[Yang Lihui] Cooperation between the Government and the People: The Local Practice of Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection in China
Abstract: Existing intangible cultural heritage discourse often regards the intangible cultural heritage protection project under the framework of UNESCO as a new thing, contrasting it with the destruction of traditional culture in modern times in China to emphasize the differences between the two.
This article takes the Wa Palace in She County, Hebei Province and its Nuwa belief as a case to sort out the nearly 400-year history of local intangible cultural heritage protection practice from Ming Dynasty, Qing Dynasty, Republic of China to contemporary times, highlighting the long-term work of different actors in relevant aspects in history.
It believes that China's local intangible cultural heritage protection practice has a long history and provides internal factors for the smooth development of the intangible cultural heritage protection project launched by UNESCO in China in the early 21st century.
Comment on the latter, It should be taken into account in the overall history of local intangible cultural heritage protection; there is an intrinsic correlation between local intangible cultural heritage protection practices at different historical stages and with intangible cultural heritage protection projects under the UNESCO framework; The experience of intangible cultural heritage protection refined locally in China, such as focusing on "internal value" and the government-civilian collaboration model, provides useful reference for today's intangible cultural heritage protection projects.
Keywords: Intangible cultural heritage; local practice; overall protection history; relevance; Nuwa belief; Wa Palace Author profile: Yang Lihui, female, from Fukang, Xinjiang, professor and doctoral supervisor at Beijing Normal University, research direction is folklore, folk literature, mythology, intangible cultural heritage protection, etc.
The main points of this article were presented at the "Policies and Practices for Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection: A Comparison between China and the United States" International Academic Forum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, April 9 - 12, 2013.
Thanks to Tian Qing, Ma Shengde, Gao Bingzhong, Robert Baron,Nick Spitzer,Jessica Anderson-Turner and other experts for their advice!
Intangible cultural heritage (hereinafter referred to as "intangible cultural heritage") has increasingly become a hot topic of widespread concern and discussion in China society and academic circles in the past 10 years, and the research results have been very fruitful so far.
Overall, the focus of existing research is mainly based on the 2003 UNESCO (hereinafter referred to as "UNESCO"), the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage was adopted and immediately implemented (hereinafter referred to as the "Convention") and the working framework it establishes are the basic context, focusing on the protection practice of China after its accession to the Convention, or sorting out the development of the concept of "intangible cultural heritage" and its protection concept, or explain its importance, or discuss specific inheritance and protection measures, or reflect on problems existing in the protection process, and so on.
In my opinion, there are two obvious shortcomings in relevant research discourse on the whole: First, it often compares the intangible cultural heritage protection project under the framework of UNESCO with the development process of China's culture in the past century, especially the "May Fourth New Culture Movement" and the "Cultural Revolution" period, which have a more radical attitude towards traditional culture, and lacks attention to the longer history, especially the overall history of local cultural protection; Second, corresponding to the previous shortcoming, intangible cultural heritage protection projects under the framework of UNESCO are often regarded as new things, contrasting with, and sometimes even opposing, China's local cultural concepts.
In the comparison of "new" and "old", emphasize the differences between the two.
For example, Gao Bingzhong pointed out in his influential article "The Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in China and the End of the Cultural Revolution" that "the protection of intangible cultural heritage...
has redrawn the cultural map of China with heavy colors and created a new history.
It comes in with new words,...
re-affirming the value of many cultural matters originally denied by previous revolutions; It has opened a new social process, ended the cultural revolution that has prevailed in China society for nearly a century with the ecological concept of cultural symbiosis and the cultural mechanism of mutual recognition, and provided cultural consciousness for China that has long distorted its cultural identity in modern times.
A way..."① Hu Xiaohui also pointed out in the article" What new can the Convention for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage bring to China-Also on the concept of regional integrated protection of intangible cultural heritage ": UNESCO's Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, through the use and definition of new terms, may bring new frameworks, new ethics, new thinking and new initiatives to China and the world, that is, to inject modern values into China society (Universal moral standards and human rights concepts)..."② These intangible cultural heritage protection projects initiated by UNESCO have profoundly expounded and enthusiastically praised the great significance of China's culture, society and academia.
