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Abstract
This paper concerns publications of long narratives, both oral and written, associated with ethnic minority groups across China. What is the situation and value of these many published versions that have been gathered and “processed” since just after 1949 down to today? Opinions vary among both Western and Chinese scholars about the legitimacy of many of the texts, perhaps due to the various “filters” applied in the process of collecting, transcribing, editing (sometimes to the extent of “enhancing”), translation, and publication. Moreover, a number of these texts have been constructed out of several versions of the same narrative to produce what I have called enriched “master texts”—in ways comparable to the treatment of oral and oral-connected material in the creation of the Finnish Kalevala. I will discuss these publications in terms of “co-creation” and translation, “processing,” format, native-Chinese translation teams, and the concept of these epics as “monuments” to traditional cultures that have altered swiftly under the forces of modernization and globalization.
Acknowledgments
Thanks to Liang Yanjun and Ma Jingjing 馬晶晶 and several anonymous readers for their input into this paper.
Notes on Contributor
Mark Bender is professor in Chinese and Chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at Ohio State University. His books include Plum and Bamboo: China's Suzhou Chantefable Tradition (University of Illinois Press), Butterfly Mother: Miao (Hmong) Creation Epics from Guizhou Province, China (Hackett Publishing), and The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, edited with Victor Mair. His most recent books are The Borderlands of Asia: Culture, Place, Poetry, which features poems by 49 poets in North East India, Myanmar, Southwest China, Inner Mongolia, and Mongolia (Cambria Press), and The Nuosu Book of Origins: A Creation Epic from Southwest China (University of Washington Press), with Aku Wuwu and Jjivot Zopqu.
Notes
1 Yunnan sheng minzu minjian wenxue Chuxiong diaocha dui 雲南省民族民間文學楚雄調查隊 (Yunnan Province Chuxiong Ethnic Folk Literature Team), Saibomo: Yunnan Yizu minjian xushi changshi 賽玻嫫: 彝族敘事詩 (Saibimo: Folk Narrative Poem of the Yi Nationality; Kunming: Yunnan renmin, 1980).
2 The People’s Republic of China currently recognizes 56 minzu 民族 (formerly “ethnic groups” or “nationalities”) consisting of the Han (Hanzu 漢族) majority and 55 minority groups. (The term “minzu” is now often not translated in official contexts, such as the names of universities, the native term being preferred.) These categories were established through a process of ethnic identification launched in the 1950s. The groups were identified by teams of government researchers by linguistic, cultural and historical affiliations, though disagreement exists over the composition of some of these groupings. Thomas Mullaney, Coming to Terms with the Nation: Ethnic Classification in Modern China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010), pp. 18–21. Some of the larger groups, such as the Yizu 彝族 and Miaozu 苗族, are formed of dozens of sub-groups, often with their own ethnonyms. Stevan Harrell, Ways of Being Ethnic in Southwest China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002), pp. 16–32. For information and timelines for the introduction of formats for representing ethnic minority languages in romanization and other written forms, see Zhou Minglang, Multilingualism in China: The Politics of Writing Reforms for Minority Languages 1949–2000 (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003).
3 Yunnan sheng, Saibomo, pp. 74–76; see also Yunnan sheng minzu minjian wenxue Chuxiong diaocha dui 雲南省民族民間文學楚雄調查隊(Yunnan Province Chuxiong Ethnic Folk Literature Team), Meige: Yizu minjian shishi 梅葛: 彝族民間詩史 (Meige: Folk Epic of the Yi Nationality; Kunming: Yunnan renmin, 1978), pp. 234–35 (in the Afterword).
4 See Wu Zhongyang 吳重陽 and Tao Lifan 陶立璠, eds., Zhongguo shaoshu minzu minjian wenxue zuopin xuanjiang 中國少數民族民間文學作品選講 (Selected Lectures on Chinese Ethnic Minority Folk Literature; Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1984); Yang Lihui, An Deming, and Jessica Turner, The Handbook of Chinese Mythology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); Wang Hongyin 王宏印, Zhonghua minzu dianji fanyi yanjiu gailun 中華民族典籍翻譯研究概論 (An overview of the translation of Chinese ethnic classics) in Chaoxiang renlei xue fanyi shi xue de nuli (shang juan) 朝向人類學翻譯詩學的努力(上卷) (Towards the Translation of Anthropological Poetics), vol. 2 (Dalian: Dalian Haishi daxue chubanshe, 2016), pp. 627–49; Timothy Thurston, “The Tibetan Gesar Epic Beyond Its Bards: An Ecosystem of Genres on the Roof of the World,” Journal of American Folklore 132 (524): 115–36; Anne E. McLaren. “Recreating ‘Traditional’ Folk Epics in Contemporary China: The Politics of Textual Transmission,” Asian Ethnology 76.1 (2017): 18–41.
