Why Has the Dragon Boat Festival 'River Sacrifice' Tradition Endured Until Today?

Every Dragon Boat Festival, Qu Yuan's hometown, Zigui County in China's Hubei province, holds the ancient "River Sacrifice" ceremony. The deeply emotional calls of "My brother, return—" echo across the riverbanks, bridging millennia.

Why has the "River Sacrifice" tradition been passed down through the ages and attracted attention from China and abroad? How is this ancient custom innovating and resonating with contemporary society? Recently, Cheng Zhi Zheng, a research fellow at Wuhan University and a representative inheritor of the national intangible cultural heritage project "Qu Yuan Legends" in Hubei province, was interviewed by China News Service for "East-West Questions" to provide insights.

Here's a summary of the interview:

Zheng Chengzhi: The "River Sacrifice" refers to the worship of water gods, a custom that predates Qu Yuan. Deities like He Bo (River God), Xiang Jun, and Xiang Furen in "Nine Songs" are considered water gods. In Zigui and other Chu regions, there has been a long history of "River Sacrifice," which Qu Yuan recorded and artistically presented.

Qu Yuan's works systematically document and describe sacrificial scenes, most notably in "Nine Songs" and "Summoning Souls." Qu Yuan drew extensively from folk sacrificial songs and dances to create "Nine Songs," detailing the rites to worship various deities, such as solar god, cloud god, mountain god, water god, and fallen warriors. "Summoning Souls" provides a detailed description of the soul-summoning ritual, including setting up altars, offering sacrifices, and chanting. Other works like "Li Sao" also depict the "River Sacrifice."

On the 5th day of the 5th lunar month in 278 B.C., Qu Yuan, full of resentment, drowned himself in the Miluo River holding a stone. Locals believed Qu Yuan became a water god and thus built shrines to honor him. The water god was personified as Qu Yuan, leading to the evolution of water god worship into a commemoration of Qu Yuan.

In Zigui, people hold dragon boat races every Dragon Boat Festival to honor Qu Yuan, a ritual that originated from worshipping him as a water god.

Zheng Chengzhi: As Qu Yuan's birthplace, Zigui has a long-standing tradition of official and folk ceremonies honoring him.

According to Jin dynasty's Wang Jia in "Shi Yi Ji," "(Qu Yuan) was exiled by the king and threw himself into the clear cold water. The people of Chu yearned for him and called him a water immortal. His spirit roams the Milky Way, occasionally descending to the Xiang River. A shrine was built by the Chu people, which was still there by the end of the Han dynasty." Emperor Ai of Tang in the first year of Tianyou (904 A.D.) posthumously titled him "Duke Zhao Ling"; Emperor Shenzong of Song posthumously titled him "Duke Qing Lie" during the third year of Yuanfeng; he was later retitled "Duke Zhong Jie"; the Yuan dynasty posthumously titled him "Duke Zhong Jie Qing Lie"; during the Ming dynasty, he was titled "Minister Qu Ping of Chu."

In modern times, Qu Yuan's spirit has become a force for inspiring the entire nation's united resistance.

In 2002, due to the construction of the Three Gorges Project, the ancient city of Guizhou was to be submerged. My father, Mr. Zheng Bangqing, was invited to plan and host the Dragon Boat Festival ceremony honoring Qu Yuan. He drew on history to craft a relatively complete modern sacrificial process that was fixed for the long term.

Zigui's Dragon Boat Festival rituals include temple sacrifices, river sacrifices, boat races, and returning the dragon (boat). Among them, the "River Sacrifice" ceremony is the most grand and awe-inspiring.

Each 5th day of the 5th lunar month, Zigui residents gather by the Yangtze River to offer sacrifices to Qu Yuan. During the river-side sacrifice, dragon boat rowers affix handcrafted wooden dragon heads to the boats, and a respected elder paints the dragon's eyes. After the elder drinks wine and breaks the bowl on the ground, the dragon boat race officially begins. Amid fireworks, the dragon boat slowly sets off with the white dragon as the filial dragon leading, followed by other dragon boats, as people sing "Summoning Souls" and shout "My brother, return—", starting the river soul summoning to call Qu Yuan's soul back home.