I very much agree that the development of intangible cultural heritage projects has indeed created new opportunities for the reshaping of modern cultural concepts in China and brought many new changes.
However, in my opinion, these discussions ignore or underestimate another dimension-the importance of the history of local intangible cultural heritage protection practice in China.
Obviously, intangible cultural heritage protection did not start at UNESCO.
Long before the project, similar protection practices had been launched in local society in China (although different names were used).
Regarding this point, most of the "intangible cultural heritage" discourse so far has been ignored.
The long-term work in relevant aspects of different actors in China's history (the government, intellectuals, and ordinary people, etc.) has not been sorted out and presented as it should.
Although some relevant people are aware of the importance of this dimension, for example, Vice Minister of Culture Xiang Zhaolun talked about "the concept and practice of the protection of intangible cultural heritage in China at the" 6th Chengdu International Forum on Intangible Cultural Heritage "held on June 10 this year, he pointed out that" Since 1979, China has carried out a survey on the phenomenon of ethnic and folk literature.
So far, it has collected about 5 billion words of data and published 318 volumes of the "Ten National and Folk Literature Collected Records".
About 470 million words "; ③ In his article "China's Practice and Experience in the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage", An Deming also pointed out that the "Three Sets of Integration of Folk Literature" and the "Ten Collected Records of China Folk Literature and Art", which were launched in the early 1980s and lasted for nearly 30 years,"laid a solid conceptual foundation for the smooth development of intangible cultural heritage protection work in China, and also cultivated a wide team of authors." ④ However, most of these explanations are limited to the point and lack of targeted efforts and argumentation.③ Obviously, relevant research needs to be supplemented urgently-the intangible cultural heritage protection project and its significance need to be placed in the overall history of local intangible cultural heritage protection and examined in the context of the correlation between intangible cultural heritage project and local practice.
Only in this way can we obtain a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of the project.
The above reflections constitute the starting point of this article.
This article will be based on the author's long-term research on the belief in Nuwa Palace in She County County, Hebei Province, and using relevant inscriptions as data sources.
It will sort out the many efforts made by the local government, intellectuals, the leaders of the Xianghui Association and ordinary believers to protect the belief in Nuwa in the nearly 400-year historical process since the Ming Dynasty, in an attempt to present a relatively complete process of local social and cultural protection practice, and to see the intrinsic connection between intangible cultural heritage protection projects and China local practice.
Before starting a formal discussion, there are several key issues that need to be explained in advance.
First, as defined in the Convention, intangible cultural heritage refers to "the various social practices, conceptual expressions, manifestations, knowledge, skills and related tools, objects, handicrafts and cultural venues that are regarded by communities, groups, and sometimes individuals as part of their cultural heritage." This intangible cultural heritage has been passed down from generation to generation and is constantly recreated as communities and groups adapt to their surrounding environment and interact with nature and history, providing these communities and groups with a sense of identity and continuity, thereby enhancing cultural diversity.
and respect for human creativity."① The belief in Nuwa, which has been spread in She County, Hebei Province and the vast area of China, has long been cherished by relevant communities and groups, and has provided it with a sense of identity and continuity.
It is an important intangible cultural heritage.
In 2006, the Nuwa Festival in She County was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage.
It should be noted that intangible cultural heritage not only refers to those "heritage heritage" selected and recognized by experts and authoritative institutions, but also includes broader "heritage heritage" that has not been recognized and included in various intangible cultural heritage protection lists, but has inherent historical and artistic value in a universal sense.② Many people think that the term "intangible cultural heritage" only refers to projects included in various protection lists, but it is actually a misunderstanding.
The concept of "intangible cultural heritage" mentioned in this article follows the definition of the Convention and does not distinguish between "essential heritage" and "cognitive heritage".
Second, intangible cultural heritage and material culture are inseparable.