5 For a source from the early 1980’s, when many narrative poems and epics collected among minority groups in the 1950’s were being re-published, see Zhu Yichu 朱宜初 and Li Zixian 李子賢, Shaoshu minzu minjian wenxue gailun 少數民族民間文學概論 (Introduction to Ethnic Minority Folk Literature; Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1983), pp. 146–89.
6 See p. 27 of Lauri Honko, “Epic and Identity: National, Regional, Communal, Individual,” Oral Tradition 11.1 (1996): 18–36.
7 See Victor Mair and Mark Bender, ed. The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), pp. 213–78 for sample translations from both oral and oral-connected long narrative poems/epics from several ethnic groups. See David Holm and Meng Yuanyao, Hanvueng: The Goose King and the Ancestral King: An Epic from Guangxi in Southern China (Leiden: Brill, 2015) and Mark Bender, Aku Wuwu, and Jjivot Zopqu, The Nuosu Book of Origins: A Creation Epic from Southwest China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019) for descriptions of performance contexts and ritualist/folk singers of long narrative poems/epics from Zhuang and Yi, respectively.
8 Yu Kaiqing 于開慶, et al., Minjian wenxue shouce 民間文學手冊 (Handbook of Folk Literature; Liaoning: Liaoning daxue Zhongwenxi, 1982), pp. 343–47; Victor Mair, Lowell Skar, Laura Hostetler, and Neil Schmid, “Three Contemporary Approaches to ‘Oral Literature’: Implications for the Study of Chinese Folklore,” Chinese Studies 1.8 (1990): 1–36.
9 Mark Bender, “Butterflies and Dragon-Eagles: Processing Epics from Southwest China,” Oral Tradition 27 (2012): 231–46; pp. 232–33.
10 Zhong Jingwen 鐘敬文, Minjian wenxue gailun 民間文學概論 (Introduction to Folk Literature; Shanghai: Shanghai wenyi chubanshe, 1980); Duan Baolin 段寶林, ed., Zhongguo minjian wenyi xue 中國民間文藝學 (Study of Chinese Folk Arts; Beijing: Wenhua yishu chubanshe, 2006), pp. 389–403; Feng Wenkai 馮文開, Xinshiqi Zhongguo shaoshuminzu shishi yanjiu shilun 新時期中國少數民族史詩研究史論 (Studies on the History of Chinese Ethnic Minority Epics in the New Period: 1978–2012; Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue yuan chubanshe, 2017), pp. 59–61.
11 See the discussion of the construction of “tradition-oriented” epic texts and related editorial practices in Mark Bender and Victor Mair, “‘I sit here and sing for you’: The Oral Literature of China,” in The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, ed. Victor Mair and Mark Bender (New York: Columbia University Press), pp. 7–10; Bender “Dragon Eagles,” pp. 235–38; and Bender, Aku, and Jjivot, Nuosu Book of Origins, pp. LIII–LIV for discussions of master texts in regards to southwestern epic traditions.
12 For essays on many of the long narrative poems/epics listed, see Renqindao’erji 仁钦道尔吉and Lang Ying 郎樱, Zhongguo shishi 中国史诗 (Chinese epics; Nanjing: Jiangsu fenghuang wenyi chubanshe, 2016). For an overview of publications, collecting and editing philosophy, and research on epics in the PRC, see Feng Wenkai, Xinshiqi Zhongguo shaoshuminzu shishi yanjiu shilun, pp. 58–75. For synopses of over ninety published long narrative poems/epics, see Wu Zhongyang and Tao Lifan, Zhongguo shaoshu minzu minjian wenxue zuopin xuanjiang. For essays on the Umesiben Mama epic, see Guo Shuyun 郭淑雲, Wubuxiben mama yanjiu 烏布西奔媽媽研究 (Study on Umesiben Mama; Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2013). For information on Miao/Hmong epics, see Mark Bender, Butterfly Mother: Miao (Hmong) Creation Epics from Guizhou, China (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 2006); Wu Yiwen 吳一文 and Jin Dan 今旦, eds., Hmong Oral Epics/Miaozu shishi 苗族史詩 /Hkak Hmub, Mark Bender, Wu Yifang 吳一方, and Levi Gibbs, trans. (Guiyang: Guizhou Nationalities Press, 2012); and Mark Bender, “King of Yalu in Mashan Guizhou: An ‘Epic’ in Contemporary Contexts,” Chinoperl Papers 33.1 (2014): 83–93. For a Lahu creation epic in English translation, see Anthony Walker, Mvu Hpa Mi Hpa: Creating Heaven, Creating Earth: An Epic of the Lahu People in Yunnan (Bangkok: Silkworm Books, 1998); for a study and translation of a Zhuang epic, see Holm and Meng, Hanvueng. Sources for long narrative poems discussed at length in this article are provided below. Though often hard to locate in bookstores in China, many originals and reprints can be bought on Chinese book selling sites, in publishing houses and museum bookstores (in border areas), and occasionally on websites based outside China. Some texts can be located in WorldCat.
