Buckwheat nourishes the life of naked Ga people, while Ji Tui nourishes the soul of naked Ga people. Buckwheat and Ji Tui constitute two things in the life of naked Ga people, and I don't know how long it has been like this.
"Cuotaiji" is a transliteration of the local Yi language. In Yi language, Cuo means ghost, Thai means change, and auspicious means drama, so it is called "drama of changing people" for short, that is, people change drama. Judging from the performance signs, when humans just evolved from apes to humans, they could not walk upright, only squat, nor speak like modern people, but only pronounce and emit with air. Many scenes, such as reclamation, planting and harvesting, have appeared in the transformation from nomadic management to farming management. In its form of expression, it also shows a lot of human reproductive instinct, and it is of great significance to protect the safety of future generations with the help of the souls of ancestors.
The main content of the dustpan is to ward off evil spirits and welcome good luck, which can be divided into sacrifice, drama, celebration and sweeping Mars, while sweeping Mars is only held on the fifteenth day of the first month, and all performances are held in the evening. In the hazy, mysterious, deep, horrible and strange atmosphere at night, torches and lanterns reflect each other and are very spectacular.
Usually, there are 10 to 17 performers. The main division of labor is that three people play lions, two people play cows, two people play gongs and drums, four people play lanterns and torches, and six people play roles. The names of these roles are as follows:
Jaga Abu, which means the old man or mountain god in the mountain, is the embodiment of the natural god and wisdom of 2000 years old. He spoke in a normal tone and didn't wear a mask. He put a corn cob on his head to show that Jinjiao is ancient, and put on a string or straw to make a fake beard to symbolize longevity. He wears glasses tied together with two raw egg shells, which symbolizes seeing through chaos and obscurity and seeing the changes and development of things clearly. Most actors are hereditary.
Abomo, grandpa, 1700 years old, wearing a white beard mask, the most generous and heavy. Painted with horizontal waves and white patterns, wrapped in a cone with a black scarf, symbolizing old age, is Adam's spouse.
Adam, meaning "old woman", 1500 years old. She is Abu Mo's spouse. She doesn't need to wear a mask. The mask is so big that it has a disk with spiral white lines on it, an oblique white pattern on its face, and a black cloth on its head, which is conical. When I first came on stage, I held my baby in my arms.
Ma Hongmo, an old Miao man, male, 1200 years old, wears a black beard mask and draws straight wavy white patterns.
An, which means little doll, is the son of Adam in Abu Dhabi. He wore a small mask without white decoration and entered the theater in the second half of the main play.
An actor wearing a mask should wrap his legs with a white cloth belt and cross his waist with a white cloth belt, symbolizing that early human beings were naked, and the conical headdress was wrapped in a black and white towel once or twice, symbolizing the headdress of early human beings.
Related instruments and masks must be made with knives, axes, miscellaneous wood, blue and white clothes, gongs, drums, lanterns, torches, etc. The villagers of Naked Ga Group in Liming Village, Bandi Township set an example.
Cuotaji is a Nuo opera with actors, roles, plays and plots. It has five sides of furniture. Using miscellaneous wood such as rhododendron and green bar as materials, the log was sawed in half, roughly processed with a knife and axe, hollowed out the back, cut through the eyes, nose and mouth of the front, and then painted black with black pigment. The outer corner of the eye rises in an inverted figure of eight, with no lips, teeth and ears, giving people an elegant, primitive and grotesque feeling, with a strong monkey spirit, no ghosts, no evil spirits, no exquisiteness, no powder gas and vitality.
Cuoji is the crystallization of artistic creation of Yi ancestors in long-term production and life practice, which originated from production and life. It is a folk Nuo opera in which Yi ancestors prayed for ancestors' blessing, exorcised ghosts and epidemics, and pursued good fortune and avoided evil.
Cuoji has not been widely circulated, but it is still popular among the naked Ga people, and it is the original ecological art form Nuo culture that has been preserved so far. Regardless of its connotation, performance form or performance custom, Staggered Taiwan Opera is inherent to the Yi people and rarely influenced by other national cultural phenomena. Its discovery has been highly valued by experts and scholars at home and abroad, and it is known as "the living fossil of drama" and "the ancestral drama of mankind".