Origin of Dragon Dance Traced to Pan’an
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When it comes to dragon as a symbol of China, there seems no dispute about its origin in the Xia Dynasty about 4,500 years ago. But there are different versions about where dragon dance originated in China. The latest version points to Pan’an, a county in Jinhua in central Zhejiang Province, as the very cradle of dancing celebrations of dragon in China.
This tale was seen circulating among primary school pupils in Taiwan ten years ago as a 25-volume series published in the island province traces roots in folklore of Chinese folk festivals and holidays. The first story in the first volume tells a story about the origin of dragon dance and explicitly puts Jinhua on the map of folklore and legends.
According to the legend, a dragon is appointed by Jade Emperor to make rain in Jinhua. As the dragon does a pretty good job, local farmers express their gratitude to the god of rain in a ceremony at the end of every month. Annoyed by the local farmers’ misplaced gratitude, the jade emperor decides to punish farmers and orders a two-year drought. The dragon, however, disobeys the order. The enraged emperor cut the dragon in half on the 15th day of January. The two parts of the dragon falls on either side of the Lingxi River. In commemoration of the slaughtered dragon, the people in Jinhua County hold a dragon lantern show this day every year and use bench lanterns to connect the separated body of the dragon.
Kong Lingwei, a 76-generation descendent of Confucius and CPC secretary of Yushan Town in Pan’an County, heard of this Taiwan publication and acquired a copy of the first volume with the help of a friend. Doing a field study in Pan’an in July, 2008, he heard the same version of the story in Jiachun Village. This discovery gave the party secretary something to ponder. But he did not broadcast the discovery. He quietly asked three elderly villagers to look into the folklore in surrounding rural and urban areas for more evidence.
Kong Lingwei knew that there are other versions about the origin of dragon dance in China, but these legends do not tally with official records and history. Scholars find it hard to pin a legend down to a certain place. He had known the Jinhua origin for a long time. He once looked around in Quzhou, then a county in the Jinhua Prefecture. But no positive result came out of his research. To his surprise and delight, Pan’an County seems to ring a bell when he checked the story against real names.
A two-arch stone bridge named Lingxi Bridge authenticates the existence of Lingxi River that passes Jiachun. The ancient bridge was last refurbished in 1963. Before the 1963 project, the bridge was topped with a wooden structure in the architectural style of the early Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). But villagers are unable to trace the history of the bridge further back. A panoramic view from the bridge reveals towering ancient tree on the banks, whose luxuriant treetops almost shut out the sky in the summer.
Five minutes away from the village towers Mount Lingshan, 650 meters above sea level. Of all the hills around the village, only this mount is of sheer rock. For a few years, a stone quarry at the foot of the mount was the main source of building materials for the village. A huge chunk of the mount was cut off. The stone mining has long since been stopped. Today the mount presents cliffs displaying wave-like traces on the surface as if carved and hewed by a craftsman.
Gu Kuang, a poet of the Tang Dynasty (618-907), mentions Mount Lingshan in a poem. This poem has been cited in various local annals in central Zhejiang. The villagers firmly believe that Mount Lingshan by the village is the very mount poeticized by the Tang poet.
The geographic features around Jiachun tally with the legend. Near the village sprawls a huge rock called the dragon incarnation rock. As local legend explains, it is part of the dragon after it was slain by the jade emperor. A ridge behind the village looks like the neck of the dragon. And strangely enough, the soil in this 1,200-m2 sect of the ridge is completely different from the rest of the hills. It looks gold-yellowish on the surface and red underneath. Beyond the area soil is black. It is believed that the dragon blood reddened the land. Digging in this red-soil land is a village taboo. If someone happens to touch the red soil under the gold-yellowish surface, he has to offer sheep or cattle as sacrifice to the dragon.
If the history of the bridge, viewed as the evidence for claiming the village as the cradle of dragon dance, can’t be traced back beyond the Qing Dynasty, the village goes way back. Jiachun Village took form in the Sui Dynasty nearly 1,000 years ago. For centuries all the villagers were surnamed Zhou as confirmed by the clan’s pedigree. In the following Tang Dynasty, this cluster of small habitats of the Zhou people prospered as a marketplace thanks to its vantage spot on a provincial cobble-stone thoroughfare which passed through the village and went all the way to Shaoxing, Taizhou and Ningbo, all important trade and urban centers in the ancient province. The village served as a source of tea and medicinal herbs, favorite goods for export from Ningbo, the starting point of the Silk Road on the Sea.
The Zhou clan declined gradually over centuries. About three hundred years ago, people of other surnames moved in. As different clans lived together, none set up a single clan temple in the village. Instead, various religious temples were built. There used to be six nunneries and four Buddhist monasteries within a diameter of 750 meters from the village.
Moreover, pan’an is a county of folk dances. Situated in the center of Zhejiang Province, the county has easy access to neighboring counties since ancient times. The mutual access from neighboring regions has given Pan’an a great variety of folklore and arts. Data shows that Pan’an is now home to more than 20 folk dances in 55 variations. No other county in the province boasts so many different dancing traditions.
According to history, dragon dance in Jiachun Village started in the heydays of the Tang Dynasty. Villagers initiated this dance in the hope of putting the slaughtered dragon together again. The small village has a lot of dragon names for places in and around the village proper.
For many, Jiachun may not be the definitive answer to the origin of dragon dance in China. But many people in Pan’an are convinced that it is. And they are ready to do something about the honor.
Nowadays, the dragon sites around the village are already put under protection by the village committee. The Pan’an County government has drafted a plan to promote the cradle of Chinese dragon dance. Since dragon is an ancient Chinese totem, the people in Pan’an will do all they can to keep the honor of the birthplace of dragon dance to themselves.