[Xu Ganli] Experience in community protection of intangible cultural heritage--Taking the Pohui Group of the Miao Nationality in Rongshui as an example
[Abstract] Most current research on "intangible cultural heritage" focuses on the protection of individual knowledge or skills, and does not pay attention to the living space of cultural heritage and the significance of culture to community people.
The paper intends to illustrate the significance of community protection from specific cases, pointing out that community protection of intangible cultural heritage is more effective, practical and feasible.
[Keywords]"Intangible Cultural Heritage"; Community Protection; Miao Nationality in Rongshui; Pohui
[Introduction to the author] Xu Ganli (1967-), female, from Yifeng, Jiangxi Province, PhD in Folklore, professor at the School of Liberal Arts, Guangxi Normal University.
The main research directions are cultural heritage, folk tourism, etc.
At present, most of my country's research on "intangible cultural heritage" focuses on the living status, social significance, inheritance value and protection strategy at the level of individual knowledge or skills, and does not pay attention to the overall protection of cultural heritage in the community and the significance of culture to the people of the community.
When people proposed the protection strategy of "intangible cultural heritage", they emphasized the need to strengthen government funding; in practice, the protection task of "intangible cultural heritage" was entrusted to cultural workers in government departments.
As a result, many folk customs have become "official customs" and have lost their significance to the people of the community.
People do not participate, and cultural heritage has become an empty shell carrying cultural symbols.
As a result,"intangible cultural heritage" protection has either become temporary or has become stale.
As early as the beginning of "intangible cultural heritage" protection, Zhou Xing, a professor at Aichi University in Japan, once put forward the idea of protecting cultural heritage in grassroots communities [1], but it did not attract enough attention from everyone, and it is necessary to reiterate it here.
The theory of community protection has its rationality.
Based on the fact that intangible cultural heritage is created by local people in a specific cultural space and culture and people are interdependent, starting from the overall space of a specific area and relying on the enthusiasm of cultural subjects and the strength of the community to protect cultural heritage in grassroots communities is a more feasible approach.
On the other hand, a specific community or cultural space itself has the attributes of cultural heritage, and is also an organic symbiosis area of many individual cultural heritages.
This determines that the heritage wealth of a specific community is far better than that of other individual cultural relics or sites, including individual "intangible cultural heritage".
Therefore, the protection of cultural heritage must not only protect individual cultural knowledge existing in a specific community space, but also regard culture as a complete self-contained system with complete functions, and explore cultural preservation strategies from the overall space and the relationship network with people's lives.
We must not only focus on individual important cultural heritage, but also carry out cultural and ecological protection work and carry out overall dynamic protection in a planned manner.
This paper intends to illustrate the significance of community protection from specific cases, pointing out that community protection of intangible cultural heritage is more effective, practical and feasible.
1.
Overview of Rongshui Miao Po Hui
Rongshui County is the only Miao autonomous county in Guangxi.
It is located in the mountainous area of northwest Guangxi and adjacent to Congjiang County in Guizhou.
The Miao, Han, Zhuang, Dong and other ethnic groups living in the territory are in a state of large dispersion and small settlements.
Most of the Miao people live in the remote mountainous areas of the central, eastern and northern parts of the county, and are mainly distributed in 14 towns and villages in the county.
Pohui is a traditional folk festival dominated by the Miao people in Rongshui.
It is a social and recreational festival held on the hillside or river beach outside the village.
During the slope meeting, Miao young men from each village carried lusheng, girls were dressed in costumes, and men, women and old were all happy and rushed to the slope together.
The local customs of Po fairs have a long history.
For example, the historical documents of the "Zhengyi Zhi" Po fairs in Liangshuang Township have been in existence since 1687 and have a history of more than 300 years.
Most other Po fairs have a history of hundreds of years.
The Miao traditional culture carried by the Po Hui is rich in connotation and is a comprehensive manifestation of the Miao cultural heritage, including Lusheng culture, Miao music and dance, Miao costume culture, sacrificial ceremonies, as well as social organization customs such as Ta Lao Tong and Lusheng Hui, and marriage customs.
There are a series of slope fairs with a continuous duration in more than ten villages in Rongshui.
From the third day of the first month to the 17th day of the first month, slope fairs in various places occur one after another, thus forming a unique series of cultural spaces.
And because of its "continuity of sequence, integrity of ceremony, spontaneity of the masses, richness of connotation, originality of cultural ecological space, group nature and educational function of Po Hui, and manifestation of multi-ethnic unity and integration", it was listed as a national intangible cultural heritage in 2006 under the name of "Rongshui Miao Series Po Hui Group".
The reason why there is a series of local tradition of slope fairs is because of the traditional cultural concept shared by the local Miao people-slope fairs are the cultural symbol and cultural identity symbol of the entire Miao area, and the Lusheng teams in each village are invited and invited.
The mutual movement of slope fairs in nearby neighboring Miao villages is continued.
At present, the Rongshui series of slope fairs have shown a good momentum of survival and development, and it has not happened as some people are worried that the "application for heritage" will bring damage to the heritage, nor will it rely on the government's financial support to survive.
The experience of protection and continuation of its culture is useful for reference.
The Rongshui Miao slope fair has a variety of activities, ranging from traditional sacrificial ceremonies to a variety of competitive activities.
Among them, playing Lusheng and stepping on the hall is the main one.
There are also many activities such as horse fighting, horse racing, and manga dancing.
