Los gansos de San Martín

Si uno conduce hacia la frontera austriaca el día de San Martín, el 11 de noviembre, o incluso la cruza rumbo a Baviera o Chequia, los restaurantes a lo largo del camino seducen con carteles de cenas de ganso de San Martín, normalmente acompañados de fotos que hacen agua la boca. Hace seis o siete años, mientras me preparaba para el 1700º aniversario del nacimiento de San Martín, recorrí sus lugares de memoria desde su ciudad natal, Szombathely, hasta su tumba en Tours. Yo mismo comí ganso y hasta cociné uno. Sin embargo, mis fotos se perdieron y el libro que planeaba para la ocasión nunca se publicó. Así que, si alguien me envía una foto verdaderamente apetitosa de una cena de ganso esta noche de San Martín, la colgaré aquí.

La relación entre Martín y los gansos suele remontarse a la legendaria historia en la que el monje Martín se escondió en un gallinero en Tours para escapar de la multitud que quería hacerlo obispo, pero los graznidos de los gansos lo delataron. Los fieles tardíos de Martín, entonces, buscan vengarse de las aves por aquella traición. Es un placer sublime que, además de disfrutar una cena gourmet, podamos participar en un acto de justicia santa, con el alma más blanca que el plumaje de los pobres gansos.

Para el coleccionista de historias viajantes, ese graznido suena familiar, de hace varios siglos. Según Livio, en el 390 a.C., durante la ocupación gala de Roma, los sagrados gansos del templo de Juno en el Capitolio alertaron con sus ruidosos graznidos que los galos intentaban escalar por un pasaje secreto hacia el último refugio romano: el Capitolio. El ataque fue repelido y, desde entonces, un ganso formó parte de las patrullas nocturnas romanas, mientras que los perros dormidos eran juzgados en tribunales, y uno de ellos, probablemente el más dormilón, fue colgado.

English Bestiary, 1230-40. MS Harley 4751 © British Library

El ganso, como animal valiente era símbolo de Marte, hijo de Juno. No es extraño, entonces, que se lo asociara con Martín, quien, hijo de un oficial romano, recibió el nombre de Martinus, “perteneciente a Marte”.

Hay una fuente visual poco mencionada en este contexto. En el ciclo de la Leyenda de la Vera Cruz de Piero della Francesca en la iglesia de San Francesco en Arezzo (1452-1466), en dos escenas de batalla donde los monarcas cristianos vencen a sus enemigos paganos —el rebelde coemperador Majencio (312, arriba) y el rey persa Cosroes (612, abajo)— los enemigos huyen bajo estandartes odiosos (dragones, cabezas moras), mientras los cristianos luchan bajo emblemas romanos: el águila, el león, la cruz y —el ganso.

Pero, ¿es suficiente una leyenda popular obviamente inventada y una historia ambulante de destino incierto para explicar una tradición tan profundamente arraigada?

¿No podría ser que no fueran los gansos los que abordaron el tren de Martín, sino al revés: Martín quien, para aumentar su popularidad, se apropió de los gansos, que de todas formas se iban a comer ese día?

La cría de gansos es un negocio que requiere mucho trabajo. Hay que guiarlos, cuidarlos y alimentarlos. A diferencia de gallinas y palomas, que encuentran su sustento incluso en invierno, los gansos necesitan forraje verde. Por eso, al igual que los cerdos, los gansos que no se necesitan para la cría de primavera deben sacrificarse al comenzar el invierno. La fecha límite para ello es justamente el día de San Martín, el 11 de noviembre. ¿Por qué?

En la Europa católica, hasta el Concilio Vaticano II (1962–65), la Navidad estaba precedida por un ayuno de cuarenta días, al igual que la Pascua. De ello queda la costumbre de que en la mayoría de las familias católicas aún se coma pescado en la cena de Nochebuena, que todavía era día de ayuno, a diferencia del pavo protestante. Ese ayuno comenzaba justo después del 11 de noviembre. Así, el día de San Martín se convirtió en una última gran oportunidad de derroche, como el martes de carnaval antes de la cuaresma.