13 One of the best examples of a site that combines themes directly influenced by a local long narrative of the Sani (Yi sub-group) is the Stone Forest in Shilin, Yunnan. The theme of the Ashima story (subject of a ground-breaking 1964 eponymous film) has been integrated into festivals, pageants, song and dance demonstrations, public art, handicrafts and costume rental, museum displays, and the topography of the eco-park (one stone is a likeness of Ashima). Mark Bender, “Ashima and Gamo Anyo,” p. 213. A short-lived dance drama based on the tragic run-away bride Gamo Anyo Yi narrative poem tradition was staged in Beijing in 2007, based on a short fieldwork investigation conducted by a group of Beijing intellectuals from dance and drama units who visited Ebian county, Sichuan, in 2005. Bender, “Ashima and Gamo Anyo,” p. 215. Several statues of the Yi epic hero Zhyge Alu have been erected in Xichang and other towns in the Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan, and content from the Yunnan Yi epics Chamu and Meige are displayed on columns in the Ten Month Solar Calendar Park in Chuxiong, Yunnan. Comparable examples exist in many other ethnic areas in China, such as the festivals and tourist sites associated with the Buluotuo and Miluotuo epics in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. As for the stimulation of transmission of the narrative poem traditions, passages of Mongol epics, Hezhen yimakan, and Yi narrative poems are being taught to school children in some areas as attempts at preservation. According to the UNESCO ICH website (https://ich.unesco.org/en/state/china-CN) the China list of items of Intangible Cultural Heritage include Hezhen yimakan storytelling, Grand Song of the Dong ethnic (Guizhou), the epics Gesar, Manas, Mongol “long song” (urtiin duu), Uighur muqam performance, etc. Many more items related to long poems and epics appear in native Chinese lists. Themes, styles, and inspiration from the long poems and epics have impacted many contemporary ethnic minority poets such as Wa poet Burao Yilu 布饒依露 and Yi poets Aku Wuwu 阿庫烏霧 and Lu Juan 魯娟, etc. Mark Bender, “The Cry of the Silver Pheasant: Contemporary Ethnic Minority Poetry in Sichuan and Yunnan,” Chinese Literature Today 2.2 (2012): 68–74.
14 Bamo Qubumo 巴莫曲布嫫, “Zhongguo shishi yanjiude xuekehua jiqi shijian lujing” 中國史詩研究的學科化及其實踐路徑 (Toward Disciplinization of Epic Studies in China: A Revisit to Practice Approaches), Xibei minzu yanjiu 西北民族研究(Northwestern Journal of Ethnology) 4 (2017): 5–9.
15 Jonathan L. Ready, “The Textualization of Homeric Epic by Means of Dictation,” TAPA 145 (2015): 1–75.
16 Some researchers in universities and cultural bureaus that collected oral literature had access to electronic recording devices by the late 1970s, but the technology did not become popular until the early 1980s, and units in more remote areas were still relying on hand written transcription of their informant’s songs or stories well into that decade. (In areas of Yunnan I visited in 1985, local researchers noted a lack of funds for equipment.) As the opening and economic reforms took hold, the situation changed radically and today a range of audio-visual digital recording devices are utilized in connection with computer technology. The Institute of Ethnic Literature, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has set up at least six research field centers equipped with computers and digital recording devices at epic-rich sites around China. Qubumo Bamo, Gejin Chao, John Niles, “Documenting Living Oral Traditions: China’s Institute of Ethnic Literature as Case Study,” Journal of American Folklore 129.513 (2016): 270–87.