Take the long-established and influential Xiangfen Gulongpo Fair in Rongshui County as an example: "On this day, men, women and children in a radius of dozens of miles dressed in festive costumes competed on the slopes and danced Lusheng dances, horse racing, horse fighting, bird fighting, singing, lion dancing and shotgun shooting competitions, and enjoy fun.
The Gulongpo Fair is located at the forefront of the Miao area, and its commodity economy is more developed than other places.
The Fair is also a material exchange meeting.
There are many local products and popular national commodities, which adds a festive atmosphere to the Fair "[3].
To this day, the tradition of the Rongshui Slope Fair still continues.
The process and content of the slope fair activities appropriately combine some new projects in contemporary life on the basis of maintaining the traditional content and unchanged traditional procedures.
Generally speaking, playing Lusheng and dancing on the hall are the main activities of the Po Fair.
They also include literary and artistic and sports competitive entertainment events, as well as social activities such as playing the same year.
In addition, the Po Fair is also a place for material exchanges.
2.
The value and function of the Pohui
The Rongshui Miao Slope Fair is held every year.
Why can the people maintain high spirits? Some Miao scholars said: "Miao Lusheng is a symbol of joy, joy and harvest.
In addition to entertainment, friendship, communication and marriage purposes, the Miao people also play Lusheng to pray and bless, obtain good weather and a bumper harvest in the countryside.
Therefore, without Lusheng, it would be unlucky not to rush to the slopes.
It is rare for people to be unified and the enthusiasm for production cannot be exerted.
Only by entertaining happily, blowing the Lusheng to your heart's content, and allowing friends from all over the world to participate, increasing the warm atmosphere of the festival, satisfying the gods and happy the people, can there be spiritual guarantee for production in the coming year.
Therefore, in the eyes of the Miao people, the larger the scale of the Lushengpo Association, the better "[4].
From this, we can see the multiple functions of the Po Hui and its significance to the local people.
Like many traditional ethnic minority festivals, the Rongshuipo Festival has multiple functions.
In summary, it mainly includes: 1.
Mate selection and village friendship between men and women; 2.
Entertaining gods and people; 3.
Trade exchanges; and 4.
Inheriting culture and strengthening ethnic identity.
It is mainly expressed through the activities of the slope fair, the competition for the same year, the competition for Lusheng, doing business [5], and the sacrifice for Lusheng, etc.
1.
Mate selection and village friendship
There are many explanations about the origin of the Miao people's Po Hui, but most of the origin of Po Hui is related to marriage customs, which is to increase opportunities for young men and women to know and expand the scope of communication.
Miao legends say that the Miao people once practiced long-distance exogamy, which caused a lot of inconvenience, and many young people could not get married.
Therefore, the Lushengpo Festival was held to call on young men and women to meet together and provide them with an opportunity to interact freely in the wild.[6].
In the process of expanding the scope of slope climbing, the scope for free communication between young men and women has also been expanded.
Quite a few people's first love starts at the Pohui and leads to marriage.
At the slope meeting, the young man blew the Lusheng around the Lusheng pillar, and the girls danced on the outside to communicate with each other.
The young man showed the style of playing Lusheng, and some even inserted feathers on the Lusheng.
As his body swayed left and right with the music while playing, the feathers were waved and sometimes thrown on the girl's face to attract her attention.
The girls all went out dressed up to fully show off their beauty to attract the attention of unmarried men.
Someone described the scene of the Lusheng stepping on the hall at the slope meeting as follows: "The young men circle several concentric circles with the Lusheng pillar or the big Lusheng pillar as the center, and dance while blowing to show their playing skills and manly style; the girls circle around the periphery.
Form a circle or several layers, dance slowly; compete for beauty.
Sometimes the girls gather around the Lusheng Hall in the village to show their charm; sometimes they merge into one with the sisters of the neighboring Lusheng team and dance around several Lusheng halls at the same time; sometimes they move with sisters of other Lusheng teams to step on the hall "[7].
At the grand and lively slope party, the girl and the guy got in close contact, got to know each other, and left beautiful memories.
Through year-after-year slope fairs, young people get together again and again, and in this way, young people become good couples.
It is this function of the Pohui that makes young people have yearning and expectations for the Pohui.
The same year generally refers to the overall communication between villages and is a village-based friendship activity.
The invitation must first obtain the consent of the whole village in the same year.
If you want to invite a village to play the same year, you can play the Lusheng invitation song at the slope meeting, circle the other party's Lusheng Hall three times, and then post the invitation letter on the other party's big Lusheng.
After the invited party agrees, they can follow the inviting party back to play the same year after the meeting breaks up.
Some people may also choose another suitable time to be invited again.
In the same year, older men in the village led all the boys and girls from the village, so that the young people from the two villages could get to know each other and find someone to fall in love and marry.
In the same year, in addition to the Lusheng stepping on the Lusheng Ping, there were also ceremonies for the same year.
In the same year, the ceremony was held on Lusheng Ping.
The owner had to prepare to slaughter cattle, pigs and other livestock to entertain the guests.
The ceremony of the same year was to bring these animals to Lusheng Ping for display.
The main procedure was to lead the cattle or pigs that had not yet been slaughtered, bring big red flowers to the animals, plant them with canthus grass, and turn around Lusheng Ping three times.
At the same time, there were also rice wine, glutinous rice, etc.
to entertain guests.
After the display, after three rounds of Lusheng stepping on the hall, the ceremony of the same year ended.
In the evening, a banquet of the same year will be held on Lusheng Ping.
After that, young men and women can invite each other home or sing love songs to each other in the suburbs.
