壹
我到达村口高高的寨门时,太阳已经西斜,但暑热之气仍未退去。站在那条土路的最高处,映入眼帘的是一条正值收获时节的山谷:一块块浅绿色的农田间点缀着抹抹金黄,一座座高挑的飞檐宛如黑色的波浪穿插其间;稻田依山而筑,层层叠叠的仿佛摞起来的绿色薄饼。
The sun was already low and the air still hot when I arrived at the tall ceremonial gate that led into the village. From the top of the dirt road, my eyes took in a valley in mid-harvest: a patchwork of pale green fields brushed with gold, broken by dark waves of upswept roofs. Against the mountainsides, rice fields were stacked like mossy pancakes.
忽然间,两个约10岁的小姑娘跑上前来,不由分说一左一右挽住我的胳膊,咿咿呀呀地唱着迎宾歌,拥着我走上一段石板小径,在鳞次栉比的三层木楼间穿行。几个包着头巾的老奶奶从各自的门廊里注视着我们;三个戴着老式解放帽、头发花白的老大爷也放低烟袋锅儿,抬头看了看;一群孩子簇拥在我们身后。两个小姑娘带我穿过一座座建在高桩之上的谷仓,有些谷仓下面是猪栏,有些是养鸭子的池塘。在几座谷仓下面,我还看到三四件器物躺在地上,看起来就像装饰美观的柜子。它们是摆渡灵魂的冥舟——人们订做的棺材;在这里,一个人的棺木从哪棵树上出,是在出生时就已经定好的。
Without warning, two ten-year-old girls ran up and locked elbows with mine, singing their welcome in staccato rhythm as they escorted me over a flagstone path through a maze of three-storied homes made of wood. Turbaned grannies watched from their porches. Three grizzled men wearing old-style Mao caps looked up from their pipes. A huddle of children followed. The girls led me past grain sheds, which stood on stilts over pens of fleshy pigs and ponds of ducks. Under a few sheds I saw what looked like three or four decorative cabinets lying on their sides. They were vessels to the underworld, made-to-order coffins, carved from trees that had been selected when their future owners were born.

我来到了地扪村,一个地处贵州葱郁群山环抱之中的侗寨。这里生活着五大房族,528户人家。贵州是个地域偏远,经济落后的省份。经过汽车上足足八个小时的颠簸,我对“偏远”这一点算是有了深刻体会;一路上曲曲弯弯,有的路段还被泥石流冲毁了。两年前这里发生了严重的旱灾,紧接着却洪灾不断,今年收获时节的漫长白昼又热得人喘不过气来。我新结交的一位侗族朋友引用当地谚语说贵州是“天无三日晴,地无三里平,人无三分银”。我猜想,1935年红军长征至此,在贵州的深山老林中艰苦跋涉之时,一定也常把这句话挂在嘴边吧。
I had arrived in Dimen, home to five clans and 528 households of the Dong minority, an enclave nestled in the luxuriant mountains of Guizhou. The province is poor and remote. Proof of the latter was hammered into my spine during an eight-hour bus ride over a winding road, some of it washed out by mud slides. A severe drought two years before had been followed by flash floods. This year the long harvest days were oppressively hot. One of my new Dong friends quoted a Guizhou saying: “Not three feet of flat land, not three days without rain, not a family with three silver coins.” I imagined that was often muttered by Mao’s followers when the Long March in 1935 took them up into the wild slopes and damp creases of Guizhou.
是音乐吸引我来到了地扪。侗族人使用的侗语没有书写形式,一族的各种传统和历史传说都通过歌曲代代相传,可以上溯千年——至少歌曲里是这么说的。我早就听说,在侗寨里随便让谁唱歌,人家都会毫不犹豫地唱给你听。后来我确实听到了许多歌曲:有迎宾时唱的,有感叹年华逝去的,还有侗族人最钟爱的火热情歌。此外,一位老大妈还喜欢唱革命老歌《东方红》。
I had been lured to Dimen by the music. The Dong people have no written form of their language, Kam. Songs are the record of traditions and a mythic history that is a thousand years old, or so the songs themselves suggest. I had heard that you could ask anyone in a Dong village for a song, and he or she would sing without hesitation. I would hear many: a welcome song about keeping out invaders, melodies about growing old, Dong favorites about feckless lovers. And, as reprised by an old woman, the Communist Party hit from the fifties, “The East Is Red.”


在寨子另一头,我们见到一座华美的廊桥,在这个稻农聚居的小寨子里,人均年收入不过七八百元,有这样一座桥实属非凡。威武的桥身宛如蟠龙,顶蓬好像披着鳞甲的龙身,几座桥楼构成龙头和背棘。我满怀敬畏地望着它,仿佛孩子看到书中蹦出了一个童话世界。
At the far edge of the village we reached a covered bridge that was fanciful, outlandishly so for a small village of rice farmers whose income is less than a hundred dollars a year. The bridge was as formidable as a dragon, with a scaly roof for its body and cupolas for its head and spine. I viewed it with the awe of a child who has just seen a fairy-tale place jump out of a book.
其实这样的桥在当地共有五座,连接起了地扪寨的五大房族。由于造型美观,当地人称它们为“花桥”,又因遮风挡雨的实用性而称之为“风雨桥”。桥两侧都设有长凳,既是老人们理想的休憩之处,也是儿童嬉戏的好地方,当天空乌云滚滚时,木匠还可以到这儿做活计。
The bridge was actually one of five connecting the five clan villages that make up the unified village of Dimen. For their beauty they are called flower bridges, and for their practicality, wind-rain bridges, a handy shelter from the elements. Benches run along both sides of the bridges, making them an ideal resting spot for old comrades, a playground for children, and a work space for carpenters when dark clouds churn.

