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Crying Out to Heaven for Rain  by Mo Rui Qiu
T he weather in many parts of the country had been the driest in
decades. Farmers were struggling to keep their crops watered.
In this context, the local people returned to the tradition of the “Eliminating the Disaster Festival” (消灾节). It was their way of crying out to heaven for rain.

For the first time since 1948, the Jingxi Zhuang people constructed a tall (4 meters high) paper statue of the “Demon King” on a main street in the town of Jiǔzhōu (旧州). Young men in their early twenties were revving up to animate a large dragon puppet. Small boys around ten to twelve years old were fidgeting with a smaller version of the same dragon puppet.

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The Taoist priest bows before the Demon King.
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People take the Bodhisattva out for a walk.
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A local elder shows the young guys how to make the dragon dance.

The morning’s procession began when the local Taoist priest lit incense and bowed before the “Demon King.” Nearby, percussionists beat away at their drums and clanged their gongs. Two men hoisted poles with rotating balls to serve as bait leading the dragons forward in a playful dance. A whole contingent of people followed to the foot of a mountain where stairs lead up to a Buddhist temple which houses a Bodhisattva, a female Buddha statue that is less than one meter high. After the priest spoke more incantations at the temple, several men lifted the heavy Bodhisattva statue from the temple and put her on a stretcher decorated with a large lotus flower. Exploding firecrackers marked the end of that portion of the celebration. They carried her down the mountain and transferred her to a decorated wooden sedan chair. Then, it was time to take her around town for “a walk.”

As the procession advanced along the road, it passed several other shrines. At each shrine, the group stopped, allowing the dragons to do another playful dance, followed by more firecrackers, and the Taoist priest offering more incense and speaking more incantations. Another main stop along the route was the Wén Chāng Pagoda (文昌塔) where they took out two wooden panels that represent the deities worshipped there. Two men reverently carried one panel each, now including these as part of the procession.

As the group entered back into the main part of town, they wound through different residential streets. In each doorway, families had set out a table with offerings of fruit, rice, crackers, liquor, incense or candles. Many houses set off more firecrackers as the parade passed their home.

On the central street in town was a main stage, directly across from where the paper statue of the “Demon King” stood. When the procession completed its route around the town, they brought the Bodhisattva to the stage, and placed it facing opposite the towering paper “Demon King” at the other end of the street. The main stage had been decorated as a temple, using tables as makeshift altars. Piles of fruit and incense were beginning to collect around the tables.

I was especially puzzled by the row of mats, blankets, and luggage placed directly in front of the “altars.” I learned that several shamanesses planned to sleep out on the stage for five days straight. They would do incantations, read from their scriptures, and cry out to heaven for rain. During this period, many people in the community would eat only vegetarian food. On the fifth day, they carried the Bodhisattva statue back up to her temple. Then came the finale— burning up the “Demon King” in order to ward off evil, and scare away the head demon and all the smaller demons from their area.