As quoted above, in the definition of the Convention, it is clearly pointed out that "intangible cultural heritage" refers not only to intangible "various social practices, conceptual expressions, forms of expression, knowledge, and skills", but also to material "related" Tools, objects, handicrafts and cultural venues ", often combined to constitute a complete, tangible intangible cultural heritage.
For the maintenance and continuation of Nuwa's belief in Nuwa, temples constitute the most important material entity.
They not only embody and carry the believers 'belief in Nuwa, but also provide a physical cultural place for the specific implementation of belief behaviors; The Tongtong stone tablet standing in the Palace of Wa Wa expresses the beliefs, concepts and emotions of believers in different eras towards the Virgin Mary of Emperor Wa, and records vivid protection incidents one after another.
It not only constitutes a related "object" of Nuwa's belief, but also provides valuable archives for inspecting the protection status of Nuwa's belief in history.
Since the historical existence of the Nuwa belief as an "intangible" heritage has so far been remote, this article's investigation of the historical protection of the Nuwa belief in local society in She County will mainly be carried out by inspecting the construction and recording of relevant material entities-temples and stele inscriptions.
Third, the source of this article.
There are still nearly 80 stone steles published and engraved in the Wa Palace from the 37th year of Wanli of the Ming Dynasty (1609) to 2004 in a total of 395 years.
In addition to the earliest stone steles in the 37th year of Wanli, the Ming Dynasty has other steles erected in the 44th year of Wanli (1616), the sixth year of Tianqi (1626), and the first year of Chongzhen (1628), totaling 4; There are also two contemporary stone monuments erected in 1992 and 2004, and the rest were erected during the Qing Dynasty and Republic of China.③ These precious stone tablets continue the tradition of publishing stone tablets in ancient China temples-monuments must be erected to record every new construction, renovation or other important event.
The inscription not only records the local society's views on the myth and belief of Nuwa, the reasons and process of the renovation of the Nwa Palace and its ancillary buildings, but also records the main body of the maintenance, the source of funding, the names of the donors and the amount of donations, etc., showing the history of the Nwa belief from the Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty, the Republic of China to contemporary times, as well as the protection methods adopted by different subjects here, provide an important basis for understanding the protection process of the Nwa belief in the nearly 400 years since Ming Dynasty.
This article will select 8 stone tablets from these nearly 80 stone tablets, including 2 in the Ming Dynasty, 3 in the Qing Dynasty (two of them record events at the same time, which can be regarded as one analysis), 1 in the Republic of China, and 2 in the contemporary era.
On the one hand, the selection took into account the balance of the number of inscriptions selected between different eras as much as possible, and on the other hand, it also took into account the balance of official and non-governmental power-well-made and well-preserved stone tablets and their inscriptions inevitably reflected more official voices.
Therefore, the author also included individual inscriptions that were simply made and of low status into the scope of analysis.
In short, the inscriptions on the eight stone tablets have become the main text analyzed in this paper.
1.
Nuwa Faith and Wa Palace in She County
She County is located in the southwest of Hebei Province, with an area of 1509 square kilometers and a population of 420,000.① This is one of the areas where the Nuwa belief is most prevalent in China.
According to my statistics, there are currently nearly 20 Nuwa temples in the county.
Among them, the Nuwa Palace built on the mountainside of Zhonghuang Mountain is the oldest in historical records and the largest building scale.
The entire building complex is divided into two parts: the foot of the mountain and the mountain.
There are three buildings at the foot of the mountain, from bottom to top, they are Chaoyuan Palace, Tingcan Palace (commonly known as "Xiema Hall") and Guangsheng Palace (commonly known as "Xieshuang Hall").
The main building on the mountain is Wa Huang Pavilion (commonly known as the "Xiangdian"), which is 23 meters high and consists of four floors.
The first floor is a grotto (commonly known as the "Worship Hall", which is the main place where believers pay tribute to burn incense and worship Nuwa and grandma).
Three-story wooden lofts are built on top of the grotto, called "Qingxu Pavilion","Creation Pavilion" and "Butian Pavilion" respectively, which houses statues of Nuwa making people and mending the sky.
Other ancillary buildings include dressing buildings, bell towers, drum towers and archways with the inscription "Ancient Ruins of Emperor Wa".
The buildings on the mountain and at the foot of the mountain are connected by the Shibadan Mountain Road.
Every year, the Wa Palace Temple Fair is held from the first day to the 18th day of the third month of the lunar calendar.
March 18th is said to be the birthday of Grandma Nuwa.
According to the "Notes on the Rebuilding of the Emperor's Jiao Wa Palace" in the third year of Xianfeng in the Qing Dynasty (1853):"The gate opens on the first day of March every year, and the 18th day is the birthday of the god.
Men and women gathered hundreds of miles far and far, feeling Stone, no prayer, no prayer, and the spiritual gift was clear.
It has a long history." It can be seen that the Wa Palace Temple Fair has been in history.
Today, the temple fair here is still very grand, with pilgrims from hundreds of miles nearby and from Shanxi, Henan, Hebei and other places coming to visit the temple.
Sometimes the number of people a day can reach as much as 14,000.② In 2006, the China Folk Literary and Art Association awarded Shexian the title of "Hometown of Nuwa Culture in China." In the same year, the "Nuwa Festival" here was also announced by the State Council as the first batch of "National Intangible Cultural Heritage."
As for when the Nuwa belief began locally and when the Wa Palace was first built, it is still impossible to verify.
Local people have many opinions about the initial construction of Wa Palace.
One theory is that it was built in the Han Dynasty.
It is mainly based on the inscription in the "Annals of the Establishment of Emperor Wa's Holy Emperor" during the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty (1796 - 1820):"There were ancient caves on cliffs.
When Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty founded three temples, made statues of gods, and worshipped ceremonies.
It was originally called Zhonghuang Mountain." Some scholars therefore inferred that this temple should have been founded during the reign of Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty (179 - 155 BC).
I think this statement is reasonable, because the Han Dynasty was a period when the belief in Nuwa was very active.
The tomb portraits unearthed in many places contained the image of Nuwa.
It is very possible that her temple was first built here.
However, many local people believe that the Wa Palace was built by Emperor Wenxuan of the Northern Qi Dynasty (reigned from 550 to 559 AD).
③ According to the records in the Chronicles of She County in the fourth year of Jiaqing of the Qing Dynasty (1799):"It is said that Emperor Wenxuan Gao Yang traveled from Ye to Jinyang...
Hundreds of monks were seen walking by here on the mountainside, so three stone chambers were opened and statues were carved...
There is the Temple of Emperor Wa on top of it, and the incense is very abundant." I don't think this statement is very credible: this account only shows that Emperor Wenxuan promoted Buddhism here, but does not show that he built the Nuwa Temple.
Therefore, Emperor Wenxuan may not have a direct relationship with the construction of the Wa Palace.
In short, due to the lack of documentary records, details of the protection of the Nuwa belief in She County before the Wanli Year of the Ming Dynasty are no longer known.
However, the protection process from the Ming Dynasty to the present depends on the inscriptions retained in the Wa Palace, which is relatively clear.
2.
Protection incidents recorded in the Badong Stone Monument
Let's take a look at the history of local protection engraved on these eight stone tablets and their inscriptions.
(1) Ming Dynasty
The first stone tablet in the Ming Dynasty (Ming Stele 1) was erected in the 37th year of Wanli (1609).
It is engraved with the "Stele Notes on the Rebuilding of the Temple of Emperor Wa." The inscription was written by Wang Xiyao, a Tongzhou official of Yangfu in Zhili.
It records the beliefs, customs and reasons and process of the restoration of the Temple of Emperor Wa in She County about 400 years ago: Due to Nuwa's outstanding achievements such as marrying, suppressing floods, refining stones to mend the sky, and making sheng reps and strings, as well as his great power and unsatisfactory effectiveness, believers from far and near came to pay homage and worship, and the incense in the Nwa Palace was very prosperous.