贰
我曾三次造访地扪,两次在秋天,一次在春天。多少次,我走过这些花桥,目睹了这里多姿多彩的日常生活:农夫下地干活,孩子们去上学,老妇背着柴禾上山归来。村里的鼓楼是座空气畅通的五层楼阁,每当寨里要发布喜讯或噩耗,11位主事的寨老就会在这里主持。寨子里有块宽大的场院,秋天晒谷,设宴时宰猪,以及天气暖和时男人们晚上出来打牌都是在这里。每逢雨天,车辙纵横的坚硬土路很快就会变得泥泞不堪。
Over the course of three visits to Dimen, two in the autumn, one in the spring, I crossed those bridges many times and saw the colors and hues of daily life: farmers on the way to their fields, children en route to school, old women coming down the mountain with sacks of kindling on their backs. At the main Drum Tower, an airy, five-storied pavilion, the 11 Village Elders preside when there is good news to announce or grievances to air. In the big courtyard rice is laid out to dry in autumn, pigs are slaughtered for feasts, and men play cards on warm nights. Roads with hard ruts turn quickly to soft mud in rain.
有天下午,一家人推着一辆沉重的推车走在这条崎岖土路上,险些把整车价钱不菲的瓶装啤酒打翻在地。买啤酒是为了给家里宝宝操办“打三朝”酒席,这种庆生宴会的花费比婚礼还要费钱,为了家里生下来刚满20天的女婴,500位客人将受邀出席,有些人还是从遥远的外省赶来的。“你也来吧。”他们对我说。这里的人们常常站在门口招呼:来吃晚饭吧。来吃早饭啊。多少次赴宴途中,我都从花桥经过。有时我会在桥中央停下脚步,面朝小河,凝望河水发源的远山。我总能看到农民在梯田里劳作,收割、插秧、犁田,或在农闲时节种些蔬菜。
One afternoon a family pushing a heavy cart over that same road nearly dumped its costly load of bottled beer. Five hundred guests, some from distant provinces, were coming to Da San Zhao, a baby party that cost more than a wedding, this one for a girl only 20 days old. “You come too,” they said. People often called out from their doorways: Come to dinner. Come to breakfast. How about lunch? I crossed the flower bridges for many meals. And sometimes I would pause in the middle to face the river straight ahead and look at the mountain that is its source. I always saw people working in the terraced fields, harvesting, planting, plowing, or tending to vegetables grown in the off-season.


农民收割水稻时,先破开稻田之间的田埂,将田里的水排干。水一泻而光,很快只剩下数百条巴掌大的鱼在泥地上扑腾。在春天插秧的时候,农夫就把鲤鱼苗放进了田里。鱼儿和稻子一起生长,吃掉水田里的杂草、水藻、小蜗牛和孑孓,倒在水里的树干上沾满了黄色的鱼卵。夏天,害了相思病的蛾子企图与自己在水中的倒影共度鱼水之欢,溺毙在水中,却养肥了田里的鱼儿。
The farmers had begun the harvest by draining the rice fields, punching holes into the earthen walls that separated them. Water gushed out, and soon hundreds of fish the size of a man’s hand lay flopping on the muddy bottom. Earlier, in the spring, the farmers had put carp fingerlings into the fields with the planting. The fish grew with the rice, grooming their watery home of weeds, algae, little snails, as well as mosquito larvae. Fallen logs were stained yellow with carp eggs. In the summer the carp fattened up on lovesick moths that had attempted conjugal bliss with their reflections and drowned.
一天晚上,突如其来的暴风雨导致了停电。在一户人家的厨房里,我坐在板凳上举着小手电筒,给女主人打个下手。她正把上百斤的鱼腌制起来。鱼肚子里塞了由五种原料炮制而成的调味酱,其中一种就是花椒,它让不少贵州菜带上了远近驰名的麻辣口味。这股味道冲脑开窍,能让你忘记天气的炎热。女主人弓着腰做活儿,一干就是几个小时,第二天,她又弓着腰在田里劳作。我问她是否背痛,她答道:“一直痛着呢,因为总有干不完的活儿。”
One evening after a sudden storm had knocked out the electricity, I sat on a foot-high stool in a woman’s kitchen, trying to be useful by holding a tiny flashlight as she preserved hundreds of pounds of fish. She stuffed the fish with a paste of five flavors, including huajiao, the fiery berry of the prickly ash that gives much of the food in Guizhou its mala, tongue-numbing notoriety. With mala searing your brain, you forget that the weather is hot. For hours she was bent over her task. The next day she was bent over in her field. I asked if her back ever hurt. “It never stops hurting,” she said, “because the work never stops.”


