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Honouring the dead: Dleus vangb in a Miao village  by Xiao Kang
F irecrackers explode deafeningly, leaving behind trails of red,
smoking, charred cardboard scraps as the family members
proceed down the narrow, mud path to the host’s house. They are led by the head of the household and the host’s friend from the next village, Mr. Yang, who carries a bunch of chestnut branches in his hands. The branches, with their thick, lush, green leaves, symbolise abundance. Shreds of cheap, yellowing paper, representing sheaves of cash, hang off the branches, rustling as they hurry along.

As Mr. Yang arrives at the house, the host comes out to greet him. The host kneels on the ground to receive him, and Mr. Yang kneels down in front of the doorway and lifts the host to his feet. Then he stands up and passes the birch branches to the host’s nephew, who puts them in the house along with the other branches that other guests have brought. The host will burn them together on the second day to bring abundance and riches to the spirits of his ancestors.

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Playing the ghenx.

Inside the house, an old man jumps and twirls around the room, blowing on the ghenx, a bamboo reed pipe that every self-respecting Miao man must learn to play. His body twists and turns to the beat of a wooden drum, or drual. Led by the host, Mr. Yang squeezes past him to the back of the room, where fourteen round, bamboo, winnowing trays are laid out, each covered with a set of colourful, embroidered garments. Each tray represents one of the host’s ancestors. These are the places set for the ancestral spirits.

Today is the first day of dleus vangb, a Miao ritual for honouring the dead. This family has not hosted dleus vangb for several generations. They are now doing it on behalf of fourteen ancestral spirits collectively. The cost of such an event is prohibitive. It involves slaughtering three oxen, each worth the equivalent of 1,500 US dollars at the current market price, in addition to numerous pigs and chickens.

We were invited to this dleus vangb by our Miao friend and scholar, Gu Chaowen (古朝文), from the Wenshan Miao Studies Association. Mr. Gu told us that the origins of dleus vangb lie in paying respects to the spirits of Miao soldiers who were martyred during wars with the Chinese thousands of years ago. “Vangb” means “shield” and is pronounced in the same way as the Miao word for “winnowing tray.” The winnowing trays represent the shields that fell onto the bodies of the Miao soldiers when they were killed in battle. It is believed that the shields prevented the spirits of the martyrs from rejoining the other ancestral spirits in the spirit world. “Dleus” means “to cast off.” The purpose of dleus vangb was originally to cast off the shields and release the martyrs’ spirits from being trapped beneath them.

Nowadays, the main function of dleus vangb is to honour one’s ancestral spirits. Some of the rituals, however, allude to the older meaning. For example, on the second day, the master of ceremonies will roll each of the winnowing trays out of the house. If a winnowing tray lands facing downwards, it indicates that the ancestral spirit can be released, just as the spirits were released long ago when people returned to the battlefield to remove the shields from the bodies of the Miao warriors. If it lands facing the sky, the spirit is still trapped, and the winnowing tray must be rolled again, repeatedly, until it lands downwards and the spirit is released.

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Places for the ancestral spirits.

On reaching the back of the room, Mr. Yang and the host kowtowed together in front of the winnowing trays three times. The host poured some corn liquor into a bowl. “If we become rich, we will remember you and pay you back for your generosity,” the host said, “but if we remain poor, I’m afraid we can never repay you.” “You don’t need to give us anything in return,” replied Mr. Yang, “We are doing the very least we can to honour you, our good friends, and your ancestors, and our offerings are worth nothing at all.” He drank the liquor and poured some of his own liquor into a bowl for the host to drink in reply.

Mr. Yang then gave some rice and boiled eggs to the host’s uncle, who was officiating. He in turn presented them before the ancestral spirits. He took a short, bamboo stick, representing communication between the world of the dead (yin) and the world of the living (yang). Splitting the bamboo in two, he asked the spirits to accept and enjoy their offerings.

Meanwhile, some younger members of Mr. Yang’s household had presented the host with a goat, which was then tied up by its horns to a tree outside. It would be slaughtered later. The spirit of the goat would be offered to the spirits of the deceased for them to rear and breed, so that they could become more prosperous. If the guests offered a goat, they could be sure that their friend’s ancestral spirits would be kind to them in the future.

“Come on, let’s eat lunch,” Mr. Gu turned to us and waved his hand in the direction of an area of flattened earth just up the path. By now, the eating area was emptying out.

I turned and noticed a whole row of goat and pig carcasses splayed out on banana leaves by a stone wall. A few of the men were still chopping up the meat with cleavers. I had never seen so many dead animals all in one place before. It was carnage.

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Chopping up the carcasses.


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Guests waiting to eat.

As we sat down, the hosts poured home-brewed corn liquor into our bowls and deposited various dishes on our table. Boiled pork, chicken, goat, beef, including the fat and entrails. Plus the requisite douf bangx, bean curd mixed with green leaf vegetable, and a token dish of cabbage. We raised our bowls to the host, thanking him for giving us the honour of visiting his home on this special occasion. As the toxic fluid seared my gullet, I vaguely wondered why we couldn’t just drink tea instead.

Streams of guests continued to arrive throughout the afternoon. The strings of firecrackers sent endless explosions ricocheting across the valley. Inside the house, the ghenx player continued to puff and leap with endless energy as the drummer beat his drum. Outside the house, the young men continued to slaughter the animals, scraping off their fur in vats of boiling water and cleaning their entrails with salt.

Making our way back home between the cornfields later that evening, we could hear the guests begin to sing. It was the custom for each household to appoint a representative who would serenade the ancestral spirits with courteous songs to give them honour and respect. The singing would last late into the night, until the guests would slowly disperse back to their homes or to their temporary lodging places in the village.

Dleus vangb would probably not be held again in this household for several more generations. And with the rapid changes afoot in modern-day China, with more Miao being educated in Chinese ways, and more of them migrating to cities for work, I wondered whether this generation, so filial and pious today, would be honoured in the same way by its descendants in years to come.