As the Spring Festival approaches, every year on the first day of the Lunar New Year, the entrance of the **"Nuo God Temple" in Shiyou Village, Nanfeng County, Jiangxi Province, China**, secluded among towering mountains, is crowded with men and women, young and old, coming to burn incense and pay respects to the deities.
Three ear-splitting gunshots break the silence. Subsequently, eight Nuo gods in ancient costumes file into the temple through the rain, performing solemn bows.
Amidst the continuous sound of firecrackers and the thunderous beating of cowhide drums, the Nuo gods stride out of the temple doors, disappearing into the misty rain along the village path.
This traditional custom has been preserved in many parts of Jiangxi Province, China, and is an integral part of Jiangxi's Nuo culture.
**Jiangxi Nuo**, also known as **Gan Nuo**, is **an essential component of Chinese Nuo culture**. Renowned both domestically and internationally for its long history, primitive form, rich variety, and self-contained cultural system, it is referred to as a **"living fossil" for studying the development of Chinese and even human civilization**.
Originating from the people and returning to them, what kind of magical existence is Jiangxi Nuo?
### Jiangxi Elements, Jiangxi Nuo
Chinese Nuo culture has a long and profound history.
Nuo opera, as its embodiment, originated from the exorcism rituals of the Shang and Zhou dynasties and has been widely popular in provinces such as Anhui, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Shaanxi, and Hebei in China.
Legend has it that there were three major sacrifices in ancient China: **La Sacrifice, Yu Sacrifice**, and **Nuo Sacrifice**.
Among them, **Nuo Sacrifice was the most influential and grand sacrificial activity among the three major sacrifices in ancient China**. It was divided into **"Emperor's Nuo", "State Nuo"**, and **"Great Nuo"** (also known as "Village Nuo").
**Jiangxi Nuo**, as an important component of Chinese Nuo culture, belongs to the category of "Village Nuo".
As court rituals gradually became closed and rigid, "Village Nuo" as a folk custom has continued for thousands of years and remains active in the folk culture of Jiangxi Province, China.
**Gan Nuo** has gradually become one of Jiangxi's symbols. Originating from the Yin-Shang period, the Nuo tradition has persisted for thousands of years, with traces of Jiangxi Nuo appearing in different historical periods.
In the early Han Dynasty, **Wu Rui**, a Jiangxi native and King of Changsha, stationed troops at Junshan in Nanfeng and "spread Nuo to calm evil spirits" in the western region.
At the end of the Tang Dynasty, the Yu family from Yugan County in Raozhou moved to Nanfeng to avoid war and "invited" the Nuo god Qingyuan Patriarch, whom their ancestors had worshipped while serving as officials in Sichuan, to Jinsha Village. They established a temple for worship and inherited the practice of "driving Nuo" for generations.
During the Southern Song Dynasty, a local named **Liu Tang** wrote a poem titled **"Watching Nuo"**: **"The drum sound is deep and the pipe sound is crisp, ghosts and gods transform to provide theatrical entertainment"**.
The poem vividly described the performance scene of Jiangxi Nuo dance drama. **During the Ming and Qing dynasties, village Nuo in Jiangxi developed rapidly**, with many villages building Nuo temples and forming Nuo troupes.
To this day, many places in Jiangxi Province, China, still preserve well-maintained Nuo temples and Nuo operas.
According to statistics, **Nanfeng County in Jiangxi Province, China**, known as the **"Hometown of Nuo Opera" and "Living Fossil of Chinese Theater"**, has had over 150 Nuo troupes since the late Qing Dynasty. It not only preserves Ming Dynasty Nuo temples and ancient Nuo sacrifice rituals but also passes down more than 80 traditional programs and over 2,000 Nuo Masks, with more than 2,000 Nuo artists currently active.
**Shangli County in Pingxiang City, Jiangxi Province, China** has long been known for having **"a general every five li and a Nuo god every ten li"**. It currently preserves more than twenty ancient Nuo temples from the Ming and Qing dynasties, inherits over 50 classical Nuo dances, has more than 400 types of ancient Nuo masks, and boasts over 20 mask carving artisans.
This has earned Pingxiang the title of **"Hometown of Chinese Nuo Culture"**.
Today, Jiangxi Nuo continues to be performed in the Gan-Po region and has become a folk ritual worth seeing when traveling to Jiangxi Province, China.
At the same time, with the help of technology and cultural creativity, Jiangxi Nuo culture will be presented in more diverse forms in the new era.
### Rich Varieties of Jiangxi Nuo
**The rich variety of Jiangxi Nuo** is rare even within Chinese Nuo culture. In terms of its nature, there are distinctions between **Nuo sacrifice and Nuo art**; in terms of expression, there are differences between **"open-mouth Nuo" and "closed-mouth Nuo", "civil Nuo" and "martial Nuo"**; from an artistic perspective, **"Nuo opera" and "Nuo dance"** complement each other.
Passed down in the Gan-Po region, Jiangxi Nuo presents many different content forms in various areas.
For example, the **Rolling Nuo God** in **Le'an, Fuzhou City, Jiangxi Province, China**, has three different styles: **"Playing Happiness"** in Liukeng Village, **"Playing Head Drum"** in Luoshan Village, and **"Rolling Nuo God"** in Donghu Village.
