NO. I 



CH UAN MIAO SONGS AND STORIES — GRAHAM 



IV. SONGS AND CEREMONIAL CHANTS 



CEREMONIES OF THE MAGICIAN OR SHAMAN 



General Description 



37 



The Magician Exorcises Demons "^ (717) 



First a table is placed in a room or court. 

 Incense and candles are lighted. Some vege- 

 tables and meat with gravy are used. The 

 Utan }{ting places a quart of uncooked rice 

 on the table and places a pair of wild-ox 

 horns in it. On his head he wears two paper 

 horns. In his left hand he carries a brass 

 gong. In his i-ight he carries the stick with 

 which to beat the gong. At the same time 

 he burns some beeswax. 



A. The tuan ]{ting stands up and sings, 

 "The yellow wax burns, and the smoke arises. 

 When the wax burns I will call. I will call 

 Ntsong Yin (his helper) here to lead. I will 

 call Ntsong Yin (jin) to come and go ahead. 

 I will call Yin Tsha to come and go ahead. 

 I will call Yin Tsha (jin tja*) to come and 

 lead. Nga Yin held an iron fan. Yin Tsha 

 held a brass fan in his hand. He fanned 

 himself with the brass fan and thus scattered 

 the demons by the sea. He fanned himself 

 with an iron fan and thus drove the demon 

 illnesses and groans away." 



When he has repeated thus far, he beats the 

 gong loudly. 



! B. "When the beeswax burns, the smoke 



i arises. When it smokes, the tuan \ung goes 



\ and calls. He calls Na Bo Sun Yin to come 



to the front. He calls Sun Yin Le Ts'i to 



; come to the front. Na Bo Sun Yin carries an 



I iron club in his (or her?) hand. Sun Yin Le 



Ts'i' carries a brass club in his hand. The 



iron club will beat the demons of illness as 



the water of the sea scatters. The brass club 



beats die demons of illness and the demons 



of groans so that they go to the place where 



people sleep and scatter." 



At this point the tuan \ung again beats his 

 gong awhile.^''^ 



^^ The Ch'uan Miao magician, whose primary 

 work is exorcising demons who are believed to be 

 responsible for practically all diseases and other ca- 

 lamities, is called in Chinese a titan \ttng ^-J!^) 

 and in Ch'uan Miao do mm (To** nAn-"). The 

 following 35 chants or ceremonies were obtained 

 from Mr. Shiung Cheng Ts'ai, a farmer who lived 

 at Wang Wu Chai near Lo Piao. He had always 

 lived the normal life of a Ch'uan Miao and was 

 then over 60 year old. They are here reprinted 

 from the Journal of the West China Border Re- 

 search Society, vol. 9, pp. 71-97. The first 14 

 often occur in the same ceremony. 



^^ These ceremonies were first written down in 



C. "When the beeswax burns, the incense 

 smokes. When it smokes, I again call. I call 

 9,000 soldiers to come to the front. He calls 

 upon the soldiers of 900 fortified places to 

 come forward and bring the big guns and 

 shoot them everywhere, and bring the spears 

 and stand them up black (and sharp), and to 

 shoot the big guns with their black smoke. 

 When it looks black I will call for the soldiers 

 to charge. They will charge against the de- 

 mons in the forest and the grass of these old 

 people's family, and charge them down to the 

 river on the lower bend, casting them onto 

 the roads, the cliffs, and the crossroads." 



The tuan l^ung now beats the gongs awhile. 



D. "When the beeswax burns, the smoke 

 arises. When it smokes, we will again come 

 and call. We will call the scholar who con- 

 trols heaven to come forward. The old 

 scholar who controls heaven comes and 

 looks. He looks to see if the souls (living) of 

 this family are few or not; to see if the boys 

 of this family are crooked or not; to see if 

 these old people's pool is full or not; to see 

 if the lake of these old people is clean or not. 

 Ntz'i's group of controllers of heaven came 

 and looked at the earth; to see if the souls 

 of the living of this family are here or not; 

 to see if the souls of the bodies of this family 

 have returned to their right bodies or not; 

 to see if the souls of these bodies are with 

 their bodies or not." 



At this time the tuan \ung again beats the 

 gong a while. 



E. "When the beeswax burns, the smoke 

 arises. When it arises we (the tuan hting) 

 will also come. We will call Na Bo So to 

 come to the front. He will call the thunder 

 god to come to the front. He will call Tsha 

 Dai (t5o*^ Tai®, the lightning) to come to the 

 front. He will call Ze So (Se° so'^) and Tsha 

 Dai to come to the front. Bo So came with a 

 stir. Ze So came with a roar. Bo So came 

 with a stir and came and beat the demons 

 that cause sickness and those that cause 

 groans. Ze So came roaring and shouting 

 and chased away the demons of the forests 

 and the grassy places. Bo So then used Tsha 



the Chinese language by Hsiung Ts'ao Sung, then 

 with his assistance translated into English by the 

 writer. The deaths of both Hsiung Ts'ao Sung 

 and Hsiung Cheng Ts'ai made it impossible for 

 the writer to later check up the tomes and mean- 

 ings of the Miao words and phrases. 