叁
到了新年,经过发酵的生鱼就腌熟了,不仅给一日三餐增添了滋味,而且在每一种重要场合的仪式上都要用到:生孩子、办红白喜事、新房上梁、庆贺猪牛安康。腌鱼的效用可谓大矣:一个无月之夜,我在鹅卵石小道上一路小跑,跟随风水先生去一座猪圈。在那儿,他献上糯米、鸡肉、鸡蛋、酒水和腌鱼等供品,给“山魈”念了一段咒语。据说“山魈”是一种脚掌外翻的小鬼,住在山里面,那天下午附在了一个男孩身上,害得他又发烧又疼痛。祭礼结束三分钟后,男孩的母亲跑过来,带来了好消息:“他已经吃得下饭了!”
By the New Year the ripened carp would be deemed anyu, the raw fermented fish that adds zest to any meal and is part of every ceremony: for births, weddings, and funerals, for raising the center beam of a new house, for celebrating the steadfast cows. The power of anyu cannot be overestimated. I ran along a cobblestone path one moonless night, following a Feng Shui Master to a pig shed. There he made an offering of sticky rice, chicken, egg, wine, and anyu. He recited an incantation directed to a ganjin, a gremlin with backward feet who lives in the mountain. The ganjin had entered the body of a boy that afternoon and wracked his body with fever and pain. Three minutes after the ceremony the boy’s mother came running with the news: “He’s already eating!”
风水先生的咒语是学自舅舅,他是一位草药医生,也是当地资格最老的风水师傅,到他家里求医的病人络绎不绝。一个小时内,这位草药医生接待了10个病人,大多数是上了年纪的妇女,穿着传统式样的旧衣,头上裹着用自家纺染的土布做成的头巾。
The Feng Shui Master had learned the incantations from his uncle, an herbalist, who is also the Chief Feng Shui Master, the most experienced, the one who has a constant stream of patients in his kitchen. In the span of an hour, the herbalist saw ten patients, most of them elderly women dressed in traditional clothes, frayed workaday jackets, and head wraps made of cloth they had woven and dyed themselves.

一位妇人说她孙子突然头痛、肚子痛。大师烧了些纸,将纸灰和稻粒一起浮在水里。他念了道咒,掐指算出哪些神仙能赐示病根——灶神、桥神和伤神。诊断结果出来了:这个男孩碰到了自己曾祖母的鬼魂。要治好病,必须给这位曾祖母供上一顿米酒和腌鱼,请她的鬼魂在回到阴间前好好享用。
One woman reported that her grandson had developed sudden pains in the head and stomach. The herbalist burned paper and floated ash in water with rice grains. He said an incantation, counted out on his fingers the names of gods who might have the answers—God of Kitchen, God of Bridges, God of Injury. The diagnosis came back: The boy had seen the ghost of his great-grandmother. As remedy the woman should make the great-grandmother a feast of rice wine and anyu, then invite her to eat well before her journey back to the World of Yin, the underworld.
另一个病人早晨起床后喉咙如针扎般疼痛,风水师傅说她被一个吊死鬼上了身。另一个女人全身疼痛,是因为她被一个祖先附了体,他两百年来都没有墓碑,心中不快。病人们吓坏了,风水师傅出言宽慰:“准备好腌鱼和酒,我今晚过来,鬼魂就会走了。”一个婴儿喝了生水拉肚子,大师到山头上扯下几种叶子和长茎野草,配成一服汤药。
Another patient woke up with a stabbing pain in her throat. The herbalist told her she was inhabited by the ghost of a man who had been hanged. A woman whose body hurt all over was inhabited by an ancestor who was unhappy that he never had a tombstone these past 200 years. The herbalist soothed his frightened patients. “Prepare the anyu and wine. I’ll come tonight, and the ghost will be gone.” For a baby with diarrhea caused by drinking unboiled water, he headed to a hillock, where he plucked various leaves and long grasses to make a potion.
他治病分文不取,但心怀感激的病人会送上薄礼,有的是一个鸡蛋,有的是一些稻米。他用米粒给一个妇女算命,对方硬塞给他两块钱,他却坚辞不收。“太多了。”他说道,把钱推了回去。
He charged nothing for his healing services. But his grateful patients gave small gifts, an egg, some rice. He argued with one woman who tried to give him two kwai, about 20 cents, for a rice fortune that would tell her future. “It’s too much,” he said, and pushed the money back.
突然间,一个小伙子跑进来。他母亲病情加重了,家里的猪也不肯吃食。风水师傅朝病人家从容走去的时候,我却一路小跑,费尽力气跟着,就仿佛是他在御风而行,而我在屈着僵硬的膝盖往前爬。
Suddenly a young man ran in. His mother had grown worse, and the pigs had also stopped eating. As the Chief Feng Shui Master walked calmly to the patient’s home, I ran, struggling to keep up. It was as if he was flying without effort, and I was crawling on stiff knees.
“这是迷信。”一位30多岁的教侗歌的老师说,“只有老年人才信鬼神。“
“It’s superstition,” said a Singing Teacher in his 30s. “It’s just the old people who believe in ghosts.”


在地扪的世界里,老人的影响力依然不容小视。侗族将老年妇女称为“萨”(祖母),她们将幼小的孙辈系在背上,终日照料,直到孩子的爸妈干活归来。如果两夫妻在外地打工,她们就抚养幼儿,用侗家的方式熏陶。她们给孩子唱歌,歌词的内容有的是吃饭的规矩,有的是田里的活计,还有的是无私的可贵和贪婪的卑劣。她们用酸汤(用淘米水发酵而成)给孩子洗头,带他们去医务室,不管什么病,肚子痛也好,流鼻涕也好,一律点滴抗生素。如果这还治不好的话,她们就会去找风水师傅,看看孩子是不是有鬼上身。
The old people still exert considerable influence in the Dimen world. The za, or elder women, strap their infant grandchildren to their backs and care for them all day, until the parents return from work. If the parents work in other cities, the za raise them from birth and immerse them in Dong ways. They sing songs to them about table manners and field chores, about the moral good of selflessness, and the moral evil of greed. They wash their hair in sour soup. They take them to the clinic, where they are put on IV antibiotic drips for whatever ails them, be it stomachache or runny nose. And if that doesn’t cure them, the za go to the Feng Shui Master to learn if they are inhabited by ghosts.

