Colorful Puppetry

　　Ⅰ.Long History: From the Beginning

　　2. Puppet Bands

　　(A) Taixing: Marvelous Three Staves

　　Ancient times witnessed many types of puppets, like stringed puppets, hand puppets and pole-end puppets, as well as water puppets, iron-branch puppets, herbal hair puppets, flesh puppets, etc. “Three staves” refer to puppets above poles, i.e. pole-end puppets. Such a puppet is supported by one main staff and two handling staves to move the hands. So it is nicknamed as “three staves”.

　　Pole-end puppets, originating in Yangzhou area, had long roots in the world and were flourishing greatly. The people of Taixing, Taixian (now Jiangyan), Jingjiang, urban or rural, had long cherished pole-end puppetry. Farmers’ families would always invite puppet bands for their performance when they wanted to have a wish, to thank divinities, to hold ceremonies of weddings, birthdays and funerals, or to celebrate harvests. This always happened in villages and towns. At that time it had a name--Divine Drama. The fete and ceremony of Divine Drama consisted of Inviting Divinities, Worshiping Divinities, and Farewell to Divinities. The people carried out this ceremony to fulfill their wishes and asked the heaven for blessings. The audience also wished to get something divine and get amusement from this ceremony. These places were not so productive and the people were poor, so they could not afford major troupes with real actors like Peking Opera troupes. They had no choice but invite minor bands (i.e. puppet bands).Those minor bands were both agricultural and artistic--they would get back to their farms during busy seasons for agriculture and would set up stages for performance during free seasons in agriculture. Therefore, these puppet artists chiefly lived in vast rural areas of Taixing, Taixian and Jingjiang, where their homes were also located. A one-wheeled barrow could carry all their puppets and stage properties. They traveled from fairs to fairs in the countryside. For instance, 80% of the households in Xiaopeng Village, Dasi Township, Taixian (now Jiangyan) had puppet artists. Their villager Cheng Ganqing was the eldest brother in the family, expert at acting as a female; Cheng Wanyin, the second brother, expert at acting as a clown; Cheng Jiuan, the third brother, expert at acting as a flowery face; Cheng Xinpei, the fourth brother, expert at acting as a senior male; their cousins Cheng Wannian and Cheng Wanchun, expert at acting as a civilian aid and a martial aid respectively.Their grandfather Cheng San Senior was a famous puppetry artist. Their father Cheng Renxi and their uncles Cheng Renquan and Cheng Renxian were all engaged in puppetry art. So their families formed a clan of art.Another instance, Tian Hanmin, a puppet artist dwelling in Tianjiahe Township, Taixing, said during his interview in 1986 when he was 60 years old: “My family have been performing minor dramas (“xiaoxi”in Chinese) for generations. I learned to perform puppet plays from my Grandpa Tian Gu’er when I was young. In my memory, we have been engaged in minor dramas for three generations.”A senior artist Zhong Yuheng, who dwelt in Guagouwei Village, Quxia Township, Taixing County, said during his interview in 1986 when he was 88 years old: “My father Zhong Huaixun (has been an artist), and my grandfather Zhong Laoqun had performed in minor dramas for sixty years before he passed away.”The above-mentioned materials can result in a deduction that the popularity of pole-end puppetry in Taixing and Taixian areas of Yangzhou can be traced back to at least 150 years ago. This is reciprocal evidence to prove the argument that Huiju was popular in the city proper of Yangzhou and puppetry was generally seen in adjacent counties and towns in the middle of the Qing Dynasty. When the time spans are considered, the puppet art forms approximately fitted in those periods. Statistics show that there were 43 townships in Taixing County during the Republic Period (before 1949). 29 of those 43 townships had a total of 117 puppet bands with band names and surnames of the heading persons. This also shows the popularity of such art (See Figure 1).

　　The interviews of senior puppet artists in Taixing County carried in 1986 has exposed a long-time told folklore. The folklore says that in every band in Taixing, there is a puppet named as “ancestral grandfather” (“Zushiye” in Chinese), also named “Three Holy Duke” (“San sheng gong” in Chinese) in their local dialect. That was the most famed clown puppet in the band, with another two names “face with three strokes” (“San hualian” in Chinese) and “face with three paints” (“san hualazi” in Chinese).It was said that Emperor Minghuang of the Tang Dynasty had deep love for opera art. When seeing puppet dramas only had the people, the kings and nobles, but had no emperors, he asked: Why didn’t puppet dramas have emperors? Artists answered: Lest we should offend Your Majesty. Then the emperor announced that the old tradition was abolished. He painted his face with three strokes so as to symbolize flowery face for the performance of a clown. From thence the opera circle has called “flowery face” (“face with three strokes” literally) as ancestral grandfather.Puppet dramas were also like this. It was taken more seriously. The flowery face was worshiped with sacrifice. It was always the first to be invited out of the box.[1] When putting in the box, all other puppets should be undressed, but this puppet is never undressed. It should be placed on top of the box, after all other puppets had been placed below. This has been become a tradition for all bands since ancient times. During the interview, the interviewers wished to get such a flowery-face puppet for the archive, but puppet artists refused. In these artists’ eyes, ancestral grandfather is the god of the band and also absolutely necessary household master of the family.During the Spring Festival (equivalent to western New Year), they would invite him out and offer sacrifice to him and get his blessing for the safety and prosperity of the family and the band even though they did not have any performance. The absence or loss of such an ancestral grandfather would render everyone’s heart empty and hollow. We had to respect these artists’ custom and took a picture of this flowery-faced puppet as evidence (See Figure 2).

　　Pole-end puppet bands had the system of band masters. Other artists would come to make up a temporary formation at the call of the masters. Some other pole-end puppet bands were chiefly based upon the family or the clan with one surname.Generally, such a band consisted of 7 or 8 people. A larger ones consisted of 15 to 16 people.Two artists helped civilians’ performance and fighters’performance as the civilian aid and the martial aid; that is to say, one took care of the drum(s) and the small gong(s), and the other took care of the big drum(s) and cymbal(s). All other artists participated in the handling and dubbing of puppets. Most of the plays were unscripted, and the dialogues were not fixed. Yet, long passages of sung tunes were fixed, not allowing impromptu composition. Every artist must master those frequently-performed 20 to 30 plays before they were able to perform. Of course some main artists’ stake was more than others’. At that time, the hosting family who invited the band would order some plays. If a play was ordered, and the band was unable to perform it, the whole activity was a failure. That was the custom at that time. Every band had an all-purpose master, called “master of all”. He could perform in all plays, and mouth the words for all puppets--females, males, flowery faces, least persons, and clowns. He could handle those puppets too. His responsibility was to give orders to artists and sometimes to “rescue the play” by mouthing the words or handling the puppet or doing both. At the same time, he was in charge of all performance on the front stage. So he was all-powerful. This is similar to the present stage supervisor but his duties are more than a supervisor’s. The economic revenue and distribution of puppet bands in Taixing were open and known to everybody. The band master divided the revenue into several shares according to the number of artists. The band master took 2 shares, and the captain took 1.5 shares. The rest of them took 1 share each. The band master took 2 shares because he was responsible for the puppet stage, puppets, stage properties, dresses and decorations. He was also responsible for contacting others for their performance. If the band master directly performed in the play, he would take another share of the revenue.If the host gave extra bonus or a happiness envelope, every one in the band could have an equal share.

　　[1]“Out of the box” is the procedure before each performance, and is also a ceremony before the season of performance.