Pieter Baltens: Feria de San Martín, segunda mitad del siglo XVI, Rijksmuseum

En la víspera de San Martín, muchas costumbres se conservaron incluso en la Europa protestante, en Gran Bretaña y Alemania: el Martinmas o Martinmesse, la procesión de linternas antes del Adviento que simbolizaba los milenios de oscuridad esperando el nacimiento de Jesús.

This little light of mine. Martinmas lantern walk

Así que el 11 de noviembre estaba destinado a la última gran fiesta de gansos y luces antes del Adviento. Pero, ¿por qué la fiesta de San Martín también cae justamente en este día?

Normalmente, la fiesta de un santo celebra el día de su muerte, su “cumpleaños celestial”. Martín murió el 8 de noviembre. Entonces, ¿por qué se celebra el 11?

Como obispo de Tours, Martín introdujo la visitatio canonica, la visita anual a sus parroquias. En 397 murió durante una de estas visitas en un pueblo a orillas del Loira, hoy llamado Candes-Saint-Martin. Los locales querían conservar su cuerpo como reliquia, pero los de Tours lo reclamaron. Finalmente, unos marineros de Tours vinieron por él y sacaron el cuerpo de la parroquia de contrabando. Si mis fotos no se hubieran perdido, ahora podría mostrar cómo se representa este triste suceso en las vidrieras góticas de la iglesia parroquial de Candes-Saint-Martin. Luego lo transportaron por el Loira hasta Tours, donde, en medio de una enorme multitud, fue colocado en su tumba previamente preparada.

Todo esto ocurrió el 11 de noviembre. Contrario a la costumbre, la fiesta del santo se fijó no en el día de su muerte, sino en el día de su entierro.

No es difícil pensar que esto ocurrió porque el 11 de noviembre, como fiesta de anticipación a la cuaresma, ya era un día importante, esperando solo un santo: Martín.

San Martín vivió al máximo. Soldado que, invocando la prohibición de Cristo de usar la espada, se negó a pelear. Monje que fundó el primer monasterio de Europa. Obispo que organizó una diócesis pionera. Pero su grandeza también residió en saber morir en el momento justo —o casi, pero tenía amigos a su lado. Los gansos probablemente no eran parte de ellos. Pero si tienen que irse, mejor que mueran en nombre de San Martín. Como los cerdos en la fiesta de San Antonio.

* * *

Epílogo. Los judíos, por supuesto, no celebran especialmente San Martín. Sin embargo, el ganso de San Martín forma parte de las importantes tradiciones judías húngaras.

Hasta 1840, los judíos en Hungría no podían establecerse en ciudades reales libres, custodiadas por burgueses cristianos que temían competencia. Hubo una excepción: Pozsony (hoy Bratislava). Allí, los reyes Habsburgo otorgaron personalmente derechos de asentamiento a los judíos, justo frente a la catedral de San Martín. Por ello, cada año, los judíos de Pozsony llevaban un ganso engordado, sacrificado ritual y perfectamente asado al palacio imperial en Viena, a pie, para que no lo sacudiera un carro. La costumbre se documenta en el Calendario festivo de Sándor Bálint y en el excelente blog Kötődések de Norbert Glässer, de donde proviene este montaje de artículos de 1942.

La tradición continuó mientras aún hubiera Habsburgo en Viena a quienes se les pudiera llevar gansos. Qué tan conocida era queda demostrado por la revista satírica Borsszem Jankó, en su número del 13 de noviembre de 1918. Esta edición salió justo después del alto el fuego general declarado a las 11 de la mañana del 11 de noviembre, es decir, el día de San Martín, cuando los tronos de las potencias derrotadas ya habían sido reemplazados por repúblicas. La revista, sin añadir ningún comentario y asumiendo el conocimiento amplio de su contexto por parte de los lectores, podía plantear la pregunta con total naturalidad:

“¿Quién sabe a dónde llevaron este año los judíos de Pozsony sus gansos de San Martín?”