寨子里主事的11位寨老都是年过花甲的男人,他们按照侗族的行为准则来执掌道理人情,维护村民的安乐和秩序。这些老人中最年长的一位已饱经了世事变迁:从共产党第一次进入贵州,到“文革”时知识青年来接受贫下中农再教育。七年前,一台能收看20个频道的电视机在这里首次亮相。在其他寨子里,人们房顶的圆盘卫星天线如雨后的蘑菇般纷纷冒出来,而地扪主事的老人们找到了更成熟的解决方案:家家户户共用一个大型卫星天线。
Eleven Village Elders, men over the age of 60, apply reason and reasonability in overseeing social welfare and civil order according to the Dong code of conduct. The oldest of the elders has seen radical changes over the years: from when the communists first came to Guizhou through the period of the Cultural Revolution when the educated youth came to be reeducated as farmers. Seven years ago the first television with a choice of 20 channels made its debut. In other villages satellite dishes sprouted on rooftops like spores after rain. The Village Elders in Dimen found a more sophisticated solution: one large dish shared by a network.
变化似乎来得越来越快。2006年,手机信号开始覆盖偏远地区,而到了2007年初村里已经几乎人手一部手机。现在,农民在离寨子几里外的山里犁田,老婆可以打来电话,让他在回家的路上采点野菜,在外省打工的年轻人也可以给家乡的恋人发短信。在地扪2372人的官方人口数字中,大约有1200人住在外地打工。成功的故事时有耳闻,很多人在外面每月能挣1500元左右,而那些进入工厂里干活的人即便赚不到这个数字的一半,收入也比在家乡好得多。但他们仍然怀念地扪那歌声萦绕的生活,怀念家乡的蝉鸣,春天的果实和大山里的幽静之美。
The changes seem to come faster each month. In 2006 mobile phones began working in remote areas, and by early 2007 nearly everyone had them. Now you could be plowing your field in the mountains, miles from the village, and receive a call from your wife asking you to pick some wild greens for dinner on your way home. Young men working in other provinces send text messages to their hometown sweethearts. Out of Dimen’s official population of 2,372, about 1,200 work and live elsewhere. There are some success stories; many can earn more than $200 a month. Those who wind up in factories might earn less than half that, still far more than they could earn at home. But they miss the life of Dimen that is sung in songs, the crying cicadas, the fruits of spring, the quiet beauty of the mountains.

肆
在地扪,人们几乎每天都唱歌。在教室里,学生们端端正正地坐在课桌前,用无伴奏的方式跟着老师学歌,一点儿都不会走音。到了周末,一群年龄稍大的女孩子穿着牛仔裤和粉红上衣,站在博物馆教侗歌的老师面前练习节奏轻快的歌曲,每人独唱一段,两位声音低哑、被大家尊称为“萨”的老奶奶带着较小的孩子们练习一些比较简单的合唱歌。
In Dimen people sing nearly every day. In classrooms students sit with perfect posture at their desks. They repeat in perfect a cappella pitch what their teacher has just sung. On weekends a troupe of older girls dressed in jeans and pink tops stand before the Singing Teacher and practice fast-paced songs, each taking a solo. Two gravelly voiced elderly women, respectfully called za by all, guide the younger children in reciting simpler chorals.
其中一位老奶奶的眼睛是蓝色的,开始我以为这是早年从这里经过的外族人留下的血统——也许是经丝绸之路辗转而来的商旅。这位老奶奶告诉我,地扪历史上曾多次遭到侵略,“1920年,一个军阀把我娘16岁的姑姑抢去做九姨太,从此再没有她的消息”;在那些日子里,来到地扪的外人烧杀抢掠,每次她都要和家里人用篮子盛上糯米,躲到山里去。
One of the za has blue-tinged eyes. At first I thought this was a genetic remnant of outsiders who had come through the region—perhaps foreign traders diverted from the Silk Road. Dimen has had many invaders, the blue-eyed za told me. “In 1920 a Chinese warlord kidnapped my mother’s 16-year-old aunt to make her his ninth concubine. No one heard from her again.” In those days, the blue-eyed za said, people who came stole our things and killed people. Each time, she and her family put sticky rice in their baskets and ran into the mountains to hide.
后来老奶奶问我要眼药水,说自己眼前模糊一片,我才明白她眼睛中的蓝色其实是白内障。之前有几个人告诉我,蓝眼老奶奶是唯一能够把地扪史诗般的侗族大歌中所有120首唱全的人,那些蓝调式的旋律忧伤反复,能唱上好几个钟头。这首大歌里说,地扪侗族的祖先原本生活在珠江下游南岭的水乡泽国,战争将他们的后代赶到了地扪。两个10来岁的女孩后来告诉我:“那首老歌没意思。我们忙得很,哪还有空学自己不喜欢的东西。”
When the za asked me for eyedrops, complaining that her eyes were cloudy, I realized the blue in her eyes was cataracts. Several people had already told me she was the only one who knew all 120 verses of the epic song of Dimen’s history, hours of a bluesy repetitive melody. According to this anthem, the original Dong ancestors of Dimen began as a people who wore no clothes. Invaders had driven their descendants to Dimen. “That old song is boring,” two teenage girls later told me. “We’re too busy to learn something we don’t like.”
蓝眼老奶奶今年74岁了,但她能扛起的柴火比我多一倍。她能轻快地跃过绊脚的岩石,能大步流星地上山,把我甩在后面上气不接下气地追赶。但她一旦过世,那首史诗之歌将会怎样?万一没有了传人,这首口耳相传的侗族大歌还能存在么?侗族生活中还有多少传统会迅速湮灭?
The blue-eyed za was 74, but she could lift twice as much kindling as I. She could scamper over uneven rock. She could stride up the mountain, leaving me breathless behind. But what would happen to the epic song after she was gone? What is an unwritten Dong song if there is no one left to remember it? How many other traditions of Dong life would soon be lost?


