by Gao Xingjian
Now his teeth have fallen out and he can only eat a little thin gruel. He has indeed gone through good days but no-one comes to attend to him anymore. The young people all have money. They’ve learnt to smoke filter-tip cigarettes, carry a screaming electric box and also to wear those evil black glasses. How can they still think about their ancestors? The more he sings the more wretched he feels.
He remembers he has forgotten to set up the incense burner, but to get it from the hall would mean going up and down the stone steps. Instead, he lights the incense sticks on the fire and places them in the ground in front of the table. In the past he would spread out a six-foot length of black cloth and cover it with glutinous rice stalks.
Treading on the glutinous rice stalks, he closes his eyes and sees in front of him the pair of sixteen-year-old dragon girls. They are the prettiest girls in the stockade, their bright intelligent eyes are clear like the river waters but of course not the river in flood. Nowadays the river is very dirty when it rains, and within ten li on both sides of the river it’s impossible to find big trees suitable for the sacrifices. For these one needs the timber of twelve pairs of different trees, all of the same height and girth. The white wood must be white spruce and the red wood must be maple. When chopped, the wood of the white spruce is silver and the wood of the maple is gold.
Go! Maple drum father,
Go! White spruce drum mother,
Along with the maple,
Along with the white spruce,
To the place awaiting kings,
To the place of the ancestors,
When the drums have been escorted, the pledge is fulfilled,
Ho! the Master of Sacrifice unsheathes his sword,
Raises his sword to chop the wood,
He has pledged to escort the drums,
Dong-ka-dong-dong-dong-weng,
Dong-ka-ka-dong-weng,
Ka-dong-ka-weng-weng,
Weng-ka-dong-dong-ka,
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Many knives and axes chop continuously through the night. After a fixed number of blows, the two dragon girls with their exquisite features and beautiful figures appear.
Wives need husbands,
Men need women,
Go into houses to give birth,
Quietly create people,
Don’t let roots snap,
Don’t let seeds be wiped out,
Bear seven lively, beautiful girls,
Bear nine spirited, handsome boys.
The pair of dragon girls, two pairs of unmoving eyes, bright black eyes. He sees right into his own heart, lust resurfacing, generating energy. His singing resounds to Heaven: roosters crow, the God of Thunder in Heaven sends down lightning, and crazed demons and monsters wildly dance on the drum skins, leaping like scattered beans. Ahh, high silver headdress, heavy silver earrings, hot steam rising from bronze cauldrons on charcoals. Hands scrubbed, faces washed, hearts full of joy. God in Heaven is happy and lets down the Heavenly Ladder. Father and mother descend, sound the drums and granaries open, spilling forth so much good grain that nine vats and nine urns cannot contain it all. The kitchen stoves burn with hot charcoal and the family is wealthy and noble. As soon as the spirits of the mother’s ancestors descend, everything swells up – nine wooden buckets of steaming hot dazzling white rice, and everyone gathers around to make rice balls. Start the drums, start the drums, the drum owner goes first, the men follow after, follow close one behind the other. Then the drum master comes last.
Go bathe in the waters of wealth and nobility!
Go drench in the liquids of great riches!
Waters of wealth and nobility give birth to children,
Flower-drenching rains give birth to sons,
Sons and grandsons like palm shoots,
Progeny like fish fry,
All come to the drum owner’s family,
Drink nine piculs of watery liquor,
Take rice as offerings,
Take liquor for libations,
Invite the gods of heaven to come and receive it,
Invite the demons of earth to come and eat it,
The drum owner swings his axe,
The ancestors unsheathe their swords,
To surpass their older ancestors,
In thinking of the mother who bore them,
Come chisel a pair of pipes,
Come make a pair of drums . . .
He exhausts himself loudly singing the eulogy and his old voice, like a broken bamboo pipe, sobs in the wind. His throat is parched and he drinks another mouthful of watery liquor, knowing that this is the last time. His spirit seeps out of his body as his singing disperses in the air.
How would anyone hear him on that dark desolate river-bank? Luckily when an old woman opens the door to throw out some dirty water, she seems to hear someone sobbing and sees the campfire on the bank. She thinks it must be Han Chinese who have come to poach fish: the Han Chinese are everywhere nowadays if there is money to be made. She shuts the door but then thinks, on the night before the New Year the Han celebrate just like the Miao unless they are destitute. Perhaps it is a wandering beggar. So she fills a bowl with leftovers from the New Year meal to take to the person. It isn’t until she gets to the campfire that she recognizes the old Master of Sacrifice at the square table. She stops there stupefied.