17 Ready, “The Textualization of Homeric Epic,” pp. 43–45; Anne E. McLaren. “Folk Epics from the Lower Yangzi Delta Region: Oral and Written Traditions,” in The Interplay of the Oral and the Written in Chinese Popular Literature, ed. Vibeke Børdahl and Margaret B. Wan (Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, 2010); McLaren, “Recreating ‘Traditional’ Folk Epics”; Vibeke Børdahl, The Oral Tradition of Yangzhou Storytelling, Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Monograph Series, No. 73 (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1996).
18 Ready, “The Textualization of Homeric Epic,” p. 8.
19 Elizabeth C. Fine, The Folklore Text: From Performance to Print (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).
20 Lauri Honko, Textualising the Siri Epic (Helsinki: SuomalainenTiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1998), pp. 154–55.
21 John Miles Foley, How to Read an Oral Poem (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2002), p. 61.
22 Ready, “The Textualization of Homeric Epic,” p. 63.
23 Lauri Honko, The Textualization of Oral Epics (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2000), pp. 28–235.
24 Bender, “King of Yalu.”
25 Ma Xueliang 馬學良 and Jin Dan 今旦, Hxat Hmub/Miaozu shishi 苗族史詩 (Miao Nationality Ancient Songs; Beijing: Zhongguo minjian wenxue chubanshe, 1982), pp. 9–10.
26 Yunnan sheng minzu minjian wenxue Chuxiong diaocha dui 云南省民族民间文学楚雄调查队 (Yunnan Province Chuxiong Ethnic Folk Literature Team), Axi de xianji: Axi minjian shishi (Song of the Axi: Folk epic of the Axi; Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 1978), pp. 222–25.
27 Shi Lianshun 史連順, Axipo xianji: Yizu Axi ren chuangshi shishi 阿西頗先基：彜族阿西人創世史詩 (Song of the Axipo: Creation epic of the Axi people; Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2003).
28 Ibid., pp. 738–39.
29 Mark Bender, Aku Wuwu, and Jjivot Zopqu, The Nuosu Book of Origins: A Creation Epic from Southwest China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2019).
30 One outstanding figure in this process was Ma Xueliang 馬學良. He was a strong force in the creation of the study of Chinese ethnic minority literature and language studies, beginning in the late 1930s, particularly on ethnic groups in southwest China. He utilized the IPA notation system as early as the 1940s and was influential in creating romanization systems for some of the minority languages in the southwest, especially in his studies of Yi and Miao rituals and folk narrative. Ma Xueliang 馬學良, Yunnan Yizu lisu yanjiu wenji 雲南彜族禮俗文集 (Collected papers on rituals of the Yunnan Yi nationality; Chengdu: Sichuan minzu chubanshe, 1983), p. 208. For studies on ethnic minority languages and folk literature texts that employ IPA and romanization systems, see Yunnan minzu xueyuan minzu yuyan wenxuexi 雲南民族學院民族語言文學系 (Yunnan Nationalities College Department of Ethnic Minority Languages and Literatures), Yunnan minzu yuyan wenxue lunwenji 雲南民族語言文學論文集 (Papers on Yunnan ethnic language and literature; Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe, 1997).
31 Zhang Shengzhen 張聲震, et al., eds., Miluotuo guge: Zhongguo Yaozu Bunu zhixi 密洛陀古歌：中國瑤族布努支系 (Miluotuo ancient songs: Chinese Yao ethnic group, Bunu branch), 3 vols. (Nanning: Guangxi minzu chubanshe, 2002), pp. 1–2.
32 Mark Bender, “Ashima and Gamo Anyo: Aspects of Two ‘Yi’ Narrative Poems,” Chinoperl Papers 27 (2007): 211–12.
33 Huang Jianming 黄建明, Pu Weihua 浦衛華, Zeng Guopin 曾國平, and Shikushi Ronfu 西協隆福, Ashima: Yi, Han, Ying, Ri, duizhao 阿詩瑪: 彝, 漢, 英,日對照 (Ashima: Yi, Han, English, Japanese comparison volume; Beijing: Beijing Zhongguo wenxue chubanshe, 1999).
34 Chao Gejin, Kouchuan shishi shixue: Ranpilei Jiang ge’er chengshi jufa yanjiu 口傳史詩詩學：冉皮勒〈江格爾〉程式句法研究 (Oral poetics: Formulaic diction in Arimpil’s Jangar singing; Nanning: Guangxi renmin chubanshe, 2000).