伍
有些损失也许就发生在一夜间。
Some losses happen overnight.
四月一个寒冷的黎明,一位卧病在床的老人不小心将被子掉在了取暖用的火盆上。人们听到他叫喊“痛啊!”那夜风很大,火势随风四下蔓延,人们纷纷从房里逃出来,“连双鞋都顾不上穿”。他们站在风雨桥上,眼睁睁看着烈焰吞噬了家园。有人用手机报了火警,消防队从山下的镇上赶来,把管子接到鼓楼旁的一个消防栓上时,破损的管道里却一滴水也流不出来,连鼓楼自己也已经陷身火海。
In the early hours of a cold April morning, a bedridden old man dropped his quilt onto the copper basin of burning charcoal that kept him warm. People heard his screams: “It hurts!” The wind was strong that night, and the fire moved in whatever direction the wind pushed it. People fled their homes “without even a pair of shoes,” and from the wind-rain bridges they watched their homes burn. The fire brigade from the township below was summoned by a mobile phone call. But when the firefighters attached their hose to a spigot next to the Drum Tower, no water ran out of the broken pipe. The Drum Tower itself was a bonfire.
天亮时,鼓楼和60户人家的房屋变成了冒着青烟的废墟。另有44户住房满目疮痍,有的熏黑了半边,有的丢掉了墙板,还有的是为了隔断火势而拆毁的——这最终挽救了寨子里的其他房子。只有那家的老人一人遇难,邻居们说,他的身体已经烧得残缺不全。几天后,空气中依然飘荡着木材、粮食和死猪烧焦的气味。
By sunrise the Drum Tower and 60 homes were smoldering heaps. Forty-four other homes bore scars, from blackened sides to missing boards, or had been torn down to create a firebreak, which ultimately saved the rest of the village. The old man was the only one who died. Only part of his torso remained, his neighbor reported. For days the air smelled of charred wood, burned grain, and roasted pigs.
一位老奶奶坐在自家房屋废墟的路对面,对我说:“我本想把我的银饰留给孙女,现在全没了。”她把双臂擎向苍天,仿佛大火就在我们眼前呼啸肆虐,“我一直哭了四天四夜,什么也吃不下。干部们来村里的时候先来慰问我,因为我哭喊得最凶。我向他们哭诉,我还是前任村支书的寡妇,可现在没烧掉的只剩我的棺材。”
“I was going to give my silver to my granddaughter,” one za told me, as she sat across the road from the ruins of her former home. “But it’s all gone.” She threw her arms up in the air, as if the fire were rising before us with a whoosh. “I cried for four days, without stopping, without eating. When government officials arrived, they came to me first, because I was bawling the loudest. I cried to them, I am the widow of a party secretary, and only my coffin wasn’t burned.”

农民们清点了损失:房屋、猪、农具、谷仓、土布衣服,以及祖母和母亲传下来的银饰。要修复或重建房舍,每家要花2万元到4万元不等,这笔债够他们背上一辈子。人们纷纷指责肇事人家的几个儿子,骂他们将老父亲独自留在家里,自己出门和外地来的亲戚喝酒。但河下游十几里外一个寨子里的木匠说:“家里来客,你总得招呼人家喝酒嘛。这是个意外。”
The farmers tallied their losses: homes, pigs, farm tools, grain sheds, and the woven clothes and silver heirlooms of grandmothers and mothers. It would cost them each 20,000 to 40,000 yuan ($2,500 to $5,000) to repair or rebuild, a lifetime of debt. The sons of the fire starter were blamed for leaving their father alone while they were outside drinking with relatives from out of town. “When guests come, you have to offer them wine,” said a carpenter in a village four miles downriver. “It was an accident.”
这个意外事出有因。所谓祸不单行,肇事的那户人家一直不太平。大家以前常常听到大儿子和父亲吵架,每周至少吵上四回,每回都是以大儿子打老父告终,有一回还是在春节期间当着一大群人的面,在鼓楼前就打了起来。教侗歌的老师说:“儿子打老子,真是大逆不道。”这家的火爆脾气让全寨遭了殃。
This accident had its causes. One bad thing leads to another. The family of the fire starter had been troubled for a long time. People used to hear the Eldest Son and father argue at least four times a week. It ended each time with the son beating up the father. A crowd witnessed such a beating in front of the Drum Tower during Spring Festival. “For a son to do such a thing to a father,” said the Singing Teacher, “that is very wrong.” The family’s volatile temper was a curse on the village.
然而大火在侗寨里并不鲜见。一个寨子平均每30年就会发生一场大火灾。最常见的原因就是睡着的老人将被子掉进了火盆,前两年有两个侗寨就是这么焚毁的。地扪火灾发生一年后,又一条滑落的被子使河下游一个贫困寨子的窘迫生活雪上加霜。
Big fires, however, are not unheard of in Dong villages. On average a village suffers one every 30 years. And the most frequent cause? A sleepy old man whose quilt falls into a basin of fire. It was exactly what had devastated two Dong villages in the prior two years. And one year after Dimen’s fire, a slipped quilt left a poor village downriver much more impoverished.
寨里主事的老人综合考虑了受害者的痛苦和肇事者的道德责任,根据村里的行为法则做出了惩罚处置:肇事方的几个儿子三四年内不得回寨。他们必须在河对岸至少三里之外的地方居住,此外还要花1万块钱举办祭祀土地神的仪式,并请全寨人吃饭。但此时老人的两个小儿子已经溜掉了,因此大儿子必须承担全部责任。他们全家人都搬到了自家高处田地的一个牛棚里。
The Village Elders took into account the suffering of the victims and the morals of those responsible. They assessed a penalty based on the Dong code of conduct: The sons were to be banished for three or four years. They had to live across the river no closer than three li, about a mile, from town. In addition they had to pay 10,000 yuan for a ceremony to the God of Land, as well as provide a chicken dinner for the entire village. By then the two younger sons had run off, and so the eldest had to suffer all the consequences. He and his family went to live in a cowshed on one of his higher fields.


