The Hmong Dingpa Hill Downtown Red Antiphonal Custom Research

Festival is a kind of complex cultures of a region or an ethnic group, while it is the cultural stage for performances of the region or ethnic group, which covers the society,history,life,culture and psychology of the region and ethnic group at all levels. Investigating and researching for a festival, we can dig into the essence of cultures of the region or the ethnic.The "(?)55 (?)31" Festival at Mountain Dingpa is one of the festivals in Southeast of Guizhou Province which is well known as "the Home Town of 100 Festivals", and it is an important representative of Miao People's festival of sociality and pleasure, while on which the most typical activities are singing and dancing. Singing in antiphonal style is the main activity to duet folk oriented songs on the "(?)55 (?)31" Festival at Mountain Ding Pa, which is a typical case for singing on Miao People's festival, and a window for us to understand and study the Miao People's cultures as well. We can reveal the traditional ideas and the local spirit of their culture through surveying and searching the singing in antiphonal style on "(?)55 (?)31" Festival.I choose my hometown as the place of my field work,the Village of Shiqing in the Town of Zhouxi, the City of Kaili, Guizhou Province. I went there and to the Miao villages around it four times to do my field research and to collect the first hand information related to "(?)55 (?)31" Festival at Mountain Ding Pa during February 2008, July-August 2008, February-March 2009 and July-August,2009.During my investigation, I frequently contacted and exchanged information with folk-song transmitters,folk singers,the people who know local knowledge as well as ordinary villagers, and I wrote down a lot of oral narratives, including the legends and narrative poems which described the origin and development of the "(?)55 (?)31" Festival at Mountain Ding Pa. I also wrote down the habitat of the festival and the experiences and ideas of the participant of it and so forth, of which make me experience and understand the cultural connotations of "(?)55 (?)31" Festival more profoundly.My research theme became more focused and much clearer through my continuous observations and reflections:the traditional folksong singing is one of the important activities of Chinese ethnic festivals, while singing in antiphonal style on "(?)55 (?)31" Festival at Mountain Ding Pa embodies the combinations of the principles of the traditional folk songs and the activities of festivals. Singing in antiphonal style is both a festival activity and a cultural performance of the festival, at the same time is an important process and way for a festival to obtain a new life. "(?)55 (?)31" Festival is a stage for folk singing, as well a platform of folk songs to obtain new lives.I mainly use qualitative research and whole ethnographic approach to write this article, which is based on the field work materials, my own experiences during the investigations when I did my field research, as well as the understanding and reflections after I did it。At the same time I'll use what the local people have done and what they've thought as my entry point for the whole description of the traditional singing in antiphonal style,taboos and operation processes,the folk singers'experiences and techniques etc. on "(?)55 (?)31" Festival, combine them with the local history and chorography as well as use the principles of cultural sociology,ethnology,folkloric and so on to discuss and interpret what kind of cultural connotations,significance and their social functions are carried by the activities of the festival (singing in antiphonal style), so that I'll be able to provide a new perspective to interpret Chinese festivals studies, especially to interpret the Chinese minority which have singing in antiphonal style as a center on their festivals.This article is written according to the traditional singing in antiphonal style and the competition of it today on "(?)au55 (?)31" Festival at Dingpa Mountain to show the operation and process of the activity, while I have revealed the singing in antiphonal style of Miao People which is highly stylized and normative, the customs of singing in antiphonal style have the features of stability and transmission, the techniques summarized by the folk singers during their long-term practice by singing in antiphonal style. These are the basic rules and principles of singing in antiphonal style, namely the customs of it.