NO. I 



Ch'uAN MIAO songs and stories — GRAHAM 



87 



go still more and dig up grass roots and roots 

 of reeds to nourish your bodies. 



Now you have eaten. You must go and 

 carry away illnesses (for the descendants). 

 You must go and carry away pains, you must 

 go and carry away quarrels, and you must 

 go and fill up the pits of illness and fill up 

 the pits of groans and fill up the pits of quar- 

 rels, and you must also go and collect all 

 kinds of pain and illness. When you have 

 collected them you must increase the strength 

 of your descendants to farm, to open clear- 

 ings in the wilderness, and to cut down deep 

 forests. You must cause your descendants to 

 have food to eat, then they will make offer- 

 ings to you three generations of female and 

 male ancestors. 



You have eaten. You must wait the year 

 and month when you should come, and then 

 we will invite you to come and eat meat and 

 eat rice. You have eaten, so go. If you be- 

 come hungry you can in a dream at night 

 imitate rain and wind as a sign (and we will 

 know that you are hungry).*'^ You must not 

 come as a sickness or a pain and injure us 

 lest your descendants have to eat wild berries 

 behind the house (because of hunger) and be- 

 come unable to make offerings to you. Please 

 come and drink (wine), and when you are 

 through drinking return to your place and 

 come back at tuan yang, trtnp^-®^ 



Words Chanted by the Priest When Tea Is 

 Offered on the Third Day of the New 

 Year (641) 



It is the morning of die third day of die 

 New Year. People are through playing on 

 both the large and the small mountains. 

 When the remaining biscuits are all eaten, 

 you must drink tea. When you are through 

 drinking tea, I will inform you that you must 

 go to your country and dig reed roots to 

 nourish your mouths and dig grass roots with 

 which to nourish your bodies. When you have 

 drunk tea you must go and remove calamities, 

 sickness, quarrels, and bad things. You must 

 increase the strength of your descendants so 

 that they can farm, so that they will have 

 strength to climb mountains like wild pheas- 

 ants running, and go downhill like black 

 snakes. When you have drunk it you must 

 increase the strength of your descendants so 

 they can go and farm. When they do their 

 farming do not let the grasshoppers eat it or 

 white insects cut it ofF. Let your descendants 

 have clothes and food. They will first make 

 offerings to the female and male ancestors 

 for three generations. 



Now we want to invite the deceased ances- 

 tors all to come together and eat. When you 

 are through eating, I will determine for you 

 that you must wait until the fifth moon at 

 tuan yang before we will again make offerings 

 to you. 



THE TUAN YANG FESTIVAL 



Binding the Sl{y and the Earth ^^ (355) 



In most ancient times there were a husband 

 and his wife. The name of the husband was 

 Ji Je No K'a. The name of the woman was 

 K'a Te Na (bind earth mother). 



They slept until deep in the night, then 

 arose and went to seek the seed of the sky and 

 the earth. While they were seeking they saw 

 the seed of the sky yielding fruit above the 

 sky. They saw the seed of the earth on the 

 edge of the earth. They then picked the sky 

 seed and the earth seed and carried it back 

 on their backs. 



They went and tried to grind the seed on a 

 stone grinder, but the grinder could not move. 



8^ This is regarded as such an omen by Chi- 

 nese and others in West China. 



^"^ A festival observed on the fifth day of the 

 fifth lunar month. 



^s Sung at New Year, Tuan Yang, and on the 

 fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month. 



Then they sent messages to hire people. They 

 hired one Glang }e Lo Bo (demon male sky 

 mother [?]) to grind. He took the sky and 

 the earth and ground them into one heap. 



This woman could grind but could not 

 winnow. They then went and hired Glang 

 Na Ngeo Gu to come and winnow it. She 

 winnowed it into a heap. 



Then they went and hired }a Ngai Glang 

 Tai (nine pairs demon fire) and Ja Ngai 

 Glang Glei {glei means water). When these 

 had come they took the sky and the earth and 

 fire and water and mixed them. 



Then they hired Ntzi Lo to come and carry 

 it on his back. Then he carried it away and 

 piled some of it up into a high land and called 

 it the sky. The low level land they called 

 earth. From this time came the sky and the 

 earth.*^^ 



69 The word lo in Ntz'i Lo means sky. 



