Folk social fire (Junxian folk social fire)

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Folk community fire (Junxian folk community fire)

Applicant: Jun County, Henan Province

Project No.: 502

Project No.: Ⅹ - 54

Time of publication: 2008 (second batch)

Category: folk customs

Region: Henan Province

Type: Extension Project

Applicant: Jun County, Henan Province

Protection unit: Junxian people's Cultural Center

Brief introduction of folk social fire (xunxian folk social fire)

Applicant: Jun County, Henan Province

Folk fire is a popular self entertainment activity during the Spring Festival, which originated from the ancient land worship and fire god worship. "She" is the God of land, "fire" is the ancestor of fire, is the legendary god of fire. In the history of agriculture based China, land was used for farming, fire for cooking food and heating, both of which are the material basis for people's survival and development. In ancient times, people believed that fire also had "spirit" according to primitive thinking, and worshipped it as a deity with special meaning, thus forming the concept of advocating fire. With the development of society and the improvement of people's cognitive ability, this kind of sacrificial ceremony gradually added the element of entertaining people, and finally formed a large-scale and complex folk entertainment activities.

According to the form of performance, Shehuo can be divided into modeling Shehuo and performing Shehuo. Among them, modeling Shehuo includes cloth Shehuo, back Shehuo, horse Shehuo, car Shehuo, core Shehuo, mountain Shehuo, mask Shehuo and other forms of line-up performance, which mainly shows the figure's modeling and craft; performing Shehuo includes platform Shehuo, stilt Shehuo and other forms, which mainly carries out fighting performance in the courtyard.

The theme of Shehuo is folklore and drama, which shows a story with one or a group of characters. A story is a turn of Shehuo. The characters should draw the face of Shehuo, wear the clothes of Shehuo and hold the torch of Shehuo. Generally speaking, Shehuo's performance is to explore horses in front, followed by Shehuo's flag team, fire blunderbuss team (artillery team), flag team, Shehuo team, and finally gongs and drums team. Reform and opening up has brought new vitality to the folk fire art. Under the new situation, the traditional fire art has been carried forward and become a popular folk cultural activity.

Xunxian county is located in the north of Henan Province, where the folk social fire is a local traditional mass entertainment activity with a long history. It has begun to take shape as early as the Tang and Song Dynasties, and reached maturity from the Ming and Qing Dynasties to the Republic of China.

Xunxian temple fair is the largest traditional temple fair in northern China on the 15th and 16th day of the first month every year. Xunxian Shehuo selected the Lantern Festival on the 15th day of the first month and the previous ninth day of the first month as the date of the fair. The performance forms of xunxian Shehuo mainly include lion dance, stilts, Yangko, dry boat, bamboo horse, dragon lantern, carry song and back song, carry old four, ceiling lamp, big head dance, Sanhe lamp, etc.

There are many kinds of folk art contained in the folk fire of Xunxian county. Every year, there are nearly 70 social fire teams, more than 30000 people participate in the performance, and the audience number is more than 300000. Xunxian Shehuo evolved from the initial form of sacrifice to folk entertainment, which shows a trend of the formation and development of folk art, and has important reference value for the study of folk culture.

At present, many old artists who can perform xunxian Shehuo have died one after another, and some ancient performing skills are dying out, which are in urgent need of rescue and protection.