"Honor Among The Efficacy": Interpreting The Ritual Dramatic Structure Of Huang’s Masked Yang Opera And Its Symbolic Meaning

As a typical representative of traditional folk ritual drama,the Youyang Tujia Masked Yang Opera is still widely performed in Youyang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County,Chongqing municipality.Because all the dramatic roles except the female role need to wear masks during the performance,the Tujia Masked Yang Opera is also known as the "Face Shell Opera" in Youyang County.The Tujia people,who have been living in the Wuling Mountains for generations,hold rituals to "drive away ghosts and epidemics" interspersed with theatrical performances to "entertain the gods and the people".They are either dressed up as wizards or actresses.This ritual drama has gradually fused in the course of historical transmutation and evolved into the Youyang Tujia Masked Yang Opera,which has "rewarding the gods and repaying their wishes" as its essential feature and "driving away evil spirits and blessing" as its main purpose.At the same time,in the historical process of continuing the tradition and changing the form,the masked Yang opera has also closely absorbed the humanistic customs of the local society of "serving the gods and witchcraft" and the moral concept of "loyalty and filial piety",thus forming a relatively fixed ritual performance procedure and a more flexible theatrical performance form.In order to further investigate the popular basis of belief and the internal logic of the Youyang Tujia Masked Yang Opera at the "socio-cultural" level,this paper takes the "Huang’s Masked Yang Opera" performed by the Huang’s ritual troupe of Yanfeng Village,Youyang County,Chongqing municipality as the object of study.Through a case study of the "dance" performed by the members of the Huang’s ritual troupe for the wish-fulfillment of the villagers’ wishes,the paper attempts to restore the whole ritual drama and find out the "efficacy" validity and moral concepts that the villagers in the local community have been convinced of.Based on this,the "efficacy" of the masked Yang opera is revealed,as well as the logic and practical significance of the "efficacy" in the "socio-cultural" level.In this paper,I find that villagers in Yiju Township tend to invite the Huang’s ritual troupe to "dance" at their doors to pay back their good wishes at the critical moment of completing their life rituals.Behind this phenomenon is the local people’s recognition of the "efficacy" contained in Huang’s Masked Yang Opera,but in fact the "efficacy" is closely related to the social relations and life of the people in the local society.Therefore,Huang’s Masked Yang Opera not only helps the wish-granting families to return their wishes and blessings from an individual perspective,but also realizes the cohesion and integration of the local society from a collective level.