The Bamboo Pole Dance--- A Sports Game

The bamboo pole dance is a traditional sports which Li people love. Whenever they greet the important holidays or the new grains are taken to the threshing ground, people would do the bamboo pole dance, which often goes through all night long.

At first, the bamboo pole dance, called "Ka Ge" in the Li dialect, was played by the men as the women hold the bamboo poles to beat the metres. Later, it developed: the men and women can jump together, and there are more women players in the performance, because the girls' gait is light and nimble, and their tight gorgerous skirts make them look more graceful. When doing the bamboo pole dance, firstly place two 5-meter-long bamboo poles parallell to each other on the ground, between which there is a distance of 3.5 meters. On the two bamboo poles, place another eight four-meter-long thin bamboo poles horizontally. Eight persons are divided into two groups to hold the eight bamboo poles on either side, each person grasping two thin bamboo poles in their both hands. Observing the rhythm of the accompanying music, people hit the two bamboo poles in their hands. The dancers jump between the eight bamboo poles, frequently making all kinds of movements. Meanwhile, the bamboo poles holders sometimes squat, sometimes sit, sometimes kneel, sometimes stand, enabling the bamboo poles to change their height. Whoever responds slowly will have his or her ankles, legs, or waists gripped. In people's loud laughs, the gripped persons will be lifted by the bamboo poles off the stage. The one who can persist to end will sit on the bamboo poles and be lifted highly, receiving the cheers and congratulations.

In the the sports of the Li nationality, besides the bamboo pole dance, there are also other popular games, such as shooting the cow legs, crossing the cane circle, "beating a dog and return to the slope." Nearly all of them are related with the hunting activities. Shooting the cow legs means to shoot with the arrows the cow legs hanging on the big tall trees, and the one who firstly hits the target get the cow leg as his prize.


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