Namyi Sacrifice to the Mountain Deities – In Muer Village. Filmed by Luodu Gezu. 2008.1. 15 min.

This video shows some scenes of the long sacrifice to the mountain deities as performed by the Namyi people. The 5000 Namyi are one of the small minorities living in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands, officially considered as part of the Tibetan nationality. Most of them inhabit the mountainous region in the west of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province; their culture shows many cultural influences of the Tibetan and Chinese, and a cultural stratum that maybe was common with the old Naxi and related nationalities. They speak a language that belongs to the Qiangic branch of the Tibeto-Burman family of languages.

This Namyi sacrifice to the deities was sponsored by Luodu Gezu's grandfather, Luogu Shuoguozha, on a mountain located in Mu'er Village, Lianhe Township, Mianning County, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, PR China in February 2008. This ritual involved sacrificing to Luodu Gezu's elders' graves. This ritual is done by Namyi families during the lunar New Year period (1st-15th days of the 1st lunar month). 

The ceremony is carried on by two main religious specialists, one chanting the offerings to the gods and other playing a kind of flat bell that seems that in use among the Naxi Dongbas. The first part, the video introduce the setting for the sacrifice: a simple stone altar with some offerings and wood burnt to make smoke, some prayer flags that remind us of the Tibetan ones, and a series of firecrackers to expel evil spirits that recall Chinese traditions. There are some glimpses of a kind of dough figurines that seem the Naxi duoma, which represent god and ghosts. They are gathered in some places that seem the god’s village and the ghost’s village of the Naxi ceremonies.

A white chicken seems to be the main offering in this ceremony, as such, it is introduced to the gods by the main priest, and some of its feathers are thrown to the fire. Water is sprinkled to the people present, as a kind of offering.  

The blown of the conch call the gods to descend and partake of the sacrifice the people are offering them. After the sacrifice pieces of meat from the chicken head are offered to the gods, it is supposed that the meat will be shared by the people present, and its mouth bone is examined maybe with prognosis motives.