La leyenda húngara, parafraseando el “mene tekel upharsin” bíblico (Dan 5, significado original: “Dios ha numerado, pesado y dividido al rey”), significa: “¡lárgense!”

Saint Martin and his geese

If you happen to drive toward the Austrian border—or even cross it—on November 11th, Saint Martin’s Day, and head on into Bavaria or Czechia, the restaurants along the road tempt you with signs for their Martinmas goose dinners, usually accompanied by mouthwatering photos. Six or seven years ago, as I was preparing for the 1700th anniversary of Saint Martin’s birth, I retraced his path from his birthplace in Szombathely to his tomb in Tours. I ate goose, too, and even cooked one myself. The photos, alas, are gone, and the book I planned for the occasion never happened. So if anyone sends me an especially tempting picture of a Martinmas goose dinner tonight, I’ll post it here instead.

The link between Saint Martin and the goose is usually traced back to the well-known story that the monk Martin, hiding from the crowds who wanted to make him bishop of Tours, concealed himself in a goose pen—but the honking of the geese gave him away. In revenge for their betrayal, his late followers took to roasting them. It’s a fine feeling, after all, to know that while enjoying a gourmet meal, we’re also taking part in a little act of saintly justice—our souls perhaps whiter than the feathers of the unfortunate birds.

But to a collector of folktales, that honking sounds familiar—echoing from many centuries earlier. According to Livy, during the Gallic siege of Rome in 390 BC, it was the sacred geese of Juno’s temple on the Capitoline Hill who raised the alarm when the Gauls tried to sneak up a hidden path toward the last Roman stronghold. The defenders were saved, and from that time on a goose served as part of the Roman night watch, while the sleeping dogs were tried and, in one case—the main offender—hanged.

English Bestiary, 1230-40. MS Harley 4751 © British Library

The goose, a valiant creature was also a symbol of Mars, Juno’s son. So it’s hardly surprising that Martin—whose very name Martinus means “of Mars,” and who was himself the son of a Roman officer—was linked with the bird as well.

There’s a visual source, though, that hasn’t yet been noticed in this context. In Piero della Francesca’s Legend of the True Cross fresco cycle in the church of San Francesco in Arezzo (ca. 1452–1466), both battle scenes—where Christian rulers defeat their pagan foes, the rebel co-emperor Maxentius (312, above) and the Persian king Khosrow (612, below)—show the pagans fleeing under hateful banners (dragons, Moorish heads), while the Christians fight beneath Roman military emblems: the eagle, the lion, the cross—and the goose.

But can such a deeply rooted custom really be explained by a clearly later folk tale and an ancient wandering legend?

Perhaps it wasn’t the geese who joined Martin’s story, but the other way around—Martin who, for the sake of his growing popularity, adopted the geese, who would have been eaten on that day anyway.

Goose keeping is a labor-intensive business. Geese must be herded, guarded, and fed. Unlike hens or pigeons, who can scratch out a living even in winter, geese need green fodder. So, like pigs, which also require feed, the surplus geese that aren’t needed for breeding in spring must be slaughtered when winter sets in. The latest practical date for that? November 11, Saint Martin’s Day. Why?

Until the Second Vatican Council (1962–65), Catholic Europe observed a forty-day fast before Christmas, just as before Easter. That’s why even today many Catholic families eat fish on the evening of December 24th, which was still a fasting day—unlike Protestants, who serve turkey. And that forty-day fast began right after November 11. So Saint Martin’s Day became the last great feast before abstinence—much like Mardi Gras before Lent.

Pieter Baltens: Saint Martin’s Kermis, late 16th century, Rijksmuseum

In much of Protestant Europe, including Britain and Germany, Martinmas (or Martinmesse) remained the occasion for candlelit or lantern processions—symbols of the approaching Advent, when humanity waited in darkness for Christ’s birth.

This little light of mine. Martinmas lantern walk

So November 11 is already set as the last great feast of geese and lighting before Advent. But why is Saint Martin’s feast celebrated on this very day as well?