Generally, the fighting will last for three days in the same year.
After three days, when the guests 'villages return home, the main village will give them meat, glutinous rice, rice wine and other food, and let them take it back to eat with the villagers who have not come to fight in the same year.
When the guest village returned to its own village, on the Lusheng Ping of the village, the entire village people concentrated on enjoying the food brought back in the same year.
During the meal, there would be Lusheng walking activities.
The next year, the original main village wanted to fight in the guest village.
The guest village responded according to the same reception specifications.
The purpose of fighting the same year is to enhance the feelings between the two villages and eliminate conflicts.
At the same time, it is also to provide an opportunity for the unmarried men and women in the two villages to get to know each other and solve their marriage problems.
To this day, the same year is still the main way for local young men and women to engage in marriage.
2.
Amuse gods and people
Although the function of the slope fairs we now understand is mainly for social networking or entertainment, the first item of various local slope fairs is sacrifice.
The ceremony usually involves circling the Lusheng pillar three times and playing three songs.
The person in charge squatted down facing the east and recited the sacrificial words.
The purpose of the sacrifice is to pray for good weather, abundant grain yields, and prosperity of six livestock.
Lusheng stepping hall is the most common entertainment activity favorite by the Miao people.
The "Rong County Annals" of the Republic of China recorded: "In the first month, in the Dong Miao Dynasty, men and women gathered and competed with Lusheng dancing...
The Lusheng meeting was the biggest and most popular public entertainment between men and women; the meeting was based on the number of people.
How much the Sheng.
Women dressed in beautiful clothes were also grouped into one class.
Every time they visit a village, the host and guest each play a sheng, answer each other three times, and then engage in a friendship competition.
So they sing and dance, and the sound is in tune "[8].
It is worth mentioning that there is often a person who plays a cantina during the lusheng blowing activities at the slope party.
He often plays the role of a comedian and uses funny movements to make the audience laugh and increase the festive atmosphere.
The entertainment at the slope fair included horse fighting, bird fighting, lion playing and dragon lantern dancing, among which horse fighting was the most important.
The excitement and excitement of the horse fight attracted many people to watch.
Laughter often came from the onlookers, most of whom were men.
At the same time, it also attracted tourists or photography enthusiasts from other places.
This competitive event is deeply loved by local people.
The horses used by villagers for horse fights are specially fed and never used for transportation; moreover, they have to pay more economic costs.
As the horse fights are approaching, the owners have to feed them with soybean flour, broken rice, sweet wine, etc.
to make the horses become fatter, stronger, and impulsive.
However, horse fighting itself cannot bring any economic benefits to the owner.
The rewards for horse fighting usually include voluntary donations from villagers and government subsidies.
The amount is not large.
In addition to bonuses, there are also some daily necessities.
The locals said: "Horse fighting is a bit rewarding, but it's not big.
People here just like it, but outsiders think it's strange.
What's the point of getting so little money for fighting all day long? But we just like it.
For no reason, we just think horse fighting is fun." It can be seen that the people's spiritual needs and self-satisfaction have contributed to the inheritance of this activity.
3.
trading exchange
Pohui also has the function of material exchange.
The scale of the Po Hui ranges from tens of thousands of people to tens of thousands of people to even tens of thousands of people to one to two thousand people.
The annual slope fair forms a market with the largest number of people and the largest mobile volume.
Most of the villages where the Miao people live are scattered in remote mountainous areas with inconvenient transportation, and there is little trade in ordinary times.
During the festival, people bring the produce from the mountains and fields to the market for sale.
Merchants and hawkers also take the opportunity to transport goods to the Po Fair for commodity trading, which also meets the needs of both supply and demand parties.
During the period of lack of goods, Pohui became an important place to display goods and meet people's material consumption needs.
4.
Inheriting culture and strengthening ethnic identity
Along with historical development, Pohui has been inheriting and spreading distinctive Miao cultural traditions.
Lusheng is a multifunctional cultural complex.
Pohui has become a gathering point for inheritors of Miao Lusheng culture.
The gathering of Miao people who may be scattered over a large geographical area also helps these inheritors learn from each other.
On the other hand, in the non-written Miao social life, a convention has been formed: a 12-year-old boy must learn to play Lusheng.
Not only is Lusheng used in rituals, entertainment, courtship, marriage, festivals, etc., but the most important thing is to learn Lusheng-recite and sing Lusheng songs, memorize Lusheng lyrics, and gain knowledge and the truth to be a person.
Each Lusheng Ci has a clear and stable tune, and the content is extremely extensive, including historical legends, production knowledge, love and marriage, social morality, rural regulations and customs [9].
Nowadays, school education has almost replaced the inheritance of national traditional culture.
Children can only learn to play Lusheng and step on the hall more freely during the slope meeting.
Although local middle schools have now begun to teach lusheng playing, in real rural life, a series of activities during the slope fair are very cherished opportunities for children to learn national culture.
Therefore, during the Lusheng walking activities, you can often see children holding the Lusheng and learning to play from adults.
At the slope meeting, the boy learned to play Lusheng, while the girl joined the Lusheng team under her mother's careful makeup.
Children have lived in this atmosphere since childhood, slowly learned the traditional national culture, preserved common memories, and passed on the culture.
The Pohui is not only a venue to educate future generations to learn about their own national culture, but also enhances the sense of national identity and pride.
As an activity involving the entire Miao people in Rongshui, the Po Hui repeats its rituals and activity content every year, which can play a role in strengthening recognition.Some scholars pointed out: "As a public cultural act, the ultimate purpose of festivals is not entertainment or aesthetics, but social education and social integration.