Unexpectedly, in the first month of 1608, the Wa Palace was hit by a fire, and "every piece of wood and tiles turned to ashes." Pan Gong, the county magistrate at that time, couldn't bear to see such a situation, so he ordered some officials and abbots to gather craftsmen to rebuild a hall.
As a result, County Magistrate Pan passed away before the main hall was completed.
The new magistrate Zhang decided to continue the career that his predecessor had not completed, and finally made the Wa Palace majestic and magnificent,"completely transformed".① Ming Stele 2 is an inlaid stele erected in the first year of Chongzhen (1628).
Gongsheng Zhang Xiangye wrote the inscription "Notes on the Creation of the Wa Emperor Pavilion".
② It records the collaborative efforts of the people and the government to build the Wa Emperor Pavilion: Because Nu Wa's family "changed their surnames, learned different customs, eliminated the Gong and stopped the flood", it was worshipped by people all over the world.
In the Jiazi year of Tianqi (1624), local people began to build the Wa Huang Pavilion, which was completed in the first year of Chongzhen.
The main leaders included "Yuan Cunshun and Zhao Keying, the abbot of the vow, Zhang Changqing, and Chen Yizhi, the collector of the Qing Dynasty." The county government also funded and assisted the construction project ("The three princes of Yi will pay all the money and take it directly for the expenses of the pavilion").
(2) Qing Dynasty
There were many stone tablets in the Qing Dynasty, some were erected by the government and some by ordinary believers.
The events recorded varied from big to small.
The big ones were like the reconstruction of the entire Wa Palace building complex, and the small ones were like the digging of ponds to store water.
Providing places for pilgrims to fry tea and rest, or creating several altar tables, etc.
The Qing Stele 1 selected in this article was erected in the 13th year of Jiaqing (1808) and is also an inlaid stele.
The inscription is titled "Inscriptions on the Creation of the Main Hall Railing Stone and the Reconstruction of the Dressing Tower and the Platform".
③ It was written by the local scholar Cui Menglei.
The language is relatively rough, but it clearly records the spontaneous construction of the railing stones of the Main Hall of Wa Emperor Pavilion by the local people and the reconstruction of the dressing building and the platform, as well as the maintenance of the Wa Emperor Pavilion by the two generations.
Probably because the project was small, the entire incident was completed without the participation of the government.
It was completely completed by the joint efforts of the Chief Wei (Chief Xiang Hui), believers and relevant Taoist priests.
The general course of the incident was as follows: In the fifty-eighth year of Qianlong (1793), three Taoist families, ten Lao Wei families, and dozens of nearby Wei families elected two main families to start building the railing stones of the main hall of the Wa Huang Pavilion and rebuild the dressing floor.
The project was supervised by Guo Zizhen of Suobao Village and Shizi Guojing of Shijiazhuang.
Everyone worked together and took more than ten years to complete the project.
After that, all the leaders resigned from their posts, and only the old leader, together with the Taoist priest, maintained the Pavilion of Emperor Wa every year and added it many times.
Later, when Guo passed away and Shi was old, Shi He, the eldest son of Shi, inherited the throne."He is happy and benevolent in his father's work, and he does his own duty and forgets personal."
Qing Monument 2 and 3 were both erected in the third year of Xianfeng (1853).
These two stone steles stand on both sides of the foundation of the Wa Emperor Pavilion, and are in prominent positions.
The content of the stone tablets all tells the same thing: in the second year of Xianfeng, due to inadvertent sacrifice, Wa Palace was burned down by fire, and County Magistrate Li Yuzhen organized the reconstruction of Wa Palace.
Therefore, these two monuments can be treated as one.
The stone tablet on the south side is the "Inscriptions on the Rebuilding of the Emperor Wa Palace in Jiao Jiao of Tang Dynasty" written by Li Yuzhen, which records the entire process of rebuilding the Emperor Wa Palace at that time: after the fire, the temple buildings were completely destroyed, and the county magistrate couldn't bear to see that "the gods were inappropriate, and the historical relics would be buried." So he selected more than 10 experienced local squires and businessmen, some responsible for raising funds, some responsible for supervising the project, and the neighboring villages were also kind and helpful.
More than a year later, the burned buildings were all completely new and more spectacular than before.
In addition, a new archway and a forest of steles were built to record the names of the givers and the status of the project one by one.
The North Monument was a "Merit Monument" erected by people from all walks of life in She County at that time to commemorate Li Yuzhen's merits, praising County Magistrate Li for his dedication in the reconstruction project of Wa Palace.
What is particularly noteworthy is that on the back of the Merit Monument is engraved with an official announcement issued by the county government, promulgating 12 protection measures for the Wa Palace, publicly stating that although the reconstruction of the Wa Palace is "completed", it will still need to continue every year in the future.
Maintenance, so 12 measures were formulated to make the protection of the Wa Palace sustainable ("Detailed Regulations are formulated to make it permanent").
These 12 measures include:
When opening the temple door, the Taoist priest sent people to guard against incense.
During the fourth, fifth and sixth years of Xianfeng, he was co-manager of Tingcan Palace, Guangsheng Palace and Chaoyuan Palace.
Every year, incense money is given inside the temple and downstairs, all of which are returned to the public, and the rest will be divided equally according to shares.
From then on, each will be managed for one year, and the cycle will continue.
The incense money collected every year for distribution in the hall and downstairs of the dressing room will be distributed outside and will not be used for personal use in preparation for repairs.
Repair every three years...
Men and women everywhere enter the incense and are not allowed to stay on the roof at night.
Violators will be investigated.
No matter what kind of people are, they are not allowed to gather and gamble at the top.
Violators will be severely punished, and senior Taoist priests will be investigated...①
(3) The Republic of China period
The information on stone tablets in the Republic of China that I have seen is not as much as that of the Qing Dynasty.
Currently, there are only two copies that can be seen.
The writing style of the inscriptions is in line with that of the Qing Dynasty.
Tong Tong was established in the fourth year of the Republic of China (1915) and records the renovation of Guangsheng Palace.
Since it does not directly reflect the protection of Nuwa's belief, it is omitted here.
Another monument was erected in the fifth year of the Republic of China (1916) and records the local reconstruction of Tanguan Palace.② Tingcan Palace is an important part of the Wa Palace.
High-ranking officials and dignitaries must get off their horses to show their piety.
Men, women and old, take a short rest and repair here,"then concentrate their mind and look serious", and then go up the mountain to worship Nuwa.
Due to the wind and rain erosion, the temple looked bald.
Therefore, the Uighurs worked together to raise money and repair it one after another.
It took more than a year to complete, and the Tingcan Palace was once again "resplendent." The project cost "more than a thousand dollars", all of which came from donations from all parties.
In the more than 70 years since then, the number of stele inscriptions has decreased significantly.
The main reason for this phenomenon is frequent wars and political movements: in 1937, Japan invaded North China, and some buildings in the main hall and adjacent halls of the Chaoyuan Palace were burned down by the Japanese army.
The long-standing custom of "organizing a society" of worshiping the Virgin Mary of Emperor Wa was also forced to stop and was restored after 1949; during the "Elimination of Feudal Superstition" movement in the 1950s, some temples were demolished and clay statues in each hall were destroyed; During the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, the pottery animals on the ridge of the temple and the precious murals in the temple were destroyed, and the custom of "setting up a society" was terminated again.④ However, despite frequent disasters, the belief in Nuwa has not stopped flowing and is still passed down tenaciously.
The people have also tried every means to protect their beliefs and traditions.
In She County, it is widely circulated that grandma Nuwa showed her spirit and protected the leaders of Liu and Deng's army and ordinary people from the Japanese army's arrest; ④ There are also many legends about people fighting wisdom and courage with the "rebels" during the Cultural Revolution to protect the statues and sacred objects of Nuwa.
④ All reflect the survival and protection of the belief in Nuwa in those special times from some aspects.
It is precisely because of the continuous cultural context and the passing down of generations that as soon as the Cultural Revolution ended and when the Wa Palace was reopened to the public in the late 1970s, it immediately flourished and pilgrims gathered.
