China Yao literature consists of traditional folk literature and writers' literature produced in modern times. A Brief Introduction to Yao Clan Orchid contains extremely rich folk literature works.
Chinese name
Yao literature
"Maitreya" is an ancient mythical song that spreads in the Yao inhabited areas in Du 'an, Bama and other places in Guangxi. It describes the heroic achievements of Maitreya goddess in creating the world and mankind. Fuxi brothers and sisters are a myth of a flood survivor, which reflects the situation that Fuxi brothers and sisters intermarry and rebuild human beings when human beings are almost extinct in the catastrophic flood. The totem myth of Pan Hu's ancestor is widely spread in Yao areas in Guangxi, Hunan, Guangdong, Guizhou and Yunnan. It tells the story of Pan Hu, the dragon dog, marrying his daughter and giving birth to Yao.
Song of King Pan is a collection of songs sung when offering sacrifices to Pan Hu's ancestors. This anthology has manuscripts in three different languages, covering all aspects, including Yao's myths, legends, ancient events, production, life, love and bitterness, with dozens of titles.
It is a traditional custom of Yao nationality to replace faith with songs. "Belief song" is a part of the folk literature of this ethnic group, which includes different types, such as "migration belief song", "finding old friends", "seeking help belief song", "complaining belief song" and "love belief song". Song of Faith is written in Chinese characters, mostly spoken, with a simple style. "Shuoci" is another unique category in Yao folk literature. Generally speaking, there is no need to enter the music field. Most of them are written in the form of recitation or in pairs, which may involve rural rules and regulations, or auspicious words about engagement, marriage and the completion of a new house. The legends of Yao nationality are related to historical figures, landscapes and folk customs. The representative works include "Golden Dragon Out of the Cave", "Taiping Army Crossing Yao Village", "Thousand Cave" and "The Origin of Danu Festival". "Animal stories" and "life stories" are the main categories of Yao folk stories. Among them, animal stories such as "Competing", "Hunting with tigers" and "Why did the rooster crow early" reflect the cognition of Yao ancestors to various animals and the domestication process of some animals.
Maitreya Tuo is an ancient myth song of Yao nationality in China. Spread in Du 'an, Bama and other places in Guangxi, where the Yao people call themselves Bunu. According to legend, in ancient times, heaven and earth were chaotic, and there was only one goddess, Miro. She used a rain hat left by her distant ancestor, Master's hands and feet as pillars to support the four corners of the sky, and then Master's body as a big pillar to support the center of the sky. She built a land bigger than the sky, and then sewed the horizon and the edge of the land together. Mountains are raised on the ground and rivers are sunken underground. When she was walking on the mountain, a gust of wind blew, and she was pregnant and gave birth to nine sons. She directed them to build a forest and put all kinds of animals into it; She also taught her sons to make human figures out of beeswax and bee pupae and put them in jars. Nine months later, all the "human beings" survived. Midoro raised them, taught them to learn languages, and then let them marry each other and live everywhere. Thus, there are all things and people in the world. This mythical ancient song reflects the simple view of Yao ancestors on the origin of the world in the matriarchal clan stage of primitive society.
Wang Pan Overlapping Volume, also known as Guo Shan Gang, is a long poem that records the history of Yao migration and suffering. It is regarded as the "Bible" of the Yao people.
Bonu River, the first novel in the history of Yao nationality, was written by Lan, chairman of Guangxi Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and won the bronze drum award for the third literary and artistic creation in Guangxi.
Yao people are distributed in mountainous areas of Guangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Yunnan, Guizhou, Jiangxi and other provinces (regions), with a population of1.4000 (1.982). Their language belongs to Sino-Tibetan Miao Yao language family, and some dialects used by Yao people belong to Zhuang-Dong language family. No words, ordinary Chinese. Yao literature is mainly oral literature, including myths, legends, folk stories, ballads and storytelling, among which ballads are the most abundant.
Yao folk songs include folk songs, music songs, bitter songs, love songs, mystery songs and resistance songs, productive labor songs, Xinmin songs and so on.
Folk epics and narrative poems are important parts of Yao literature. Miruotuo, the epic of creation, tells the hard course of the goddess Miruotuo's creation of human beings.