It is to establish a set of public through collective celebrations and everyone's participation.
Spiritual beliefs and values"[10].
Lusheng is a symbol and symbol of Miao culture.
Wherever there are Miao people, Lusheng will sound.
Researchers of Miao culture believe that "the Miao people have not formed a common language, common region, or common economic life in history, but the Miao people still maintain a strong sense of group identity and emotion...
The most important reason lies in the Miao culture.
Lusheng culture in the tradition and lifestyle pattern, as well as the common psychological quality maintained by the link of Lusheng culture"[11].
The local government mentioned the value of the Po Hui as a Miao cultural heritage in the application materials: "The significance and value of the Rongshui Po Hui is that it forms a relatively complete Po Hui chain.
It is such a chain that can show the local Miao area.
The tradition is profound and the folk customs are simple.
It has strong cohesion and centripetal force, is relatively united, and enhances the sense of identity with the national culture"[12].
Pohui is the time and space where national culture is most intensively displayed.
At every Po Fair, local Miao people, men, women and children of all ethnic groups will raise their families to rush to Po; young people who go out to work feel that they have lost or lost their national self-esteem in the city, and will also use the Spring Festival holiday to actively participate in Po Fair.
Miao compatriots jointly participate in ethnic cultural activities, conduct exchanges between groups and even individuals between villages, and conduct various competitions based on villages, families or individuals, so as to win and win as fast as possible.
Common memories, common interests, and common cultural characteristics bring people together and take concerted actions, and Po will form an invisible identity.
Generally speaking, in contemporary times, the entertainment function and the function of seeking national confidence and identity have been enhanced, while the marriage and love function and belief function have been weakened.
3.
The reasons why the tradition of Pohui continues to this day
As mentioned above, the Rongshui Miao Po Hui is rich in cultural connotations and diverse in functions.
People of different ages, genders, and requirements can find their own needs by participating in the Po Hui, which brings necessary conditions for its inheritance and prosperity.
In addition, factors such as the organizers and participants of the Expo are also important reasons for continuously promoting the continuation of the Expo year after year and succession from generation to generation.
The organizers of the Slope Fair are the main force for the continuation of the Slope Fair.
Rongshui Po Hui is a traditional folk organization form.
The establishment and abandonment of the Miao Po Hui are determined by the burial rocks.
Miyan is a social organization that agrees and implements customary laws by the Miao people.
When there is a major event, village elders or village representatives and even the entire people gather together to discuss and decide on solutions.
A stone must be erected on the spot and exposed most of it to the ground to show the decision, and everyone will abide by it in the future.
To this day, non-governmental organizations of the Miao people in Rongshui still play a large role [13].
The scale of the Expo, the purpose of its holding, the days and venue of the Expo Festival, the relationship between the Expo fairs, and the managers of the Expo all require consultation and unanimous decisions.
In order to ensure its legal validity and allow everyone to follow it together, a rock-burial ceremony must be held.
Some large slope fairs are mostly established through buried rocks, and slope fairs that are not buried rocks can only be established after consultation with local elders and consent from the village people.
Therefore, once the slope meeting is established, it will be retained for a long time and cannot be replaced.
Except for special circumstances such as disasters that occurred every year after the establishment of the Slope Convention, the people's lives were difficult; or the Slope Convention placed an excessive burden on the people; or the number of violations of customs increased sharply during the Slope Convention, and the people were worried.
In addition to the establishment of a special non-governmental organization, the playing of Lusheng at the meeting was also organized.
Po fairs are all organized by highly respected local people.
Usually, each Miao village produces a Lusheng hall of three models: 30 to 50 large, medium and small.
Each Lusheng hall has one or two important "Lusheng heads".
The Lusheng heads are people with certain prestige and ability to social activities.
He is not only the organizer and leader of the Lusheng team, but also an active member in the Miao village; most of them can sing ancient songs, reasoning songs, wine songs, love songs, etc., and can skillfully play various Lusheng songs such as introducing tunes, walking villages, sending off relatives, stepping on the hall, miscellaneous tunes, coordinating tunes, retaining guests, and playing the same year.
He is a middle-aged man who understands various etiquette and rules of the Miao people.
For example, the Gulongpo Fair on the 16th of the first lunar month is a well-known fair.
The Gulongpo Preparatory Committee, which hosted the Gulongpo Fair, is a non-governmental organization established for more than 100 years.
It has its own office address and fixed personnel to organize and plan.
The Hongshui Liangshuangpo Association is mainly hosted by the Yang family in Dongzhai, Liangshuang Village.
It has been passed down for more than ten generations, and the youngest of the 13th generation is only in his forties.
The inheritance pedigree of Lushengtou in Wuyong Village, Wuji Village, Anchu Township shows that from the first generation of successor Ma Laosheng to today's youngest successor Dong Zhengqin, they were all self-elected by the people.
Since the organizers are basically local people or local elites or cultural inheritors, is the Rongshui County Government just a bystander? In fact, as a Miao autonomous county, most of the leaders of the county government are Miao people born.
They have deep feelings for their own ethnic culture and have personally participated in the construction of the Po Hui.
Among them, the Antai Thirteen Slope was re-established by the government to integrate the surrounding small slope societies.
From the 11th to the 18th day of the first month of 1985, the National Miao Academic Symposium was held in Rongshui County.
In order to revitalize the glory of Lusheng and restore the due status and role of Lusheng culture, Liang Bin, then deputy director of the Ethnic Affairs Committee of the Autonomous Region, and the four major teams in the county.