Since then, the local government has also re-strengthened the protection of Wa Palace, successively renovated all halls and pavilions, and re-painted all statues in 1987, giving the inside of Wa Palace a completely new look.
(4) Contemporary
It is against this background that two very prominent contemporary monuments have been added to the Wa Palace.
Among them, the first stone tablet was written by Ma Naiting, then a member of the Standing Committee of the County Party Committee, which was erected by the Cultural Relics Preservation Office of She County in 1992.
The inscription is titled "Notes on the Repair and Continuation of the Wa Palace." The writing style of the inscription maintains obvious consistency with that of the Ming, Qing and Republic of China.
It lists the main disasters that the Wa Palace has encountered in the past half century in concise and clear words, including "wind invades and rain, snow and frost, war, and man-made disasters." Cheng Yaofeng, director of the county cultural relics preservation office, was commended for his primary contribution in the process of revitalizing the belief in Nuwa and rebuilding the Wa Palace.
He "asked for funds from the government and raised pennies from the common people." He spent 15 years and spent a total of 450,000 yuan.
Rebuilding the halls, reshaping the statues, and finally giving the Wa Palace a new look.⑦
Contemporary Monument 2 was erected in 2004.
Wang Shiqu, then county party secretary, and Cui Jianguo, county magistrate, wrote an article titled "Notes on the Rebuilding of Wa Palace in 2004." This inscription is completely different from the seven quoted above.
It is written in modern Chinese, but the internal narrative structure still conforms to the old inscription, clearly recording the incident of the county party committee and county government re-planning and repairing the Wa Palace more than ten years ago: "Since 2001, the Communist Party of China's She County County Party Committee and She County People's Government have vigorously implemented the strategy of strengthening the county through culture,...
building tourist attractions, creating well-known brands, and creating an ecological tourism city.
Tourism in the county is booming.
Over the past few years, the Wa Palace Scenic Area has invested a total of more than 30 million yuan...
to build the Emperor Wa Mending the Sky Cultural Square...
The granite statue of Nuwa is sculpted at the foot of the mountain, and the Emperor Wa's golden body is reshaped in the Wa Palace on the mountain.
kind and dignified...
It was rated as an AAAA tourist attraction after acceptance by the National Tourism Administration in August 2004...".
3.
The relevance and characteristics of the above protection incidents
The Shangyin Badong stone steles are only one tenth of the existing stone steles in the Wa Palace.
Like other stone steles, they are engraved with the great efforts and efforts made by the local society in She County from government officials, intellectuals, Weishou and ordinary believers to maintain the survival of the Nuwa belief in the nearly 400 years since Ming Dynasty.
It clearly demonstrates the intrinsic connection between protection practices at different historical stages and also reflects its connection with the intangible cultural heritage protection project under the framework of UNESCO.
In order to make it easier for readers to discover the correlations and differences of some of the main protective factors revealed in these Badong Steles, please see the following table: Table 18 The intrinsic correlations and characteristics of the Tongtong Steles,
From the summary outlined in the above table, we can find that in the past 400 years, the relevance shown by the local society of She County in the protection of Nuwa's belief has the following characteristics:
Protection motives have long focused on "internal value".
Among the first seven stone steles, except for the Qing Monument 1, which did not explicitly mention the reason for its construction and the Qing Monument 3, which was the "Monument of Merit", the rest clearly stated the motivation for protection-which originated from the respect for Nuwa's belief: on the one hand, Nuwa kneaded soil to create humans, refined stones to mend the sky, etc.,"merits and virtues shine together with the sun and moon"; on the other hand, its power is vast, and "no prayer is answered, and the spiritual power shines brightly"", which makes people fear and respect".
Often because the temple (or part of it) was destroyed or dilapidated, the person in charge couldn't bear to "make the gods inappropriate", so he began to take corresponding protective actions.
That is to say, the original intention of its protection is entirely based on the understanding and respect for the "internal value" of Nuwa's belief.
