Rivers;they marched into Yunnan and Guizhou Plateau,where the mountains are high and the paths precipitous.After King Liang was defeated,the army of 300,000 strong was stationed in Anshun,along with many peasants and artisans conscripted from the central plains,south China and east China,and they formed a unique society of Han nationality.
Today this Han community,which was formed in the high mountains,has become a living relic of Han culture.They have steadfastly preserved the culture of their ancestors and at the same time created their own unique regional culture,the Tunbao culture.
The“field opera”of Tunbao is the most charming part of their culture.The opera masks and their production comprise the soul of the opera.
Field opera originated from the nuo of the army,a sacrificial ceremony used in ancient armies to inspire military power and prestige and to scare the enemy.Nuo is an ancient Chinese culture,a witchcraft used to drive away ghosts and pestilence during the Yin–Shang period,and nuo opera is a dramatic form that gradually evolved from the sacrificial rites of nuo.A f t e r t h e y e n t e re d Guizhou region,the people of Han nationality stationed themselves there and cultivated land and grew grain.They combined the nuo of the army from their original homeland with local culture and formed a new folk opera,dixi,which means“field opera.”
No stage is needed for performing field opera,which is presented at the edges of fields outside the villages,which is how its name came about.A field opera is a military performance,which only puts on tales about fighting.What’s most special is that the performers must cover their faces with black veils and then wear masks over the veils.The masks are worn on the foreheads,so the performers cannot see anything and they have to depend on other senses for their performance.Amidst the beating drums and gongs they dance in combat skirts and sing in resounding,sad and somber tones,radiating the tension of fighting on an ancient battlefield.
The most important and most unique stage prop in this opera is the mask.The carved mask is an ancient,exquisite handicraft of the stockaded villages of Tunbao,and has been handed down from generation to generation.
The masks draw their material from clove wood and poplar.Usually it takes six processes to make them:blocking,ripping blocks in halves,working out bases,modifying the bases,coloring and decorating.Blocking means cutting the material into 40-cm logs.Ripping blocks into halves is self-explanatory.Working out a base is pasting a paper design on the wood and working out the form of the head and face with a knife.Modifying a base involves carving and polishing the rough base.Coloring means painting the features.Decorating is affixing the earlobes,glasses and beards.
A field opera requires a minimum of 30 to 40 masks and a maximum of 100 to 200.The leading characters and the supporting roles and different characters are reflected in the masks.In shaping,the masks are divided into generals of varying categories:old,young,scholarly,military and female.The old generals are composed;the young ones,handsome and spirited;the scholarly generals are learned and refined;the military generals have awe-inspiring looks;and the female generals are beautiful and charming.Regarding color,the masks must embody the temperaments of the characters.Generally,red represents loyalty and bravery,black represents staunchness and moral integrity,blue represents courage and resoluteness,green represents steadiness and white represents military bearing.
The trees on the high mountains of Guizhou,the culture on the Central Plains,the beautiful charm of the land of rivers and lakes of the lower reaches of the Yangtze and Huai Rivers and reverence for heaven have inspired one mask after another in Tunbao,which contains both the divine radiance of heaven,gods and spirits and reflects the beauty of the handicraft.