Manggu Drum Dance of Hani Ethnic Minority in Jianshui County, Honghe

Origin

• The Manggu Dance has a long history, originating from the hunting and village defense activities of the Hani ancestors. In the ancient forests, wild beasts frequently appeared. To survive, the Hani people created leather drums from large trees with their wisdom and courage, and forged iron blocks into “mang” to scare away wild beasts and protect their homes.
• Judging from the dance movements, they are derived from field work, reflecting the ancient social life of the Hani people and the hardships of opening terraced fields.

Action Characteristics

• The Manggu Dance is a traditional folk dance performed by Hani men, using mang and drums as props. The movements are simple, rugged, and full of vitality, reflecting the Hani people’s enthusiasm for life and their love for it.
• When dancing, first, a respected elder presides over the opening ceremony of the drum. They offer wine on the mang and drum, walk around the table three times with the mang, pay respects to the four directions, and then knock three times on the mang to signal the start. Then, the dancers hold the mang and drum, beating and dancing while forming a circle, with the drummers on the outside and the mang dancers in the center. The body’s center of gravity shifts downward, the legs continuously bend and stretch, and the body moves up and down.

Inheritance Methods

• The Manggu Dance is an important part of the Hani people’s sacrifice to the village god “Angma.” Every year on the first day of the lunar new year that falls on the dragon day, in the Hani villages, the village head leads the young men to deeply worship the sacred “dragon tree,” and then holds a grand ceremony to honor the mang and drum in the village’s Manggu Dance field, starting three nights of mang drum Carnival.
• In daily life, the inheritance of the Manggu Dance mainly relies on respected elders in the village passing on their knowledge to the young, ensuring the charm of the Manggu Dance continues from generation to generation.

Protection and Inheritance Status

• In 2014, the Manggu Dance declared by Jianshui County was approved by the State Council and included in the fourth batch of national intangible cultural heritage list.
• Poyou Township National Middle School in Jianshui County has introduced the Hani Manggu Dance into the campus, specifically setting up Manggu Dance learning courses, and hiring Li Jianguang, a national intangible cultural heritage representative inheritor, as a guide, allowing more students to understand and learn this traditional dance and injecting new vitality into the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage.