Religious rites

People of the Miao ethnic minority living in mountainous areas have a tradition of worshiping their ancestors and holding funerals by killing buffalos. Usually buffalo horns are left as offerings. Since buffalos are often too expensive to afford, sometimes goats are used as substitutes. Once goat horns become sacrifice offerings they cannot be moved or touched, a practice to show respect for ancestors or the dead. But kids are exempt from this taboo. If a kid touches a goat horn on an altar, adults will simply say, "Oh, he is playing with his grandpa." Local people offer goat horns in sacrifice rites to pray for a favorable climate and a peaceful and prosperous life. Therefore, goat horns are regarded as a symbol that can bring fortune and dispel evils.

  Calendar calculation

As one of the twelve animals to symbolize the year in which a person is born, sheep have been used in calendar calculation since ancient times. There existed, not only the year of sheep but also the month, day and even hour of sheep. It is believed in some places that a person who was born in the hour of sheep of the day of sheep of the month of sheep of the year of sheep enjoys the best destiny in his lifetime.

In the Guizhou Provincial Museum there is a copper drum inscribed with the twelve animals that was made in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Copper drums are the most cherished objects for the ethnic minorities of southwest China. It is generally believed that copper drums fall into two categories -- male drums and female drums. In some villages of Miao people, copper drums are also called "ancestral drums" because they regard copper drums as their ancestors. On big occasions such as religious rites, funerals and new years, people dressed in festive attires will dance around copper drums.

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