按规矩,寨老们完全可以将他们赶得更远,放逐更久,但考虑到大儿子家里儿女幼小,他们就宽大为怀了。这家的一子一女在村里上小学,这段距离不算远,真正险恶的是坏天气里的道路状况。通往牛棚的最后90米路实际上是梯田里一段地埂的顶端,仅能容一人落脚,两侧距地面的高度分别是1米和6米,脚下一滑就会坠落。说来也怪,这放逐者家园的景致之美是我平生仅见。放眼望去,四周山川秀丽,田野壮美,天空寥廓,别无他物。
The code allowed the Village Elders to assess a longer banishment and to a farther distance. But they had been lenient because of the Eldest Son’s younger children. The boy and girl attended primary school in the village. The distance was not as forbidding as the condition of the pathway in bad weather. The final hundred yards to the cowshed was over a hip-wide footpath, actually the top of a semicircular wall between rice fields. One slip, and you would fall three feet in one direction or twenty in the other. In a strange way the home of the banished man had one of the most beautiful vistas I had ever seen. It was a panorama of mountain, field, and sky, and nothing else.
“别无他物”就是对他们的惩罚。被放逐的大儿子说,这事发生之前,他跟父亲一直还算处得来,如今却对父亲怀恨在心:家当烧了个精光,还欠了一屁股债;他15岁的儿子受不了放逐的屈辱,跑到广州一家衣架厂打工去了;他们好几代后人的声誉都将染上污点。然而他们不会离开地扪。他们会一直住在牛棚里,直到可以搬回去重建家园。
“Nothing else” was their punishment. Before this happened, the banished man said, he had always gotten along with his father. Now he hated him. They had lost everything they owned and were in debt. Their 15-year-old son could not deal with the shame of exile and had fled to Guangzhou, where he worked in a factory making clothes hangers. Their reputation would be stained for generations to come. But they would not leave Dimen. They would live in the cowshed until they could return and build another house.

在山下的寨子里,左邻右舍,亲戚好友乃至其他寨子来的人正忙着搬运木料,架梁搭板,兴建三层高、屋顶铺有泥瓦的传统侗族房子,整座建筑无须一根钉子。有座房子其实刚只建了个框架,但一位老妇人——就是那位支书遗孀,在两根房梁之间搭上两块木板,就在那离地3米高的地方露天睡下了。等到冬天,所有人家都会住进新房子。
Down in the village, neighbors, family, friends, and even people from other villages hauled lumber, set beams in posts, and planks across beams, to build a traditional Dong home three stories high, with a roof of mud-clay tiles, all without nails. One house was only a skeletal frame, but an old woman, the Widow of the Party Secretary, had laid two planks across two beams, and that was where she slept, under open skies and ten feet above the ground level. By winter all families would be in their new homes.
不过邻居们讲,遇难老人的鬼魂还是愤愤不平。火灾后,大儿子将老父的遗体塞进了一个旧米袋里。好几个人看到他扛着袋子进山,回来时却两手空空。他把父亲的棺材树砍倒根本不是用来打造棺材,而是为了当木材卖钱。怪不得老翁的魂魄一直在游荡:紧挨着他们家的邻居曾四次听到身后传来老人的脚步声,回头察看时却什么也没有;甚至住在鼓楼附近那位教侗歌的老师的妻子也说她好几次听到老翁的叫喊。不过并非所有老人都相信鬼神。那位支书遗孀说,毛主席在1957年就把鬼赶走了。她还给我看一串用旧铜钱串成的辟邪手镯。她说:“铜钱越多,就越能挡住不干净的鬼魂。”
The ghost of the old man, however, was not happy, according to the neighbors. After the fire, the Eldest Son stuffed his father’s torso into an old rice bag. Several people saw him carrying the sack into the mountains, and when he returned, he was empty-handed. The son never cut down his father’s coffin tree to have it made into a coffin. He chopped it down for lumber he could sell. No wonder the old man’s ghost was wandering: The closest neighbor heard his footsteps behind her four times, and when she spun around, nothing was there. Even the wife of the Singing Teacher, who lived near the Drum Tower, said she had heard the old man cry out several times. But not every old person believed there were ghosts. The Widow of the Party Secretary said Chairman Mao got rid of them in 1957. She then showed me a charm bracelet of old coins. “The more coins,” she said, “the more you can avoid unclean ghosts.”