A saint’s feast day usually marks the date of death—his heavenly birthday. Martin, however, died on November 8. So why celebrate on the 11th?

As bishop of Tours, Martin introduced the visitatio canonica—the annual visitation of his parishes. In 397, during one such visit, he died in a village on the Loire now known as Candes-Saint-Martin. The locals naturally wanted to keep his body as a holy relic, but the citizens of Tours claimed it as their own. Eventually, sailors from Tours came and spirited the body away. (If I still had my photos, I could show you how this sorrowful event is depicted in the Gothic stained-glass window of the Candes-Saint-Martin parish church.) They carried him up the Loire to Tours, where a great crowd awaited and laid him to rest in his prepared tomb.

All this happened on November 11. Contrary to custom, the saint’s feast was fixed not on the day of his death, but on the day of his burial.

It’s hard to resist the thought that this happened because November 11 was already an important date—the traditional pre-fast feast day—just waiting for a Christian name to be given to it. And the name chosen was Martin’s.

Saint Martin lived life to the fullest. He had been a soldier who, invoking Christ’s command to lay down the sword, refused to fight. A monk who founded Europe’s first monastery. A bishop who created one of the earliest organized dioceses. But his greatness also lay in his timing: he even managed to die at just the right moment—or almost the right, but he had friends. The geese were probably not among them. Still, if one must go, it’s surely better to die in Saint Martin’s name. Just as a pig might prefer Saint Anthony’s.

* * *

Epilogue. Jews, of course, do not celebrate Saint Martin’s Day. Yet the Martinmas goose still has a place in Hungarian Jewish tradition.

Until 1840, Jews in Hungary were not permitted to settle in royal free cities—a restriction upheld by their Christian burghers, who feared competition. There was, however, one exception: Pozsony (now Bratislava). The Habsburg kings personally granted settlement rights to the Jews there—directly across from Saint Martin’s Cathedral. In gratitude, the Jewish community of Pozsony each year on Saint Martin’s Day sent a fattened, ritually slaughtered, and expertly roasted goose to the imperial court in Vienna, carried on foot, lest a carriage jostle the precious bird. The custom is recorded by Sándor Bálint in his Festive Calendar, and by Norbert Glässer of Szeged in his excellent Kötődések blog, which reproduces the 1942 newspaper montage below.

This tradition persisted as long as there were Habsburgs in Vienna to receive the goose. How well known it was can be seen from the satirical magazine Borsszem Jankó issue of November 13, 1918. This edition appeared just after the general armistice was declared at 11 a.m. on November 11—Martinmas Day—by which time the thrones of the defeated powers had already been replaced by republics. The magazine, without any commentary and assuming its readers’ broad knowledge of the context, could pose the question:

“I wonder where the Jews of Pozsony took their Martinmas geese this year?”

The Hungarian caption paraphrasing the biblical “mene tekel upharsin” (Dan 5, original meaning: “God has numbered, weighed and divided the king”) means: “bugger off”

Gloria antigua

El 7 de noviembre es un día de gloria. Esto lo sabe muy bien quien todavía antes de 1990 era recordado de ello en las ceremonias escolares, o tuve que atravesar la plaza que llevó este nombre camino a Buda o al Parque de la Ciudad. Pero que también se convirtiera en un día de gloria para Irán, eso es completamente nuevo, de hecho, fresquito, exactamente de ayer.

Recientemente, la relación de Irán con la gloria había enfriado. Aunque ya había señales en el pasado cercano e incluso lejano, remontándose hasta la batalla de Kerbala en 680, donde los chiitas sufrieron su mayor derrota, que se conmemora cada año el día de Ashura como su fiesta más importante. Podríamos decir que su psicología social está ritualizada para aceptar la derrota. Sin embargo, incluso dentro de esta serie de reveses, hubo un punto bajo particularmente destacado: en junio de este año, los ejércitos israelí y estadounidense, en cuestión de instantes, destrozaron con graves ataques aéreos la defensa antiaérea iraní y bombardearon sus instalaciones nucleares.

