Ewenki people's Sabin Festival

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Ewenki Festival

Applicant: Nehe City, Heilongjiang Province

Project No.: 1200

Project No.: Ⅹ - 125

Time of publication: 2011 (the third batch)

Category: folk customs

Region: Heilongjiang Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Nehe City, Heilongjiang Province

Protection unit: Nehe Cultural Center

A brief introduction to the Ewenki Festival:

Applicant: Nehe City, Heilongjiang Province

Sabin Festival is the most important traditional festival of Ewenki people. "Serpin" is Ewenki language, which means "happy, peaceful", is the carnival of Ewenki people. Every year, in the middle and late May of the lunar calendar, people of all ages in the tribe will choose a day to celebrate. At that time, they will wear festival costumes and get together on the grass beach of the Nenjiang River Valley to spend the festival together. The traditional folk activities of the festival include: offering sacrifices to the mountain god (or Oboo), folk song and dance performances, traditional competitions, games, picnics, banquets and bonfire parties. Its custom form is primitive, simple and unique.

As the only Ewenki inhabited area in Northeast China and the only agricultural Ewenki area in China, the hometown of Xingwang Ewenki nationality is located in Nehe City, Heilongjiang Province. It is located at the southeast foot of Daxinganling, the north end of Songnen Plain and the East Bank of the middle reaches of Nenjiang River. The rivers here are crisscross, the soil is fertile and the water is beautiful, so it is suitable for grazing and farming.

The festival originated from the ancient sacrificial ceremony of Ewenki people, and experienced the history of primitive bear worship and mountain god worship. In the 16th century, Shamanism entered the Ewenki tribe, and the "Sabin Festival" characterized by totem declined and was on the verge of being lost. In the middle of the Qing Dynasty, with the Ewenki people moving southward from the outer Xing'an Mountains and the jingqili River Basin, and living in the Nenjiang River Basin and its tributaries, the festival once again entered the memory of the Ewenki people, and evolved from mountain god worship to folk carnivals such as singing and dancing, competitive Entertainment (horse racing, archery, etc.), picnics, banquets, bonfire parties, etc.

The Sabin festival in Nehe has experienced the development process from forest primitive hunting tribe to mountain fishing and farming civilization, which has obvious characteristics of agricultural civilization.