陆
但五位风水先生和他们大师傅相信,一股邪恶势力正在寨子里肆虐。尽管酿成火灾的是老人和他的几个儿子,但必定还有其他因素的影响。例如,鼓楼旁的水管平时没事,为何偏偏那天夜里坏了呢?为什么一头猪掉下了悬崖,而一对鸡鸭也无缘无故就死了?为什么公鸡半夜三更就开始打鸣?生病的人数之多也很不寻常,老老少少都得病,还有一个婴儿夭折。在过去两年中,20岁到40岁之间的青壮年因事故死了10个。一个男人在台风中丧命,还有一个新郎官刚买了辆摩托车,到商店里买头盔,赶上头盔缺货,谁知第二天就从车上跌出去,一头撞上了路边的柱子。人们用手机将噩耗通知了新娘子。
But the five Feng Shui Masters and their chief believed the village was suffering from malevolent forces. While the old man and his sons were responsible for causing the fire, other factors must have had an influence. Of all nights, for example, why was the water pipe near the Drum Tower broken? Why did a pig fall off a cliff, and a chicken and duck die for no reason? Why were the roosters crowing before midnight? There had also been an unusual amount of illness, and it struck everyone, old and young. A baby died. And over the past two years, ten young people, between the ages of 20 and 40, had been killed. One man perished in a typhoon. Another was a newly married young man. He bought a motorcycle and went to a store to buy a helmet, but they were out of stock. The next day he flew headfirst into a post in the road. His bride received a mobile phone call, telling her the news.
这种接踵而至的异常巧合在1979年也发生过。那年许多人都害眼病,牲口纷纷死掉,人们注意到家里的鸡专爱往某一家院里跑。那家的鸡都生双黄蛋,庄稼收成也更好。到底他们做了什么,竟能在别人霉运当头的时候如此吉星高照?几位风水先生施法术了解到,那户人家偷偷将祖坟迁到了寨里风水最好的地方,霸占了全寨的福祉。风水先生们挪走了败坏规矩的坟堆后,这户人家死了11口人。
A similar string of unusual coincidences had occurred in 1979. Many came down with an eye disease. Livestock died. People noticed that their chickens wandered over to a certain household. That family’s chickens hatched double-yolked eggs. Their crops had better yields. What had they done to create so much luck, while others had more troubles? Through divination rituals, the Feng Shui Masters learned that the family had secretly buried their ancestors in areas of the village with the best feng shui and had thus cut the village off from this source. After the Feng Shui Masters removed the illegal burials, 11 members of the guilty family died.

春节期间,寨里自1979年之后首次再度行使“过阴”仪式,也就是让人“到阴间走一趟”。在会堂昏暗的灯光下,11位蒙着眼睛的男子端坐在黑色长凳上。风水师傅手捧阴阳书念着咒语,长凳下燃着香藤,助手们将草绳递给这些男子,让他们握着两头。又念了些咒语之后,两只铃铛响了起来,几碗酒开始搅动,这11人一面不停地颠着脚,一面拍打着自己的膝盖,仿佛在策马奔腾。不一会儿,他们进入了癫狂状态。他们中年龄最大的一个今年73岁,他像受惊的马一样嘶鸣,一下子跳起来,然后又跌坐在长凳上——他骑上了一匹马的鬼魂,朝阴间飞驰而去。助手们搀扶着这位老人,以免他跌倒,风水师傅喷出一口水,为他照亮道路。每多念一通咒语,鬼马骑手就朝阴间深入一层;每到一层,他们都会看到更多东西。
During Spring Festival, and for the first time since 1979, the village would be cleansed again by the same ceremony, Guo Yin—“Pass into the World of Yin.” In the dim light of an assembly hall, 11 blindfolded men sat on black benches. The Chief Feng Shui Master called out incantations from the Book of Shadows. As fragrant rattan burned under the benches, assistants gave the men a rope of twisted straw to hold at both ends. More incantations were murmured, two bells rang, bowls of wine were stirred, and the 11 men slapped their bouncing knees, as if goading a horse to move forward. Soon they were galloping in a frenzy, and the oldest of them, a 73-year-old man, whinnied like a spooked horse, shot up, and leaped backward onto the bench. He had mounted a ghost horse and was racing toward the World of Yin. Assistants kept the frenzied rider from falling. Soon more riders mounted their ghost horses. The Chief Feng Shui Master sprayed water from his mouth to light the way. With more incantations the ghost-horse riders could go to deeper levels. At each level they could see more.
1979年,骑手们达到了第19层,看到了死去的双亲。陪我们呆在这儿吧,骑手的父母劝道。如果风水师傅念错了咒语,骑手们就回不来了。这次风水师傅只会带他们下到第13层,但他们仍然有希望找出违规埋下的坟墓。在这一层,他们还能够看到侗族传说里美若天仙的七姐妹的背影。“快撵她们”, 风水师傅下令给骑手,让他们把七姐妹赶进更深的阴间。
In 1979 the riders had gone to the 19th level, where they saw their dead mothers and fathers. Stay with us, their parents urged. If a Feng Shui Master provided the wrong incantation, the riders would not return. This time, the master would take them no further than the 13th level. It was still possible for them to find the illegal burials. At that level they could also see the backs of maidens, the Seven Sisters, as beautiful as fairies. Chase them, the Chief Feng Shui Master said, to urge them to go farther into the underworld.
那天,骑手们发现了不合规矩的墓葬所在之处。仪式结束后,他们离开会堂,步行来到一道形如舒适沙发靠背的山坡。在“沙发”顶上是一小块稻田,而田埂里深埋着一个有厚壳包着的球状的东西。和火灾肇事者的大儿子情况不一样,这次是有人拿祖先的阴福置于全寨的幸福之上。这肯定是别的寨子里某个贪心人家干的。风水师傅打开罐子,取出骨灰,跟米酒、猪粪、人粪和桐油混合,然后将这堆东西扔进了公共茅厕。这些一度霸占了风水宝地的先人们如今万劫不复了。
That day the riders discovered where the illegal burial lay. After the ceremony they left the hall and walked to a slope that was shaped like the back of a comfortable sofa. At the top of the sofa was a small rice field, and buried several feet into its wall was a large ball with a thick crust. Unlike the Eldest Son of the fire starter, someone had placed the happiness of ancestors above that of the village. It must have been the doings of a greedy family from another village. The Chief Feng Shui Master broke the ball open, removed the ashes, and mixed them with rice wine, pig and human feces, and tung oil. The mess was thrown into the public latrine, and those ancestors who had once occupied the best place were now stuck forever in the worst.