With the suggestion and support of the county, the largest Lusheng Po Association in the county was established in Antai Township to unify the scattered Lusheng Po Associations in the past in the Antai area with inconsistent timings [14].
Subsequently, under such circumstances, cadres from the county government of Rongshui County established the County Lusheng Association in 1986, organizing Lusheng teams to go to the countryside every year to participate in slope meetings in different places.
At present, many units such as county-level cultural and educational agencies have Lusheng teams.
The establishment of the Lusheng Association by leading cadres in the county has promoted the inheritance of Lusheng culture and eliminated people's concerns.
As the president of the Lusheng Association of Rongshui County said: "After the National Miao Academic Seminar was held in Rongshui, the county agency established the Lusheng Team.
When the people of each village saw that the county agency was engaged in Lusheng, what should we be afraid of?" In addition to non-governmental organizations, sometimes government staff also come forward.
For example, in recent years, the village committee of Liangshuang Village has gradually intervened in the organization of the slope meeting, responsible for raising donations as rewards for the Lusheng competition and sponsoring each village's courty-walking team.
As most young people in the village go out to work, the previous tradition of self-management of Lusheng has become the responsibility of collecting it by village committee cadres and managing it as public property.
At the same time, the government did not have too much administrative interference in the Slope Society.
The consequence of government festivals or protecting cultural heritage is that the government inculcates ideology, makes folk activities expropriated by the government, or becomes a way for the government to publicize policies.
This often makes local people regard them as government work or tasks, thus losing interest and enthusiasm for participating in activities.
At present, there has been no problem of the commercialization of ethnic cultural resources caused by tourism development at the Rongshui Slope Fair.
Tourism companies have not yet contacted tourists who come to rush to the slopes.
The county government has not begun to interfere with the planning and arrangements of the slope fair.
It has only dispatched traffic police to control traffic, and some units have set up stalls at the slope fair to publicize policies.
As someone has described, the cultural performance nature of the Thirteenth Slope Fair in Antai Township is different from that of the performance in the context of tourism development.
No one here tampered with or arranged the activities of the slope fair.
Some small additions are just "picked up and put back".
Traditional folk cultural factors [15].
One issue often involved in "intangible cultural heritage" protection is protection funds or activity funds.
Many calls for the protection of "intangible cultural heritage" have mentioned the need to strengthen government funding.
However, the government's financial funds are limited, and many cultural heritage sites need government support, and the government may not be able to care about it.
How did the Rongshui Miao Po Association solve this problem? As a local tradition, the fund for the event has always been donated by the local Miao people.
Everyone in Miao society is enthusiastic about public welfare activities, and people regard doing public welfare as fulfilling their obligations.
In Miao society, roads and bridges, pavilions and water are all done voluntarily by the masses.
When encountering large-scale public events, people enthusiastically donate money and materials.
This is a traditional virtue of the Miao people.
Whoever rice field or dry land is used for the slope meeting, the host family will prepare the venue in advance to prepare for the festival, and all of this will be without any remuneration.
In addition, all expenses such as the Pao Hui in the same year and the Lusheng competition will be borne jointly by the village people.
In terms of the production cost of Lusheng alone, each Lusheng is about 50 yuan, and it takes one to two years to replace it.
The Lusheng team in each village has dozens to hundreds of Lusheng, so there is an expenditure every year.
All of these are supported by everyone.
The local Miao people believe that with more joy and joy during the New Year's Festival, there will be a 10% more harvest in the countryside next year.
In such rural customs, everyone is naturally enthusiastic about the protection of cultural heritage.
In many discussions on the protection of "intangible cultural heritage", it is said that the "inheritance" and "inheritors" of cultural heritage are the key.
At present, the government's subsidies to inheritors may be a form of support, but without government subsidies, the local inheritance pedigree would have been uninterrupted.
Even during the new festivals, there was still a passion for protecting culture.
This is mainly due to the national complex and cultural consciousness, as well as the crisis consciousness of the survival of national culture.
Rongshui County is the only Miao autonomous county in Guangxi.
The Miao people are originally a nation that has been constantly migrating and experienced hardships.
The Miao people in Rongshui mainly migrated from Guizhou.
Their base camp is in Guizhou.
In order not to forget their ancestors and national culture, they will pay special attention to strengthening identity and uniting the hearts of the people with their own national culture.
Moreover, the protection of intangible cultural heritage is not passed down by a few folk artists, but the wealth inherited jointly by everyone living in this cultural space.
If we protect intangible cultural heritage, we only pay attention to protecting a few so-called inheritors, rather than the local people and the reasons why their culture cannot be passed down, what we protect is really just the "heritage" that is about to pass.
However, it cannot meet the requirements of UNESCO for heritage: "Organic survival in a common community or group constitutes an intangible chain of life", and the protection of heritage also "includes its entire process from generation, inheritance to innovation."[16].
Intangible cultural heritage focuses on protecting cultural subjects.
The participants should be community residents and universal, or even universal.
Enable people in the community to form traditions and social customs of mutual supervision and mutual encouragement of cultural protection, and cultivate cultural ecology.
The application for the Rongshui Po Hui does not use the broad general term "Rongshui Miao Po Hui", but explicitly takes the name of "Rongshui Miao Series Po Hui Group" and lists 15 Po Hui Hui at the same time, making Po Hui in various places be included in the category of protection and have their own existence value.
All local Po fairs are part of the cultural chain that forms a series of Po fairs.