35 Bender, “Butterflies and Dragon-Eagles,” p. 235; Ready, “The Textualization of Homeric Epic,” pp. 43–46.
36 Guo Sijiu 郭思九 and Tao Xueliang 陶學良, Chamu 查姆, Xu Wei 徐蔚 and Xiong Ying 熊鶯, trans. (Kunming: Yunnan chuban jituan/Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2019).
37 Lauri Honko, ed., The Kalevala and the World’s Traditional Epics, Studia Fennica Folkloristica 12 (Helsinki: Suomalainen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2002); Keith Bosley, The Kalevala: An Epic Poem after Oral Tradition (Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 2009).
38 Matthew Gelbart, The Invention of “Folk Music” and “Art Music”: Emerging Categories from Ossian to Wagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 60–66; John Miles Foley, “Macpherson’s Ossian: Trying to Hit a Moving Target,” Journal of American Folklore 115.455 (2002): 99–106.
39 Honko, Textualizing the Siri Epic, pp. 37–43.
40 Mark Bender, “Zenyang kan Meige: Yong ‘chuantong quxiang’ de guannian taolun Yunnan Chuxiong Yizu wenben” 怎樣看⟪梅葛⟫：用“傳統取向”的觀念討論雲南楚雄彝族文本, translated by Fu Wei 付衛, in Yizu gu wenxian yu chuantong yiyao kaifa guoji xueshu yantaohui zhujihui, ed., Yizu gu wenxian yu chuantong yiyao kaifa guoji xueshu yantaohui lunwenji 彝族古文獻與傳統醫藥開發國際學術研討會論文集 (Proceedings of the International Conference on Yi Traditional Literature and Medicine; Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe, 2002), pp. 481–82.
41 Mair and Bender, The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, pp. 244–75.
42 Wilt Idema, Chinese Vernacular Fiction: The Formative Period (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974), pp. xvii–xxi; Susan Blader,“Yan Chasan Thrice Tested: Printed Novel to Oral Tale,” Chinoperl Papers 12 (1983): 84–85.
43 David Der-wei Wang gave an enlightening talk on this phrase in relation to contemporary Chinese fiction in February 2019 at The Ohio State University.
44 Han Jiaquan 韓家權 et al., Buluotuo shishi (Zhuang Han Ying duizhao) 布羅陀史詩(壯漢英對照) (The Epic of Baeuqloxgdoh: Zhuang/Han bilingual text; Nanning: Guangxi renmin chubanshe, 2012).
45 Wang Weibo 王維波 et al., Zhongguo Hezhezu shishi Yimakan（Yingwen ban）中國赫哲族史詩伊瑪堪(英文版) (The Yimakan Epics of Hezhe Ethnic Minority in China [English version]; Liaoning: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 2013), pp. 5–7.
46 Liang Yanjun 梁艷君and Ma Huifang 馬慧芳, “Minzu xue xueshu zhuzuo waiyi moshi: Jiyu Zhongguo beifang minzu samanjiao yanjiu yingyi shijian” 民族學學術著作外譯模式：基於中國北方民族薩滿教研究英譯實踐 (The Model of Translating Academic Works of Ethnology – Based on the English Translation Practice of “Study on Shamanism of Chinese Northern Minorities”), Xinan minzu daxue xuebao 西南民族大學學報 (Journal of Southwest University for Nationalities [Humanities and Social Sciences]) 2 (2015): 31.
47 Gao Xia 高霞, Yang Neng 楊能, Wang Qiong王瓊, trans., Meige 梅葛 (Prefaced and proofread by Mark Bender; Kunming: Yunnan chuban jituan/Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2019).