El régimen iraní, que valoró esta derrota con aguda percepción como un fracaso total y una puesta en duda de su funcionamiento de medio siglo, dio ayer una respuesta contundente a Occidente. Claro que para ello tuvo que remontarse en el tiempo hasta la última victoria medible: Shapur II, el sah sasánida, quien en 260 triunfó en Édesa sobre el emperador romano Valeriano. El emperador y su ejército desaparecieron sin dejar rastro en el imperio persa, y Shapur decoró su tumba de roca junto a Persépolis con la representación de esa victoria: en el relieve, el emperador derrotado está arrodillado ante el sah montado a caballo, con la capa sobre el hombro amasando la fórmula de patetismo de manera inadecuada para la situación.

Al parecer, siguiendo una idea personal del gran ayatolá Jamenei, el régimen iraní mandó erigir una versión escultórica de ese relieve, y la desveló ayer, viernes 7 de noviembre, en el centro de Teherán, en la Plaza Enghelab, es decir, Plaza de la Revolución. Según la prensa iraní, la estatua es una seria advertencia para Occidente. Y las multitudes vitorearon su inauguración, sobre todo porque la ceremonia se combinó con un concierto pop.

Dos figuras gigantes—un guerrero sasánida y un guerrero persa moderno—dejan el mensaje clarísimo, con la inscripción en sus escudos: مقابل ایرانیان دوباره زانو مزید moqâbel-e Irâniyân dobare zânû mizid, “Es hora de arrodillarse ante los iraníes… otra vez.” Aunque el mensaje estaba escrito en persa, idioma mayormente desconocido en Occidente, los mares que rodean Irán están indicados en inglés. Esto sugiere que los diseñadores probablemente también descargaron el mapa de su propio país desde un sitio web occidental, una curiosa forma de “arrodillarse”, por así decirlo.

Occidente probablemente descifre la seria advertencia y se asuste un poco. Pero el gesto tiene otra sutil matiz que también vale la pena descifrar. Hasta ahora, el régimen había evitado enérgicamente exaltar la historia persa previa al Islam: por un lado, porque representaba la jahiliyyah, la época de ignorancia anterior a la verdadera fe; por otro, porque los sah Pahlavi, derrocados por la revolución de 1979, habían basado su legitimidad precisamente en esa historia. Quizá por primera vez, el régimen centra la celebración en un sah sasánida. Y justo en la plaza central, que antes se llamaba Plaza del Shah. ¿Significa esto que la idea del islamismo ya se ha agotado y que el país, como cualquier Estado de ideología caída, debe regresar al nacionalismo probado para reforzar su legitimidad?

El tableau vivant monumental organizado por el Sha Reza Pahlavi en 1971 en Persépolis con motivo del 2.500º aniversario del Imperio Persa ha sido considerado banal, pomposo y mezquino desde entonces. La versión de la plaza Enghelab remata esta mediocridad con un trabajo de cámara realmente pésimo.

Pero Irán no fue el primero en dar ejemplo de derrotar al tigre de papel. El cristianismo también vivió una humillación devastadora cuando en 1453 los turcos tomaron Constantinopla, destrozando su autoestima y sensación de seguridad. El eco de esa derrota resonó con fuerza en Occidente, y entonces se conmemoró una victoria muy antigua para advertir al paganismo: el ciclo de frescos de la Leyenda de la Vera Cruz de Piero della Francesca en la iglesia franciscana de Arezzo (1450-63). La última escena del ciclo representa a Heraclio en 628, en la batalla de Nínive, derrotando al sah persa Cosroes II y recuperando la Vera Cruz robada de Jerusalén. El sah está arrodillado en el suelo entre los comandantes cristianos, que Piero actualiza con vestimenta contemporánea en lugar de túnicas romanas, como si dijera: “¡Esperad, musulmanes! Así como devolvimos la mano al pagano entonces, también recuperaremos Constantinopla ahora.” Los paganos siguen esperando, quizá ya cansados.