Therefore, despite the impact of modernization, no one wants to get rid of this chain.
Yen Dunki, a professor of history at Dongguk University in South Korea, suggested that various heritage projects should not be favored over the other.
Various heritage projects have their own forms, and every performer is spreading his own version.
If one of the different versions of the heritage is listed as the cultural heritage of the country, then there is a possibility that while the version listed as heritage is disseminated, other variant versions by other places and artists will be excluded from dissemination.
This is because the state recognizes a heritage and a performer actually confers cultural authority on it.
If young people plan to study projects listed as heritage, successors to other art versions will be scarce, and many variants will eventually be lost.
If you want to have broader diversity in the protection of folk art, then you should consider a way that can transcend the relationship between folk art that is listed as heritage and folk art that is not listed as heritage, and can maintain the diversity of folk art for a long time.[17] These remarks are very reasonable and we should pay attention to them.
4.
Reasons for protecting "intangible cultural heritage" communities
The ancients said,"Oranges grown in Huainan are oranges, and grown in Huaibei are trifoliate orange"[18].
The particularity of the local soil has cultivated special species.
The local ecological environment forms a biological balance system that complements each other.
Good species can only survive in an environment that suits you.
By the same token, culture also has its own ecological environment.
Cultural heritage should be protected in its local community, rather than suspended above the community or transplanted to a different place where the culture and ecology are incompatible.
Otherwise, if cultural heritage is withdrawn from the original community and left the soil in which it grows, it will not receive nutrition and will be exhausted sooner or later.
In the specific community where cultural heritage is generated, cultural memories and emotional support related to the heritage are preserved.
If the original soil of cultural heritage is extracted, it will lead to the rupture of the cultural context and make the heritage become fragments and fossils of history.
It cannot develop and produce meaning in the lives of today's people.
Some scholars pointed out that if heritage protection is treated in the form of a government performance project and the owner of heritage inheritance is replaced, it will not only affect the enthusiasm of the inheritors to inherit intangible cultural heritage, but also affect the original ecology and folk nature of intangible cultural heritage.
and authenticity, thus turning folk customs into "official customs"[19].
There are the following reasons for protecting cultural heritage in grassroots communities:
1) Community protection can ensure the happiness and interests of community people and promote community progress
The significance of "intangible cultural heritage" to the community is the driving force for its protection.
One of the conditions for applying for a representative work of the world's intangible cultural heritage is that this culture must be rooted in the traditional cultural history of a place and can be used as a means to reflect the cultural characteristics and values of a region and promote social groups.
role.
Intangible cultural heritage is valuable to local people, and the above-mentioned function of the Po Hui is the driving force that the local people have always persisted in.
When a large number of young people go out to work, they are unfamiliar with foreigners during their intense work, and they will also encounter marital problems.
They still need to return to their hometowns to solve them.
The traditional function of the Pohui will still survive under the new historical conditions.
Japanese folklore scholar Yuka Suga proposed in his paper that the value of "intangible cultural heritage" lies in its ability to bring happiness to local people.
In the end, the benefits gained from the protection of intangible cultural heritage should naturally be returned to the group dominated by ordinary people who maintain this culture...
Intangible cultural heritage does not have value in itself, but in the relationship between the people and the intangible cultural heritage, its value is generated [20].
In addition, community protection also reminds us that if cultural heritage that has gradually declined or no longer exists in the community has been voluntarily abandoned by community people and cannot receive the support of community residents, then it should also be considered for entering history.
2) Community protection can rely on the strength of local people and folk customs
The vitality of cultural heritage lies in its functions.
The key to the protection of "intangible cultural heritage" is to continue or update its functions, including functions such as entertainment, sacrifice, identification and cohesion.
Since it is cultural heritage, it has vital significance to local people.
It has once met people's spiritual needs and is everyone's emotional sustenance.
Community protection can give full play to the enthusiasm of cultural subjects themselves.
Through publicity and education to community members, we will let everyone realize the connotation and value of heritage, stimulate their sense of identity and pride in their own culture, and stimulate their enthusiasm and creativity in protecting and inheriting intangible cultural heritage.
Community protection of cultural heritage can also facilitate mobilizing local cultural elites to participate and encourage people to better protect cultural heritage.
It can also appropriately increase activities related to cultural heritage to benefit community people or provide them with opportunities for entertainment and education.Someone proposed in a study of the Yi people's "Torch Festival":"In the future, the Torch Festival should first meet the needs of local residents in terms of activity content and organizational form, including emotional needs, cultural identity needs and psychological belonging needs.
Without the soil in which they originated and survive, without cultural memory, traditional festivals will shrink until they wither "[21].
Some people conducted an investigation into the reasons for the loss of intangible cultural heritage, and the results showed that the main reason was the lack of public awareness of protection.
If we further think about why people don't care about "intangible cultural heritage", we can discover problems.
Some traditional cultures in our country have been passed down to this day, but have not died out, but have flourished.
The reason is that such culture is closely related to people's lives, and people will take the initiative to protect and continue it.
Nowadays, many objects listed as cultural heritage cannot be related to the lives of ordinary people, bring benefits to them or interest them, and feel that they have nothing to do with them, which leads to the unconscious loss of cultural heritage.
Therefore, the work of "intangible cultural heritage" cannot simply emphasize protection, but also needs to activate its functions, transform its value, and make it popular for people, especially for people in the community.
The advantage of community protection is that it can rely on grassroots funds or donations, as well as the original strength of non-governmental organizations to implement protection.
It does not need to rely on the state and can be operated at low cost.