48 One of the versions of the 1959 Meige text published in Chinese is a bi-lingual Yi and Chinese version published in 2015. Chuxiong Yizu zizhizhou wenxue yishushi lian hehui 楚雄彝族自治州文學藝術世聯合會 and Chuxiong Yizu zizhizhou minzu shiwu jiyuanhui 楚雄彝族自治州民族事务委员会, Meige 梅葛 (Kunming: Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2015). Yi script used in traditional texts from the Chuxiong area was paired with the Chinese – though the text was not originally written down in Yi in the Mayou area, supposedly because the local duoxi ritualists were illiterate in Yi script. Nowhere in the volume does it reveal the origin of the Yi version. The script used is quite different from the Standard Northern Yi script used in publications in Nuosu-speaking areas of Sichuan and bordering areas in northwest Yunnan. A five volume series, also featuring Chinese translation and local Yi script, of Meige content was published in 2017. The texts are based on live, unedited recordings of contemporary singers that constitute a “new version” of Meige, which retains the antiphonal style throughout, includes the lengthy repetitions and other material of the sort either lost in translation or edited out of the 1959 “old version,” and the language of the translation was not prettified. Guo Xiaowei 郭曉煒, ed., Zhongguo Yizu Meige shishi shi congshu: Meige quji 中國彜族梅葛史詩叢書：梅葛曲集 (China’s Yi Ethnic Group Meige Epic Series; Beijing: Zhongguo zhijian chubanshe, Zhongguo biaozhun chubanshe, 2017).
49 For versions of the Ashima story, see Zhao Deguang 趙德光, ed., Ashima yuanshi ziliao huibian 阿詩瑪原始資料彙編 (A collection of Ashima primary data; Kunming: Yunnan minzu chubanshe, 2003).
50 Yunnan sheng minzu minjian wenxue Chuxiong diaocha dui 云南省民族民间文学楚雄调查队 (Yunnan Province Chuxiong Ethnic Folk Literature Team), Meige 梅葛, translated by Chen Ping 陈评 and Liu Yi 刘 怡 and revised by Joan Cecilia Boulerice (Kunming: Yunnan chuban jituan/Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2019); Guo Sijiu 郭思九 and Tao Xueliang 陶學良, Chamu 查姆, Xu Wei 徐蔚 and Xiong Ying 熊鶯, trans. (Kunming: Yunnan chuban jituan/Yunnan renmin chubanshe, 2019).
51 John N. Low, Imprints: The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians and the City of Chicago (East Lansing: Michigan State University, 2016), p. 165.
52 Wu Yiwen and Jin Dan, Hmong Oral Epics, p. 693.
53 Ibid., pp. 699–701.
54 Ibid., p. 699.
55 Ibid., pp. 699–700.
56 Ibid., p. 700.
57 Ma Xueliang and Jin Dan, Hxak Hmub/Miaozu shishi; Bender, Butterfly Mother.
58 The Intangible Cultural Heritage initiative movement began in the early 2000s as a part of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee endeavors. Among the categories are festivals, rituals, oral literature, dance, and certain objects of material culture such as costumes and dwellings. The program caught on quickly in the PRC and was promoted at national and local levels. Despite the lengthy and complicated approval process, items from China are well-represented on the international list of items. For a thorough discussion of the ICH and related initiatives in the PRC, see Lijun Zhang, “Institutional Practice of Heritage-Making: The Transformation of Tulou from Residences to UNESCO World Heritage Site,” in Chinese Folklore Studies Today, eds. Lijun Zhang and Ziying You (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2019), pp. 146–76.
59 You Ziying, “Shifting Actors and Power Relations: Contentious Local Responses to the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Contemporary China,” Journal of Folklore Research 52.2–3 (2015): 259–60; You Ziying, Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage in Contemporary China: Incense is Kept Burning (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2020).
60 You Ziying describes the negotiations with insightful detail, within a nuanced discussion of Chinese and international discourses of heritage and tradition, in Folk Literati, Contested Tradition, and Heritage.
61 Personal communication October 7, 2019.
62 Bamo et al., “Documenting Living Oral Traditions.”
63 For instance, Kim Sun-ja and Na Sang-jin of Yonsei University have recently published versions of several epics of the Yi (Chamu and Meige) and Naxi (Creation Account) minority groups from Southwest China in Korean. Sun-ja Kim, Nasijok Changsesinhwa-mu Domba Munhwa 나시족창세신화와 돔바문화 (Naxi Nationality’s Creation Myth [Korean translation of the Naxi creation epic titled Chuangshiji 创世纪 in Chinese]; Seoul: Minsokwon, 2019); Sang-jin Na, 나상진, Ijok Changsesinhwa-wa Manmului Giwon이족 창세신화와 만물의 기원 (Yi Nationality Creation Myth and the Origin of All Things [Korean translation of Yi epic Chamu]; Seoul: Minsokwon, 2019); Sang-jin Na, Oraedwen Iyagi오래된 이야기 (Old Stories [Korean translation of Yi epic Meige]; Seoul: Minsokwon, 2014).