En ambas obras hay un paralelismo: la tensión entre un pasado glorioso y un presente vergonzoso, el alivio de la impotencia y el encendido de la esperanza mediante un ejemplo histórico. Pero, ¿saben qué? Como dice el chiste famoso: la nuestra es más bonita.

Ancient glory

November 7th is a day of glory. Everyone knows this, especially those who were reminded of it at school ceremonies before 1990, or had to drive across the square named after it on the way to Buda or the City Park. But that it would also become a day of glory for Iran? That’s a brand-new development—freshly minted just yesterday.

Iran’s relationship with glory has cooled off in recent times. Signs have appeared before, stretching even into the distant past—way back to the Battle of Karbala in 680, where the Shiites suffered their greatest defeat, commemorated annually as Ashura, their biggest religious holiday. You could say their entire social-psychological makeup is ritualistically trained to accept defeat. Yet even among these recurring setbacks, a particularly deep low came this past June, when Israeli and American forces swiftly pulverized Iran’s air defenses and bombed its nuclear facilities.

The Iranian regime, sharp-eyed enough to assess this as its own total failure and a questioning of its half-century-long existence, delivered a resounding response to the West yesterday. True, it had to reach far back in time to the last measurable victory: Shapur II, the Sasanian shah, at Edessa in 260, triumphing over the Roman Emperor Valerian. The emperor and his army vanished into the Persian Empire, and Shapur had the triumph immortalized on the rock tomb near Persepolis—a relief showing the defeated emperor kneeling before the mounted shah, his cloak draped over his shoulder, pathetically puffed up by a totally inappropriate pathos formula.

According to reports, the Iranian regime, allegedly at Supreme Leader Khamenei’s personal suggestion, commissioned a statue version of that relief—and unveiled it yesterday, November 7th, Friday, in the heart of Tehran at Enghelab Square, literally “Revolution Square.” The statue, the Iranian press notes, is a serious warning to the West. Crowds cheered the unveiling, which didn’t hurt that it came with a pop concert.

The message is made clear by two gigantic figures, a Sasanian and a modern Persian warrior, with the inscription on their shields: مقابل ایرانیان دوباره زانو مزید moqâbel-e Irâniyân dobare zânû mizid “Time to kneel before the Iranians… again”. Although the message is written in Persian — a language largely unfamiliar to the West — the seas surrounding Iran are labeled in English. This suggests that the designers probably downloaded a map of their own country from a Western website as well—a curious form of kneeling, one might say

The West will probably decode this “serious warning” and panic a little. But there’s another, subtler layer here worth decoding. Until now, the regime had strictly avoided glorifying pre-Islamic Persian history—first, because it represented the jahiliyyah, the age of ignorance before the true faith, and second, because the Pahlavi shahs, overthrown in the 1979 revolution, had built their legitimacy precisely on that history. Perhaps for the first time, the regime is centering a Sasanian shah in its celebratory narrative. And right on the central square, renamed from Shah Square to Revolution Square. Does this imply that the era of Islamism has blown its course, and that the country, like any state of a failed ideology, must now lean on tried-and-true nationalism to shore up its legitimacy?

The monumental tableau vivant staged by Shah Reza Pahlavi in 1971 at Persepolis for the 2,500th anniversary of the Persian Empire has long been considered banal, pompous, and petty. The Enghelab Square version adds to this mediocrity with genuinely dreadful cinematography.

Of course, Iran wasn’t the first to give an example of defeating a paper tiger. Christianity has suffered similarly humiliating blows, when in 1453 the Turks captured Constantinople, shattering its self-esteem and sense of security. The impact resonated across the West, and on that occasion, we commemorated a very old victory against paganism: Piero della Francesca’s fresco cycle of the Legend of the True Cross in the Franciscan church of Arezzo (1450–63). Its final scene depicts Emperor Heraclius, in 628 at the Battle of Nineveh, defeating Shah Khosrow II of Persia and recovering the True Cross stolen from Jerusalem. The shah kneels on the ground among the Christian commanders, whom Piero, unlike in earlier images, updates with contemporary clothing instead of Roman armor. As if to say: “Watch out, Muslims! Just as we got our revenge on the pagans back then, we’ll take Constantinople back too.” The pagans are still waiting, perhaps growing weary by now.