It is feasible to rely on the people's own strength in grassroots communities to protect it.
Specifically, the following measures can be taken: 1.
Promote education in civil society and not only rely on school education.
2.
Give full play to the role of cultural elites.
Cultural elites in many places have the desire to contribute to the protection and construction of culture in their hometowns, and hope to use the power of culture to increase the social capital of their hometowns and seek development opportunities.
They often have strong influence in local society.
3.
Give full play to the role of non-governmental organizations.
When a large number of young people go out to work, elderly associations in many places are in charge of traditional cultural activities in the community.
They often have time, preserve the memory of their heritage, and are willing to contribute to the restoration and carrying out activities related to cultural heritage.
4.
Give full play to the role of religious centripetal force and appeal.
Folk beliefs have always been a broad and profound social force.
The use of folk beliefs and related organizational activities can also promote the revival and preservation of cultural heritage activities.
5.
It can gradually expand from a single community to surrounding communities.
Some scholars have proposed that communities with folk customs that protect folk customs and excellent traditions of public welfare life can often consciously protect cultural heritage [22], starting with these communities.
The formation of protected areas such as island zones can drive and promote the restoration of cultural traditions in adjacent communities, and will also drive the slow rejuvenation of other cultural elements that are not within the scope of "intangible cultural heritage" protection.
3) Community protection is more likely to ensure the authenticity of heritage
Community protection methods can correctly interpret the connotation of cultural heritage.
Only the community people clearly know what is the most authentic and valuable part of the heritage.
Professor Fang Lili once raised the question of cultural sovereignty,"Who has the right to interpret culture"[23].
Ralph Regenwanu, Director of the Vanuatu National Culture Council and Vanuatu Cultural Center, believes that since the key feature of intangible cultural heritage is its dynamic existence, that is, it is constantly repeatedly created by those who carry the culture, it should be up to the inheritors themselves to determine what is most worthy of protection in their culture and actively participate in the decision-making and implementation of conservation measures [24].
In the practice of protecting "intangible cultural heritage", a topic that people often discuss is "authenticity", that is, to protect intangible cultural heritage with authenticity.
The pursuit of authenticity stems from many heritage application projects in real life, which are actually to compete for local resources.
A new interpretation of local cultural elites or government officials lacks a foundation in reality.
Therefore, although some cultural projects have entered the "intangible cultural heritage" list, they are not recognized and accepted by local people, and cannot develop.
Sooner or later, they will become relics of history.
Although the application form for the Rongshuipo Fair also has traces of sorting and beautification, it is basically in line with reality.
No matter how beautiful the words are used to describe this event, it is for outsiders to see.
For the local people, Pohui has a long tradition and multiple cultural connotations.
The Miao people have been bathed in this culture since childhood, and everyone understands its connotation and significance.
4) Community protection can enable cultural heritage to continue to grow in its original place
The impact of the Po Fair on people not only enhanced national identity and collective consciousness, but also encouraged future generations to clarify the traditional culture belonging to the nation in the atmosphere of the Po Fair.
The Po Fair is collective.
With the joint participation of the collective, it strengthens future generations 'love for their own national culture and shapes the sense of responsibility to inherit the culture.
This is in line with the gist of the "Interim Measures for the Application and Evaluation of Representative Works of National Intangible Cultural Heritage":"Through social education and school education, the declared material cultural heritage must be passed down and can continue to be a living cultural tradition.
Inherited and carried forward among relevant communities, especially young people."
It is the Po Hui held year after year that makes the majority of Miao compatriots participating in it more aware of their national identity.
Some scholars have proposed: "The biggest feature of festivals is their periodic recurrence.
Traditional festivals cycle in the annual time.
People can constantly break away from daily secular time and space, return to the sacred historical time and space, directly face their ancestors, and repeatedly revisit traditions., taste traditions, and draw new cultural power from them"[25].
Zhou Xing once pointed out that one of the benefits of community protection is that "due to the support of community cultural ecology and community humanistic background, not only is it possible for the" heritage "to" live "in people's lives for a long time, but under new conditions, it may also gain the opportunity to" reproduce ", which is to become a source of community cultural creativity"[26].
The protection of "intangible cultural heritage" not only protects its form, but also continues and inherits culture.
Intangible cultural heritage is a living content that exists in the life of a specific group.
It is a developing traditional behavior and is mobile.
Community protection not only enables the continuous protection and inheritance of "intangible cultural heritage", but also enables it to develop, accommodate people's creations, and maintain its core values.
This achieves the overall protection and active protection emphasized by many scholars.
5) Community protection can awaken and revitalize other cultural elements related to "intangible cultural heritage"
Community protection can protect the natural and cultural environment in which heritage exists, link cultural elements related to "intangible cultural heritage" with the living needs of the community and surrounding residents, and recycle internal needs.
This will help increase the harmony and stability of the community's small society, and can also awaken residents 'love for their hometown and enhance cultural confidence.
Pohui integrates various Miao cultural elements, and there is strong inherent logic and correlation between the various cultural elements it contains.
For example, blowing Lusheng on halls, wearing national costumes, bullfighting, and bird fighting during festivals are all closely related to the lives of the Miao people in the community.
Lusheng has been passed down from generation to generation.
Making, blowing and listening to Lusheng have all formed production, sales and enjoyment.
Paths and rules, Miao costumes have also become a symbol of identification and strengthening identification on this specific occasion.
Driven by the Po Hui, it is possible to jointly preserve the Miao people's Lusheng culture, music, dance, costumes, folk religious rituals, social organization customs, marriage and love customs, etc.