阴阳两界又恢复了和谐。但真是这样吗?6月末,也就是过阴仪式举行四个月后,一场突如其来的暴雨半夜倾盆而下。在夏天,遭一点水淹不算稀奇。去年,一场暴雨接连下了两个小时,将步道变成了齐脚踝深的小溪,学校的院子变成了一汪池塘,孩子们兴高采烈地戏水为乐。然而这次的大雨下个没完。人们听到自家屋顶上的雨点噼噼啪啪响了一夜。寨里的总寨老住在一处平坦的谷地里,起初,他看到小河水位不断上涨也并不在意。清晨5点钟他还到山上去喂马,返回时,小河已经漫过了3米高的堤岸。他家里的人都不见了,电视机和其他值钱的东西却已被挪到了顶楼上。左邻右舍正忙着安置棺材和惊惶不安的猪群。总寨老站在距离自家最近的桥上目睹了一切。
Harmony between the world above and world below had been restored. Or had it? In late June, four months after the Guo Yin ceremony, sudden heavy rain began to pour late at night. A small amount of flooding was not unusual in summer. The previous year a two-hour storm had transformed footpaths into ankle-deep streams and the schoolyard into a pool, where children gleefully splashed.
在桥的另一端,水涌进了各家各户的底楼。一个惊慌失措的年轻妇女将婴儿系在背上,和婆家人七手八脚把能抬动的都抬到楼上。其他家当则顺水漂走了:水桶、凳子、腌鱼桶、装镰刀的竹鞘。她家邻居的前门被冲掉了,变成了一只随波逐流的筏子。这时窄窄的道路已变成了河流,黑水中涌动着污泥、石块、碎片和木桩。浪头在最短的那座桥两侧不断拍打,大水从木栏杆之间冲进去,淹没了长凳,整座桥看起来像是一艘小船,眼见就要挣脱系船的缆索。淹没的梯田使河面变宽了,成百上千条鲤鱼顺流而下,有的在田里搁了浅,而站在桥上的人竭力用渔网把跑掉的鱼捞回来。
On the other side of the bridge, water rushed into the ground level of homes. A frightened young woman strapped her baby to her back, and she and her in-laws took what they could to the upper level. Other belongings floated away: buckets and stools, the pails for anyu and bamboo holsters for scythes. Her neighbor’s front door ripped off and became a raft. The narrow road was now part of the river, a dark channel of mud, rocks, debris, and logs. Waves slapped the sides of the shortest bridge, and water gushed through the rail slats and covered the benches. It looked like a boat about to break from its moorings. Submerged fields broadened the river, and hundreds of carp rushed downstream. Some landed in fields. People stood on bridges trying to net the rest.
上午9点,暴雨渐歇。上午11点,大水开始退去。总寨老的妻子找到了丈夫,质问道:“你刚才上哪儿去了?”据族长说,这是近百年来最大的一场洪水,冲毁了田地,损坏了房屋,冲断了道路,幸好无人丧生。
At 9 a.m. the rain subsided. At 11 a.m. the water began to recede. The wife of the Chief Village Elder caught up with him. “Where were you?” she demanded to know. According to the chief it was the worst flood in 80 to 100 years. Fields were lost, homes were damaged, roads were washed out, but luckily no one was killed.
诅咒没有解除吗?还有别的不合规矩的墓葬没发现吗?风水师傅却镇定自若。贵州和湖南两省全都受到了这次洪灾影响。他说,这是自然灾害,不是鬼神作祟。元凶只是坏天气而已,他们对付得了,不过就是要收拾一下这个烂摊子罢了。
Was the curse still active? Were there more illegal burials to be found? The Chief Feng Shui Master was not perturbed. All of Guizhou and Hunan Provinces had been affected. This was a natural disaster, he said, not a supernatural one. It was simply bad weather, and they could handle that. They just had to clean up the mess.

文 | 谭恩美(Amy Tan)
图 | Lynn Johnson
来源 | 美国《国家地理》2008年5月刊