Huan Nuo Yuan [Fulfilling the Will of The Spirits], 19:19, color, English subtitles. Thomas Riccio (director and cameraman), Peng JinQuan (researcher). A documentation of the Huan Nuo Yuan ritual of the Miao people who live deep in the Wu Ling Mountains of western Hunan, China. The Badai conduct the two-day ritual, a practice that goes back thousands of years.
From Thomas Riccio’s interview with Shi Bang Wu:
Riccio: What is the purpose of the rice bowl on the table with incense and money sticking in it?
Shi: It is my offering to the gods. When I swallow the bowl fragments that I am able to cure people. When I eat the bowl I begin to have a sixth sense and to see sickness. but this sensation not always.
Riccio: Do you go into trance?
Shi: No, I do not use trance—I eat the bowl and am connected with the gods and a vision comes and then I visit the people I saw.
Riccio: Then what happens?
Shi: Sometimes it is difficult to tell if a sickness is spiritual. But I see that it is the healing ritual goes quickly—and I have a good success rate. The sickness is then evaporated into the air.
From the abstract of Riccio, “Miao Ritual Performance: Space of Memory and Identity” (2017):
Miao, one of China’s largest ethnic minorities, live primarily in the Xiangxi Autonomous Prefecture in Hunan. Six hundred years ago, seeking refuge from the invading Han, they fled to the rugged and isolated mountainous region, which has served as protection and ultimately, cultural preservation. The impoverished and, until recently, politically marginalized Miao live between two worlds, modern China, and an ancient, agriculturally based subsistence culture. Until recently the Miao were shamed by the central government, their cultural practices considered “primitive,” “superstitious” and counter to the aspirations and identity of a modern and developed China.
The Miao have carried and sustained their five-thousand-year-old culture into the twenty-first century by way of highly complex and developed performance traditions. At the center of their tradition is the Badai, community-based, shaman-like ritualist who serve as healers, performers, and keepers of Miao culture. Their ritual performances, apply a rich array of masks, regalia, dance, poetry, song and music to enable the myth to heal. The work of the Badai compliments the Xian Niang, female spirit mediums who often work in collaboration. Both Badai and Xian Niang are nature- and ancestor-based practices that interweave spirituality, memory, identity, mythology, and performance that have sustained individuals, community, and culture.
Huan Nuo Yuan rituals, the focus of the paper, occur from late November into January throughout rural and village Miao areas and are one of the most frequently enacted. The family-sponsored ritual takes several days to prepare and occurs over twenty-four hours, and conducted to “fulfill the will of the Nuo,” the spirit protectors of the Miao.
For more about huan nuo yuan, see:
- LIU Xing-Lu, “On Modern performances of Huan Nuo Yuan of Waxiang in the Western of Hunan Province,” Journal of Jishou University (Social Sciences (2012)
- Hua Yu, “A vernacular way of ‘safeguarding’ intangible heritage: the fall and rise of rituals in Gouliang Miao village,” International Journal of Heritage Studies (2015)
- T. Yu, “Study on Ceremonial Dance of Huan Nuo Yuan” (2017)