When her husband sees the door wide open with the cold wind coming in, he gets up to close the door but remembers that his wife said she was taking a bowl of food to a beggar. She hadn’t returned so he goes out to look for her. When he gets to the campfire he too is stupefied. Afterwards the daughters and then the sons all come out, but none of them know what to do. A youth who had a couple of years schooling at the village primary school goes up and urges him, “It’s a cold night. An old man like you must be careful not to catch a chill. We’ll help you inside the house.”
The old man’s nose is running but he is oblivious to it and, eyes shut, he goes on chanting and singing, his rasping voice trembling in his throat, muffled and indistinct.
Afterwards, the doors of one house after the other open. Old women, old men, as well as young people and children all come and gradually the whole stockade is assembled on the river-bank. Some think to go home for some glutinous rice balls, some bring a duck, some bring bowls of watery liquor and leftover bowls of beef, someone even brought a portion of a pig’s head, and all of these are put before him.
“To forget one’s ancestors is a crime . . .” the old man mumbles.
A young boat girl is so overcome that she runs home and brings back in her arms a blended wool blanket from her trousseau. She puts it over the old man’s shoulders, wipes his nose with a floral handkerchief, and says, “Old uncle, come back into the house!”
The young people all say, “What a sad old man!”
Mother of the maple tree, father of the white spruce, forgetting one’s ancestors will bring retribution! The old man’s voice rolls about in his throat as tears and mucous stream down his face.
“Old uncle, come quickly, don’t say anything more.”
“Come quickly back inside the house.”
The young people went up to help him.
“I want to die right here . . .” The old man exerts himself and finally manages to shout out like a spoilt child.
An old woman says, “Let him sing, he won’t get through the spring.”
This copy of Drum Sacrifice Songs I am holding in my hands was written down and transcribed into Chinese by a Miao acquaintance. My writing this story is to thank him.
It is a fine day with not a trace of cloud in the sky and the vault of heaven is amazingly remote and clear. Beneath the sky is a solitary stockade with layers of pylon houses built on the edge of a precipitous cliff. In the distance it looks quite beautiful, like a hornet’s nest hanging on a rock wall. The dream is like this. You are at the bottom of the cliff, walking one way and the other, but can’t find the road up. You can see yourself getting closer and then suddenly y
ou are moving further away. After going in circles for quite some time you finally give up and just let your legs carry you along the mountain road. When it disappears behind the cliff, you can’t help feeling disappointed. You have no idea where the mountain road beneath your feet leads but in any case you don’t actually have a destination.
You walk straight ahead and the road goes around in circles. Actually, there has never been a definite goal in your life. All your goals keep changing as time passes and as locations change, and in the end the goals no longer exist. When you think about it, life in fact doesn’t have what may be called ultimate goals. It’s just like this hornet’s nest. It’s a pity to abandon it, yet if one tries to remove it one will encounter a stinging attack. Best to leave it just hanging there so that it can be admired. At this point in your thinking, your feet become lighter, it is fine wherever your feet take you, as long as there are sights to see.
On both sides are red bayberry forests but it is not the season for picking the berries and by the time the berries ripen you don’t know where you will be. Whether berries wait for people or people wait for berries is a metaphysical problem. There are many ways of dealing with the problem, and it has been dealt with in endless ways, but the berries are still berries and the person is still me. One could also say this year’s berries are not next year’s berries and the person existing today did not exist yesterday. The problem is whether or not the present really exists and how the criteria are established. Best leave it to the philosophers to talk about metaphysics, just keep your mind on walking along your road.
It is uphill all the way and you begin to sweat profusely. However, suddenly you are at the foot of the stockade and, looking at the shadows in the stockade, a chill rises in your heart.
You did not expect to find crowds sitting on the long stone steps under the wooden pylons of the houses and you can only walk in the spaces between their crossed legs. Nobody looks at you, their eyes look down as they softly chant sutras, nan-nan-na-na. They seem to be in mourning. You go up the stone steps and follow the lane around a corner. On both sides the wooden houses lean and slant, propping up one another and stopping one another from collapsing. However, if there is an earthquake or a landslide, the collapse of one will cause a total collapse.
The old people sitting next to one another are also like this. Only one needs to be pushed and all of them would topple like the dominoes children have lined up. You don’t dare bump any of them for fear of creating a disaster. You carefully plant your feet between the bony ankles of their folded legs. Their feet, which are like chicken feet, are wrapped in cloth socks. While they chant the wooden houses creak and you wonder if it is the houses or their bones which are creaking. They all suffer from palsy and as they sway and chant their heads keep shaking.
