KING OF YALU IN MASHAN, GUIZHOU: AN “EPIC” IN CONTEMPORARY CONTEXTS

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Notes

1 Mashan 麻山 is the primary area where the King of Yalu epic circulates, though the story of the King of Yalu (and similar figures) has been documented in other Miao areas in western Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan (see Tang Na 唐娜, “Guizhou Mashan Miaozu yingxiong shishi ‘Yalu wang’ kaocha baogao” 貴州麻山苗族英雄史詩亞魯王考察報告 [Report on an investigation of the heroic epic “King of Yalu” of the Miao of Mashan, Guizhou], Minjian wenhua luntan 民間文化論壇 [Folk culture forum] 2010·2: 89–90). Although many epic traditions have been documented from ethnic groups in south and southwest China since the 1950s (some even earlier), only in recent years has the King of Yalu epic received scholarly attention. This may be in part due to the formerly remote nature of the area, as well as the fact that the ”epic” tradition is a part of funeral rites that differ markedly from contexts of heroic epic performance among well-known groups such as the Tibetans and Mongols. The Miao in Mashan are among the dozens of local subgroups (which vary quite widely in dialect and custom) of the 8 million members of the “Miaozu” 苗族 ethnic group in China. Outside of China the term “Hmong” is often the preferred ethnonym. However, in the translation of another Miao epic recently published in China, the term “Hmong” was chosen by the editors as the English translation of the term “Miao” (see Wu Yiwen 吳一文 and Jin Dan 今旦, eds., Hxak Hlieb/Miaozu shishi 苗族史詩/Hmong Oral Epics, Mark Bender, Wu Yifang 吳一芳, and Levi Gibbs, trs. [Guiyang: Guizhou Nationalities Press, 2012], p. 27).

2 The website for the summit, accessed February 21, 2014, is: http://worldepic.org/meeting.php?mid = 1.

3 Asian Ethnology 72 (2013): 147–51. The volume, entitled Yalu Wang/Xiud Yaz Lus Qim: Shishi bufen 亞魯王: 史詩部分 (King of Yalu: Epic portion; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2011), consists of a transcription in a Romanization system specifically designed for the local Miao language of the poem as sung by donglang, accompanied by a word by word translation into Chinese, and extensive supporting matter. For a reproduction and discussion of one representative passage, see p. 149 of the review. This is the first volume of a projected five volume set. It was published together with a volume of documentary photographs. The same year also saw the publication of Yalu wang wenlun ji: Koushu shi, tianye baogao, lunwen 亞魯王文論集: 口述史, 田野報告, 論文 (Collected writings on Yalu wang: Oral history, field reports, essays; Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi, 2011).

4 See “Miaozu yingxiong shishi ‘Yalu wang’” 苗族英雄史詩亞魯王 (The heroic epic of the Miao “Yalu wang”), Gu Xinwei 顧新蔚, tr., Minjian wenhua luntan 2013·4: 18–20.

5 See, for instance, Regina Bendix, In Search of Authenticity (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997).

6 Eric Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Invented Traditions,” in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 1–14.

7 See Louisa Schein, Minority Rules: The Miao and the Feminine in China’s Cultural Politics (Durham: Duke University Press, 2000), for examples of ethnic tourism among the Miao in southeast Guizhou province.

8 It is a long standing tradition—and sometimes even policy—for folklorists in East Asia and elsewhere to schedule tradition-bearers to record stories or songs in offices or hotel rooms rather than on-site in typical performance contexts. To name but a few examples, the village venues in Tono, Japan, in which Yanagita Kunio 柳田國男 (1875–1962) collected folk materials from local informants, have been preserved. See Yanagita Kunio, The Legends of Tono, Ronald A. Morse, tr. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2008), “Introduction” (especially pp. xxii–xxiii). Epic scholar Lauri Honko recorded Gopal Naika’s version of the Siri Epic under simulated conditions in the 1990s, finding that the typical performance context of the epic was so multi-dimensional that it was difficult to simultaneously record and integrate threads of the story. See his Textualising the Siri Epic (Helsinki : Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1998).

9 See Sara Davis, Songs and Silence: Ethnic Revival on China's Southwest Borders (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005).

10 See Beth Notar, Displacing Desire: Travel and Popular Culture in China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008).

11 See Levi Gibbs, “Song King: Tradition, Social Change, and the Contemporary Art of a Northern Shaanxi Folksinger,” Ph.D. diss., The Ohio State University, 2013.

12 In 1975, Bell Yung rented out a teahouse for several weeks in Hong Kong and paid one of the last singers of long narrative Cantonese ballads in Hong Kong to perform to live audiences in an attempt to recover what had already become a “lost” performance context. See Bell Yung, “Reconstructing a Lost Performance Context: A Field Work Experience,” CHINOPERL Papers 6 (1976): 120–43. A fair amount of the material that was recorded at that time is available on CD. A review of them by Chuen-Fung Wong was published in CHINOPERL Papers 31 (2012): 251–56.

13 At the 2012 conference on epic studies in Beijing, Wu Xiaodong 吳曉東 presented a paper entitled “On Typical and Atypical Features of Epic Traditions in South China: An Argument on Genre.”

14 Ziyun county presently promotes a number of tourist ventures that stress local ethnic culture, the natural karst mountain scenery, and rock climbing on the challenging slopes of the karst mountains.

15 The web address of the Institute is: http://iel.cass.cn/english/Info.asp?channelid = 383.

16 Yang has worked very closely with the donglang for several years and has a very wide and deep experience of their traditions, which has included extensive participation in epic performances and related rituals. In this particular instance it was difficult to separate out Yang the researcher from Yang the patient/participant.

17 As noted below, the next day our group visited a small, strategically located fortress on some high mountain ledges that dated to the period of struggle between Qing troops and local Miao natives.

18 Other photos from the two days described in this report are available as “supplementary material” at www.maneyonline.com/doi/suppl/10.1179/0193777414Z.00000000018.

19 Wu Yifang was part of the translation team for another major epic tradition (with much different content) that circulates among Miao subgroups in southeast Guizhou. See Wu Yiwen and Jin Dan eds., Hxak Hlieb/Miaozu shishi 苗族史詩/Hmong Oral Epics, and Jin Dan 今旦 and Ma Xueliang 馬學良, eds., Butterfly Mother: Miao (Hmong) Creation Epics from Guizhou, China, Mark Bender, tr. (Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing, 2006).

20 Tang Na, “Guizhou Mashan Miaozu yingxiong shishi ‘Yalu wang’ kaocha baogao,” p. 94, also describes the horse sacrifice and many other details of a funeral event.

21 See Barre Toelken, The Dynamics of Folklore (Logan: Utah State University Press, 1996), pp. 39–40.