Both works share a tension between glorious past and shameful present, a way to soothe helplessness and ignite hope through a historical example. But you know what? As the old joke goes: ours is prettier.

Bride-viewing among the Miao

The Miao are one of China’s most colorful ethnic groups. Partly because, officially numbering ten million, they are not a single group at all, but at least forty distinct ethnic subgroups. When the Chinese government compiled the official list of ethnicities in the 1950s, it encountered so many tiny groups here in the southwestern mountains that, rather than painstakingly classify them all, it swept them together under the umbrella term “Miao.” After all, the Chinese had long used this originally derogatory label for all the little “southern barbarian” hill tribes.

The same thing happened here as we’ve described in the Dadu River valley in eastern Tibet, the so-called “ethnic corridor”: for simplicity’s sake, the state lumped all the tiny groups there under the Tibetan nationality, even though they themselves have no Tibetan identity and the Tibetans do not consider them one of their own.

When most of us hear the name ‘Miao,’ we probably think: aha, surely they live under the Woofs, and a bit lower live the Squeaks. The joke is, well, not really a joke: the ethnonym actually does have a connection to the cat. The Chinese character for Miao is 苗 miáo, which depicts a field 田 divided into four parts with sprouting plants 艹, originally meaning “sprout,” “shoot,” or “seedling.” The ethnic group took this character because of the similar sound, and Chinese tradition has retroactively interpreted it to mean that the Miao were the most ancient agricultural people in what is now China. The character for cat, 貓 māo, combines the “small animal” radical on the left with 苗 miáo as the phonetic component—essentially a “small animal” called miao/mao, presumably because of its sound. As far as I know, this is the only Chinese animal name based on onomatopoeia. The oldest Chinese dictionary, the Shuowen Jiezi, compiled around 100 BCE, even comments on this: 鼠善害苗。貓能捕鼠，故字从苗 — “Mice destroy the crops; cats catch mice, therefore the character for ‘cat’ comes from 苗 ‘seedling.’” Quite a stretch, if you ask me—a classic lucus a non lucendo moment.

The name “Miao” encompasses at least forty ethnic subgroups, speaking roughly twelve languages and forty dialects. Since Miao women’s traditional clothing is extraordinarily colorful and elaborate, the groups are mostly distinguished by women’s dress. In Langde village, Guangzhou, the “Long-shirted Miao” live.

Langde 郎德—more precisely Shanglangde 上郎德, Upper Langde, because Lower Langde by the main road has grown into a modern settlement—is a small mountain village on the Bala River, in the Qiangdongnan Miao and Dong Autonomous Prefecture, at the foot of Leigong Mountain, the highest peak of the Miaoling range. The village’s diàojiăolóu houses (吊脚楼—wooden stilt houses with residents on the second and third floors) rise in layered rows from the riverbank up the hillside.

The houses at the village edge form a sort of wall with gates leading into the inner area. The lower houses enclose a square main plaza, with the community hall on one side—filled with drums, large silver village symbols, and a local history exhibit—and small shops and eateries on the other sides. Another plaza is taken up by a spacious fishpond with a stone trough in the center: traditionally used to raise fish later released into the rice fields, and also serving as a water reserve for fire-fighting. Steep streets rise from these two plazas up the hillside, then long paths lead to the village outskirts, offering beautiful views of the rooftops and the river. A covered wooden bridge of Dong type crosses the river—called a ‘flower bridge’ by the Dong, though the Chinese refer to it as a ‘wind-and-rain bridge’—but it is not as finely crafted as the authentic Dong originals.

Thanks to its intact architectural heritage and rich musical and ritual traditions, the village was among the first to receive the “Chinese Traditional Village” title in 2012.