The winding lane is endless and people sit crammed on the stone steps at the sides of the lane. The charcoal coloured clothing they all wear is covered in patches, it is local cloth and being very old disintegrates on washing. The sheets and coarse grass-cloth mosquito nets which hang from the railings of the tall buildings add to the intensity of the all-pervasive sadness of these old people.
In the midst of the chanting a shrill sound claws at you like a cat, clutching you and forcing you to walk on. You can’t make out where the sound comes from but see strings of paper money hanging outside a doorway and incense smoke wafting out through the door curtains. It seems that someone has died.
It gets harder and harder to walk. They are squashed even more tightly together and there is just nowhere to put down your foot. You are afraid if you tread on an ankle you will break it. You have to be even more careful, and picking somewhere to put down your toes between legs and feet which are like the gnarled roots of old trees, you hold your breath and take one step, then another.
You walk among them but not one of them looks up. They are either wearing turbans or cloth scarves and you can’t see their faces. At this point they all start singing. Listening intently, you gradually make out the words.
Come all of you,
One day make six rounds,
One round run six times,
In the netherland,
Scatter rice,
You must all come to help.
The shrill lead is an old woman sitting on a stone doorsill right next to you. There is something special about her. A black cloth is draped over her shoulders, her head is completely covered, and a trembling hand hits on a knee as her body slowly sways backwards and forwards in time with her singing. On the ground alongside her is a bowl of water, a bamboo tube filled with rice, and a stack of square coarse paper with rows of holes in it. She wets a finger in the bowl, takes a square of paper money and tosses it into the air.
When will you all come,
When will you all go,
To the end of the earth,
To the eastern slope,
A disaster, a calamity,
To kill a person doesn’t take half a grain of rice,
To save a person doesn’t take half a strand of hair,
All come to help for there is trouble and distress
Please all of you come!
You want to get past. You are afraid if you bump her shoulder her frail body will topple so you go to move her foot, but suddenly she screeches:
All red, all red clothes,
Feet small like chopsticks,
Head big as a duck’s cage,
When he comes it will be all right,
What he says counts,
Get him to come quickly,
Tell him not to be late!
Singing shrilly, she slowly gets to her feet then starts gesticulating at you. Chicken feet fingers stretch out at you, menacingly, you don’t know where the courage comes from but you block her arms and lift her cloth head cover. Inside is a small wizened face, a pair of sunken lustreless eyes, and a gaping mouth with one tooth. She seems to be smiling, but clearly is not, and while shouting starts to dance.
Red snakes slither everywhere,
Tigers and leopards on the prowl,
The mountain gate creaks open,
They come in by the stone gate,
Shouts arise all around,
One by one everyone shouts together,
Quickly go to help the person in distress!
You try to get out of her clutches but they are all slowly getting to their feet. One by one these old people, like dessicated timber, surround you and a sea of trembling voices starts shouting:
All red clothing, all red,
Quickly open the gate to ask,
Ask one moment and the next they’ll be here,
Ask Lord Thunder and ask Mother Lightning,
If there are horses everyone will ride,
If there is food everyone will eat!
The crowd charges at you, attacking you with sounds muffled in their throats. You are forced to push them aside and one by one they instantly fall, as if made of paper, soundlessly. A deathly loneliness prevails. You suddenly realize that behind the curtained doorway, the person lying on the planks is you. You refuse to die just like this, you must quickly, and right away, return to the world of human beings.
Leaving the Miao stockade, I walk from morning to afternoon along this desolate mountain road. Buses and truck convoys hauling bamboo and timber occasionally pass and though I signal none will stop.
The sun is already beginning to descend behind the mountain ridge opposite and chilly mountain winds start blowing all around. On the winding highway, up ahead and below, there are no village stockades in sight and there is no longer anyone walking on the road. The further I go the more desolate it becomes. I don’t know how much further it is to the county town or whether I will be able to get there before dark. If I don’t flag down a vehicle soon, I’ll have trouble finding somewhere to spend the night. I remember the camera in my backpack. What’s to stop me from pretending I’m a reporter? Maybe it will work.
At last I hear a vehicle coming from behind so I stand i
n the middle of the road and start waving my camera. A truck with a canopy is bumping along the road, charging ahead without slowing down. It is only when it is almost upon me that it screeches to a halt.