In short, community protection is both necessary and feasible.
The key to community protection is to restore and transform the function of "intangible cultural heritage" in the community, relying on the autonomy of local people and relevant government policies.
It should be noted that community protection does not exclude national protection.
At present, my country's "intangible cultural heritage" protection work is still in its initial stage, and the government's guidance, guidance, supervision, publicity and financial support are necessary.
When some "intangible cultural heritage" has lost its functions and markets, they need to rely on the state to provide it and rely on the value of the heritage itself to continue to continue it.
However, the protection of intangible cultural heritage involves many fields, complex content, wide coverage, and arduous tasks.
Including staffing, funding, etc., it requires huge investment of human, material and financial resources to support, and the government's strength is limited.
In the end, it still needs to be implemented in the community to carry out sustainable and effective protection.
References and Notes:
[1]Zhou Xing.
National Folk Cultural and Art Heritage Protection and Grassroots Communities [J], National Art, 2004, 2): 18-24.
[2]Liuzhou City Culture Bureau, edited by Rongshui Miao Autonomous County.
Intangible Cultural Heritage·Collection of application materials for the Pohui Group in Rongshui Miao Series [G].
Liuzhou City Culture Bureau, 2005.
[3]Compiled by Guangxi Rongshui Miao Autonomous County Chronicle Compilation Committee.
Annals of Rongshui County [G].
Shanghai: Life, Reading and New Knowledge Published by Sanlian Bookstore, 1998.
[4]Wu Chengde, editor-in-chief Jia Ye.
Miao Lusheng [M].
Nanning: Guangxi Nationalities Publishing House, 1992, pp.
55-56.
[5]Luo Anhu.
Drum Tower Culture, Pohui Culture and Modernization [J].
Guangxi Social Sciences, No.
5, 1998, page 105 mentioned that the function of the Po Hui has "the role of exchanging information, gathering and dispersing materials, and promoting production development."
[6]See Wu Chengde and Jia Ye, editor-in-chief.
Miao Lusheng [M].
Nanning: Guangxi Nationalities Publishing House, 1992, p.
55.
[7]Wu Chengde, editor-in-chief Jia Ye.
Exploration of the Modernization of Mountain Minorities in the South, Research on the Development of the Miao Nationality in Rongshui [M], Nanning: Guangxi Nationalities Press, 1993, p.
372.
[8]"Rong County Annals", quoted from Ding Shiliang and Zhao Fang.
Compilation of Local Chronicles and Folk Customs Materials of China·Zhongnan Volume 2)[G].
Beijing: Beijing Library Press, 1997, p.
951.
[9]Yu Jia.
Current situation and thoughts on Miao Lusheng culture [J].
Art Education, 2009, 9): 100-103.
[10]Wang Xiaobing.
Festivals: A special public cultural space [A].
See China Folk Society, Beijing Folk Museum.
Traditional festivals and cultural spaces--Album of the "Dongyue Forum" International Academic Symposium [C].
Beijing: Xueyuan Press, 2007, pp.
3-15.
[11]Yang Juanguo.
Lusheng: The cultural link connecting the three major dialects of the Miao people [J].
Guizhou Social Sciences, 1989, 12): 49-53.
[12]Same as note 2
[13]To this day, many local villagers know little about national laws and are familiar with the village rules and regulations of their village.
The vast majority of villagers believe that customary law is the "law" that can be managed, and as long as things follow old traditions, they will not break the law.
[14]Editor in chief Dai Minqiang.
Miao people in Rongshui [M], Nanning: Guangxi Nationalities Press, 2009.
[15]Wei Tingting.
Investigation and research on the Po Hui of the Miao people in Rongshui, Guangxi [D].
Master's Thesis from Guangxi Normal University, 2010.
[16]See Fang Lili.
Please pay attention to the owners of intangible cultural heritage [J].
Art Review, 2006, 6):22-28.
[17]Zhen Gang.
Scholars from various countries discuss the protection of intangible cultural heritage [N].
Legal Daily, 2005-01-28
[18]"Yanzi Spring and Autumn Annals·Ten of Miscellaneous Xia".
[19]Yuan Li.
Be wary of "folk customs" becoming "official customs"[N].
China Culture News, 2006-03-16; or Yuan Li.
Research on the protection subjects of intangible cultural heritage [J].
Journal of Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, 20092): 1-8.
[20]Suga Feng.
What is the value of intangible cultural heritage [J].
Cultural Heritage, 2009, 2): 106-110.
[21]Li Yuzhen.
From Edge to Center: A Study on the Transformation of Traditional Ethnic Festivals in the Context of Tourism--Taking the Torch Festival of the Yi Nationality in Liangshan, Sichuan as an Example [J].
Academic Forum, 2009, 2): 90-93.
[22]See Dong Xiaoping.
On the plan and composition of folk customs protection areas [J].
Henan Social Sciences, 2007, 2): 18-21.
[23]http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/articlelist_1236567792_0_4.html.
[24]Zhen Gang.
Scholars from various countries discuss the protection of intangible cultural heritage [N].
Legal Daily, 2005-01-28.
[25]Xiao Fang, Liao Mingjun.
Traditional festivals and intangible cultural heritage protection [J].
Academic Interview, 2009, 2): 21-27.
[26]Zhou Xing.
National folk cultural and artistic heritage protection and grassroots communities [J].
National Art, 2004, 2):18-24.
Originally published in this article: Henan Social Sciences, No.
2, 2011