The village has around 1,600 residents, all Miao, who speak the Hmu dialect (numbering 2.3 million speakers) of the Hmong language. They live in patrilineal extended families, practicing animism and shamanism, with nature and ancestral worship. The villagers mainly farm rice, though high educational standards mean many young people leave for the city. Most still wear traditional clothing: men in indigo long robes, women in equally indigo-based but richly and colorfully embroidered long dresses, adorned with massive silver jewelry, including bull-head chest ornaments and enormous silver headdresses with large moon-shaped horns.

In China, marriage within the clan is prohibited. So if a small mountain village consists of just one clan, as Langde does, it must create occasions for young people to meet others from neighboring villages. This necessity gave rise to Miao “welcoming festivals,” now primarily maintained to preserve identity.

Traditionally, each village held the “maiden market” on a different day, where parents ceremonially received visitors from other villages, led them to the main square, and had the girls perform dances. Under the watchful eyes of the parents, there was also a chance for private conversations. Today, the village continues this ritual, now without stakes—simply for pleasure, identity preservation, and entertaining mainly domestic tourists. Still, participants are given vouchers redeemable for cash, so attending the ritual can also be seen as a small perk.

On the morning of the festival, around eleven o’clock, the slope before the lower gate, overlooking the river and road, fills with villagers in festive attire. These are their authentic traditional clothes, often family heirlooms, with women wearing vast amounts of silver jewelry and finely crafted silver headdresses. While such silver ornaments are no longer produced, authentic traditional costumes—old or newly made—can still be purchased in the village shops.

Along the path from the river to the gate, eleven small tables are set up, each attended by two or three older women. Each table has a jug of mild fruit wine. Guests are offered two cups at each table, and at the twelfth station by the gate, an entire horn of wine, ensuring the young men are in high spirits—and perhaps slightly less judicious—by the start of the performance.

Meanwhile, the men, lined up atop the hill, start playing their qeej (pronounced kʰeing), a bamboo pipe. The qeej is the most widespread instrument among the Hmong. Not merely a musical instrument, it also encodes speech: Hmong storytellers can convey tales using only the qeej. The instrument communicates with spirits too, guiding the souls of the deceased to the afterlife, seeking ancestral counsel, and blessing the bride-viewing day.

Next, musicians and women enter the main square, followed by the guests.

Guests settle on the steps of the community hall, from where they watch hosts enter the square via various gateways, performing different dances.

The order of the dances carries meaning. The first dance is performed by the mothers, as a lead-in: “watch the mother, take her daughter”—less for the young men, more for their peers, who can thus judge how strong and agile their sons’ chosen partners will still be by the time their own children come of marriageable age.

The second dance is performed by the young girls, showcasing themselves: graceful, refined, self-presenting. The music changes: while the mothers’ dance features traditional Miao music, the girls’ dance is accompanied by modern Chinese pop—their generational language, shared with the viewing boys.

This is my third time attending the festival, and while the sequence is the same, the dances vary each time. They seem to have a vast repertoire, choosing different sets so as not to repeat themselves.

Between the girls’ dances, a little girl emerges from a shop, dancing joyfully down to the older girls, waving her arms in practice for her future role.

The third performance is the grandmothers’ chorus, welcoming guests and embedding the earlier dances into tradition.

Fourth, the fathers enter, walking the square with bamboo pipes, communicating with ancestors, seeking blessings for the matchmaking day.

Finally, to the call of the bamboo pipes, all previous groups re-enter the square, circling to express community cohesion. At this point, the viewers join in, just as young men in the past would join their chosen girl and converse under their parents’ watch.

What do we see here? A cynical European might dismiss it as a tourist show. But let’s not be so sure. Suppose the Chinese enjoy their own traditions and experience them for their own pleasure, much like people in Transylvania at a dance house. The joy and enthusiasm are palpable. Tourists do show up, but even in January, with only one or two visitors, the performance goes on. And it would take place even without tourists—the presence of an audience is incidental. The costumes are real, everyday traditional wear; the dances are authentic. Modern pop music does appear, but only to show the living nature of the tradition. And the fact that participants receive money from the local government doesn’t diminish the ritual’s authenticity. If only elsewhere, even in Eastern Europe, authorities would support traditions and strengthen minority identity through their lived experience in this way.