The masks of Qinghai

However, Tibetan masks in the conspicuous Taer Temple seek flowery colors. They are different in the habits of using colors from the symbolic meanings of colors in Tibetan drawings. Here, red symbolizes power and sublimity. Yellow symbolizes solemness and faith. Blue symbolizes might and justice. And black symbolizes fierce and evil.

Connotations and religious spirits of Tibetan masks

Tibetan masks materialize the witchery consciousness and life consciousness. They accommodate to people’s mentality to make pious praying. In this course, there comes a visional sense of reverence, making the worshippers content to some extents in mind. Qiang Mu and the Tibetan drama art normally take masks as a media in religious ceremonies. They turn idol deities and Buddhas into lifelike ones, and abstract stories in sutras into vivid artistic images, so as to promote the sutras and ideas of Tibetan Buddhism. They are entertainment modes applying artistic images to reflect religious spirits. These largely identical religious ceremonies adopt the spell dances and Tibetan drama forms to spread religious thoughts, intensify Tibetan Buddhism mentality, and subsequently sow the seeds of religious cultures into the hearts of everyone.

As for Tibetan people, the masks are applied in the first place to show respect to deities and Buddhas that the masks represent in festivals and sacrificial offering ceremonies. They also communicate men and the supernatural. With their aesthetic modes suiting both refined and popular tastes, the masks would move the people, inspire emotions, and subsequently play a publicity role supplementing eminent monks preaching in altars. As a result, Tibetan masks are permeated with all sorts of Buddhism stories and spectacular deities and ghosts. Tibetan Buddhism culture also forges narrative modes and aesthetic feelings devoted to masks.

Folk dance masks

As shown in existing data, folk dance masks are fewer in Qinghai. They are largely separated into the following three types:

The first type is masks in Tibetan and Tu nationality folk dances, showing primitive simplicity. The most representative are tile-shaped masks in Tongren prefecture and Nadun masks in Minhe prefecture.

The Qinghai Hehuang valley lies in the Yellow River drainage basin, an area of long-standing agriculture and animal husbandry, featuring farming-based cultures. The farming belief of the distant past was another source of the folk dance masks. The “farmer and farm cattle” masks in the one actor Nadun show of Sanchuan Tu Nationality symbolize the traditional Chinese farming culture. The drama plot unveiled the cultural concept of “respecting farmers and putting agriculture first”. The tile-shaped masks are applied in the Tibetan Leshize dance, in which the player holds a tiny wooden axe (divine axe), said to be used to fight against droughts, pray for rains and mercy of dragon kings.

The above dance masks, of different types and cultural heritages, are handed down over the years. They are closely linked to the lives and existence of local residents. To date, they remain penetrating into people’s material and spiritual lives. In the farming regions in particular, people expect agricultural harvests, flourishing livestock, happy families, prosperous country, and peaceful lives. The implications of the masks are closely joined with people’s happy lives.

Folk dance masks are separated into the three types of deities, heroes and seculars. The deity type masks borrow images largely from folklores and temple gods. They bring with them rich imagination elements of the people. They express people’s aesthetic judgment of all sorts of deities, particularly sharp contrasts in depicting witches and demons. The judge image in the Five Ghosts Troubling Judge in Ledu County is an example of this type.

The hero type presents the most sublime and greatest images of heroes in people’s minds. Therefore, there are a lot of masks to display heroes. They are represented by the masks of Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei in the Nadun school, which are delicately and vividly engraved in fresh colors, impressing people with chivalry and loyalty.

The secular type is best known for the lifelike image. The masks barely show any celestial or ghost senses. They largely have delicate features in proportion, smile, and impress people as honest and tolerant. In the Nadun Plant Dance, all the family members of the farmer wear such type of masks.

Each June, Langjia Village, a home of art in Regong, Tongren County, will present a dragon dance show. The masks used in the dance show look like a piece of old fashioned blue tile, in the shape of Bodhisattva painted in grottoes. The two sharp ears tower above the top of the head, leaving a unique image. They are thus known as tile-shaped masks. Such masks are exclusively owned by the village. No other places in Qinghai Tibetan areas have ever presented them. Local villagers say “Wearing the masks, we are deities. Picking down the masks, we return to humans.” As Qinghai is opened to the outside world and launches cultural exchanges, tile-shaped masks have attracted growingly more people, particularly in the June event each year.

Mask dances are shown at the Nadun event in Sanchuan, Minhe County of Qinghai, an annual large-scale folk custom celebration of the Tu ethnic group. The masks are known for primitive simplicity. The dances largely reveal stories of the Three Kingdoms period, such as the Three Generals, Five Generals, and Zhuang Jia Qi that persuades people to go farming. They show respect to heroes and also cherish common lives. The masks of Liu Bei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, farmers, farm cattle, present features of the Central Plain area, as well as local native charms. These are seldom in Qinghai area. As recorded in some local family tree charts, some Han nationality people migrated successively from Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi and Nanjing to Sanchuan, cultivating and guarding the border areas, during the Ming and Qing periods. Step by step, they are mingled with the Tu nationality. Therefore, Nadun is heavily influenced by Han culture.

The second type is the facial makeup art of the Tu and Han nationalities. Facial makeup and mask are actually two sides of a same thing. Facial makeup is simply drawn upon a person’s face directly. Facial makeup originates from masks and continues to play an important part in folk sacrifice dances and dramas. Facial makeup inherits the primitive culture, while mask materializes the spirits. They remain presenting great vitality these days. Facial makeup is an indispensable part of the forms of masks. They are of inheritance relations. In a certain sense, they are one thing shown in two aspects. In this sense, we have to mention the facial makeup art when discussing the mask art.

The Nianduhu Tu Nationality Village of Tongren County, Qinghai remains to present the witch sacrificial activity featuring tiger totem facial makeup. On November 20, lunar calendar, each year, a traditional ceremony will be held to offer sacrifice to the mountain god. People would dance tiger dances to drive away demons and pestilence and seek auspiciousness, known as Wu Tu to local residents. A sorcerer would lead seven men painted with tiger and leopard patterns on the face and body to dance the mysterious and yet simple dances. They career through streets and lanes to exorcise demons for every household. Folk custom experts say this tiger totem-based exorcising dance discloses a chaos of people’s mind that while tigers bring about disasters to mankind, people expect to lustrate calamities by dint of the invincible power of tigers.