Yao literature works
Cheng contains a naive explanation of everything in nature. The narrative poem "Eight Kings of Tofu" is a long poem praising the rebellious national heroes.
Song of Wang Pan is a collection of Yao's classic songs. There are three different Chinese manuscripts circulating among Yao people. There are not only songs, but also songs, songs have song names and songs have brand names. It is the main song book dedicated to Wang Pan (Pan Hu) and provides valuable materials for studying the cultural heritage of Yao nationality. Folk songs have seven-character style, miscellaneous style and free style, among which Li Xiangge, Whispering Song, Belief Song and Butterfly Song are the most distinctive.
Words, including marriage words, will words, stone words, color words and so on. Most of them are free bodies, which don't pay attention to rhyme, but pay attention to parallelism and duality. Myths include Genesis, Ge Huai shooting the sun and the moon, Pangu and so on, which reflect the creation of the world and the origin of mankind. Fuxi brothers and sisters created human beings, which embodies the flood and human regeneration; The legend of Pan Wang, which reflects totem worship, etc. In folklore, there are "Golden Dragon Out of the Cave" and "Legend of the Big Dog after". Custom legends, such as "Zhu Jie" and "Long Drum Legend"; Scenery legends, such as Cave in the Middle of Guizhou and Tiantang Mountain. Legends of figures are mostly artistic creations based on historical figures, which are works of literature and history and have certain historical value.
The most popular folk stories are life stories and animal stories. Life stories describe the struggle between working people and the rich, reflect the contradictions within the family, and talk about love, such as smart anger, two brothers, ribbons and so on. Animal stories, such as The Ant Tells, The Crow Painter, The Magpie Teacher. The form is vivid and profound.
Yao folk literature mostly originated in Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. Its content is extensive, which can be roughly divided into historical migration, genealogy, genealogy, literature, religion, medicine, farming and so on. Among them, some are albums and some are single articles. The content is all-encompassing, just like the "encyclopedia" of Yao nationality. These documents are all manuscripts written in Chinese, which are very precious.
(a) Historical immigration documents
Famous ones are Mountain Table, Origin of Ancestral Map, General Map of Yao People Leaving the Base, and Ancient Records of Qian Jiadong, etc. It mainly describes the origin, historical migration and various unfortunate experiences of the nation. It is a historical document written on paper, silk or cloth by Yao ancestors in Chinese characters, which is widely circulated among Yao people and has great influence at home and abroad. After 1949, China, Japan, Thailand and other countries have had albums. The list of mountains has been produced for more than 1000 years. Its contents include describing the origin of ancient Pan Hu myths and Yao surnames, maintaining the political status of the Yao people, safeguarding the economic interests of the Yao people, and advocating freedom and equality.
(2) literature
Mainly Yao folk literature, especially ballad manuscripts, with rich and colorful contents. Among them, Lan's Brief Introduction is most famous for his epics Maitreya Tuo, Song of Hong Tian and Song of Pan Wang.
(3) Religious literature
A large number of Yao folk literature. It is understood that there are more than 50 Yao Classics with about 300,000 words in 40 families in Shanziyao District, Zhangping Township, Shiwan Mountain, Guangxi. Its content can be roughly divided into three categories:
The first category is the literature devoted to the study of Taoist classics and principles, which is used by Taoism to study;
The second category is a memorandum, which brings together various legal procedures for the public to handle affairs;
The third category is chanting on the spot, chanting spells and the like.
In addition, there are Yao Mian's Song of King Pan (both literary classics and religious classics), Song of Wandering Waves and Song of Altar; Eight rows of Ge Tang books (commonly known as twelve books) used in Ge Tang, big biography books used in the lobby, Yan Luo books used to turn over the dead, practical book lists, wine-stained books used to invite gods, collection books used for rain, and books for ancestors to eliminate disasters.
(4) pedigree literature
It was prolific in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties. There are two categories: clan and genealogy. Genealogy mainly describes the process and dispersion of ethnic historical migration, which mostly appears in the form of ballads. For example, Jinmen Yao investigates the belief songs of ethnic groups and visits relatives and friends with Gugen songs. Genealogy mainly describes the names of great-grandparents, grandparents or parents, such as their positive names (before death) and negative names (after death), as well as the time and place of burial. This is an excellent circumstantial material for studying the migration route of Yao nationality in history. [ 1-2]