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Hot on the heels of my article on the Houshan Daoists, we need a rather more detailed account of the “precious scrolls” (baojuan 寶卷) [1] performed by amateur ritual groups on the Hebei plain.

The four ritual associations of South and North Gaoluo all have early copies of precious scrolls on several themes, but what they, and I, consider their most exquisite volume, the Houtu scroll, was copied only in 1943 (see my Plucking the winds).

While the Ten Kings scroll was commonly recited for funerals until the 1964 Four Cleanups campaign, the Houtu scroll was performed for calendrical rituals—notably the New Year and Houtu’s own festival around 3rd moon 15th, either on Houshan or in the home village (playlist, track 6, and commentary).

The whole point of these precious scrolls is that they are performed for rituals—they’re not musty tomes to be read silently in libraries. And their performance practice—in the hands of peasant ritual specialists—transpires to be rather complex. As I always say, one can hardly study ritual without focusing on how it sounds.

This article is based on my In search of the folk Daoists of north China, Appendix 3, which contains further refs.