"Summoning Souls" has been passed down in Zigui for a long time, with lyrics like: "Three Minister Qu, listen to me, the sky is unreachable, as there are pitch-black clouds; the ground is untouchable, with nine boundaries and eight extremes; you can't go to the swallow, for the east has a bottomless whirlpool; you can't go south, for there are jackals and foxes; west is unreachable, for there are thousand-mile sands; north is unreachable, with ice and snow covering the ground. I only wish for you to return quickly to your homeland, don't worry about your clothes and food, Chu is a good place..." For centuries, each Dragon Boat Festival, this mournful "Summoning Souls" has repeatedly moved people's hearts.

Zheng Chengzhi: After my father's death, I have been the chief officiant of Zigui's Dragon Boat Festival ceremonies. Over the past 20 years, I have been invited to places like Yanqing in Beijing, Changshou in Chongqing, Changhua in Taiwan, and Yueyang in Hunan to officiate at Dragon Boat ceremonies. Wherever I went, the "River Sacrifice" drew a strong response.

In 2013, Chiu Chien-fu, then mayor of Changhua in Taiwan, visited Zigui with his delegation; Taiwanese compatriots took a particular interest in the Qu Yuan rituals and brought the ceremonial procedures and sacrificial texts back to Taiwan.

On May 28, 2017, I was invited to participate in the Qu Yuan Cultural Festival in Changhua, Taiwan. The locals carried the Qu Yuan deity statue from the Qu Yuan Temple, and a dozen strong men carried the statue's sedan chair, proceeding with the steps to music from the electric god of three boys, accompanied by bustling crowds. I truly felt that although cross-strait cultural expressions of the Dragon Boat Festival differ, the respect and remembrance for Qu Yuan, and the recognition of his undying patriotism and perseverance, are shared. At this moment, the shared root and ancestral heritage of the two sides become tangible.

Despite differing Dragon Boat cultural imprints and historical backgrounds across places, the reverence for cultural origins and the courage to express it remains a core secret of cultural transmission. Zigui is Qu Yuan's hometown, and the inheritance of Qu Yuan culture has rarely been interrupted over two millennia. "River Sacrifice" contains rich ritual symbolism and life metaphors with universally recognized cultural imagery and value demands. This recognition transcends superficial forms and stems from deep spiritual resonance.

Zheng Chengzhi: Contemporary "River Sacrifice," set against the backdrop of the high gorges and peaceful lakes and the Three Gorges Dam, offers a strong regional character and a unique blend of ancient and modern charm. It boasts a high level of international recognition and cultural appeal, which accounts for its widespread attention.

The millennium-old "River Sacrifice" tradition is the continuous extension of local people's perseverance in Qu Yuan's spirit. International interest in "River Sacrifice" stems from the broadly shared human values of "loyalty and patriotism," "noble integrity," and "ceaseless pursuit."

The "River Sacrifice," along with Dragon Boat customs, dragon boat races, and Qu Yuan culture, has been widely recognized and accepted globally. In recent years, overseas Chinese merchants and leaders have learned about and studied the Zigui "River Sacrifice" ritual process, building bridges for cultural and sports exchanges.

For example, Mr. Chan Bak Chuen in Malaysia visited Zigui to systematically study the "River Sacrifice" and invited experts to Malaysia for exchanges, aiming to change the local situation of valuing races over rituals. With his efforts, a Malaysian dragon boat team participated in the 2023 dragon boat festival in Zigui, enhancing cultural and sports exchanges between the two places. Li Qing, an overseas Chinese in Austria, is preparing a Sino-European youth sports exchange event after learning about "River Sacrifice," to promote international dissemination of dragon boat culture.

Amid the convergence and collision of historical and modern, Eastern and Western cultures, challenges and opportunities coexist, and we must actively promote the protection, inheritance, and development of this ancient custom, keeping it ever-present and ever-new. For example, by harnessing the globally popular dragon boat races, confidently "inviting in" and "going out," focusing on external expression methods, and showcasing the cultural charm of "River Sacrifice" as an effective means of strengthening cultural exchange and cooperation; using cultural tourism resources and modern technology to innovate the content and forms of cultural dissemination and "River Sacrifice" culture, to generate deep resonance with contemporary society through more direct, vivid, and diverse ways.