The "internal value" mentioned here, according to Liu Tieliang's definition, refers to "the value recognized by the people in the bureau and actually used in life", and also "the role of folk culture in the society and historical time and space in which it exists"; the opposite "external value" refers to the concepts, comments, etc.
added to these cultures by outsiders, or the economic benefits and other values obtained through commercial packaging.① Compared with the above-mentioned monuments, the content of the stone tablets in 2004 is quite different.
Although it also mentions that Nuwa was the "ancestor of China" and her mythical achievements of refining stones to mend the sky and kneading soil to create people-indicating that her "internal value" has not been completely ignored, what the entire inscription highlights is mainly the emphasis on "external value", that is, the pursuit of the tourism industry and its economic benefits.
From this, we can see the significant impact of the contemporary wave of cultural commercialization on the protection and reproduction of folk beliefs.
Protect the diversity of subjects.
As far as the inheritance and survival of intangible cultural heritage is concerned, the subject of protection often plays a crucial role.
So, during the nearly 400-year inheritance of the Nuwa Faith in She County, who is the subject of protection? It is not difficult to find from the eight inscriptions that due to different times and social environments, the composition of the protection subject and the way it operates have very distinctive diversified characteristics: Sometimes it is completely led by local governments, and sometimes it is mainly the spontaneous action of non-governmental forces.
But more often, it is a model of government-people collaboration.
The participants include local governments and officials at all levels, intellectuals and businessmen, as well as Weishou and ordinary believers.
In this cooperation model, the government is often in the dominant position.
This diverse composition of parties involved in protection and its operating model are still very common in intangible cultural heritage protection projects in China.
Moreover, judging from the inscription, no matter what kind of protection subject, it played a positive and effective role in the continued inheritance of Nuwa's belief.
Rich and diverse protection measures with distinctive local characteristics.
In the past 400 years, people have adopted various protection measures with distinctive local characteristics in response to different problems that have emerged.
Among them, the most important are the following three:
(1) Build temples.
As mentioned earlier, the existence and protection of intangible cultural heritage cannot be separated from the bearing of real material culture.
The two complement each other and are two sides of the same body.
For faith, the existence of temples is crucial.
It can be seen from the inscriptions quoted in this article that the local society in She County's maintenance and inheritance of the belief in Nuwa is mainly reflected in the repair and protection of the fundamental cultural places where belief activities depend.
Except for Qing Stele 1, the rest of the inscriptions all involve the restoration, expansion and addition of Wa Palace (Pavilion)(including ancillary buildings).
In fact, providing cultural venues for related intangible cultural heritage projects to survive or perform is still a common measure in the international and domestic intangible cultural heritage protection field to this day.
For example, the Aitysh/Aitys (artofimprovision) jointly declared by Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, which were included in the list of representative works of human intangible cultural heritage in 2015, listed providing a place for the practice of this oral art as an important part of the protection measures taken by local governments.②
(2) Establish a monument.
According to the provisions of the Convention,"documentation" is one of the main means of intangible cultural heritage protection (Article 2, paragraph 3, of the Convention).
In this case,"Le Shi hanging permanent" has obviously become the most commonly used recording method with China local characteristics that has been used today in local society in She County.
The inscriptions record not only people's beliefs and customs in Nuwa, but also the causes, process and results of the protection incident.
They are of great significance for future generations to understand the knowledge of relevant intangible cultural heritage projects, enhance their understanding of it, and archive protection events and processes.
(3) Develop protective measures.In Qingbei 3, the county government formulated very detailed and targeted protection measures, which not only involved maintaining the safety of the existing Wa Huang Pavilion (For example, beware of incense; you are not allowed to gamble on the top of the mountain and fire shotguns and iron cannons in the temple yard; you are not allowed to cut firewood, herd cattle and sheep, etc.), appearance (It is not allowed to hang plaques on the front eaves of Wa Emperor Pavilion and other places without authorization; it is not allowed to destroy the writing on the stele; even the unified pasting of window paper is also taken into account), and sustainable development in the future is also taken into account-for example, repairing Wa Palace every three years; stipulating the source and distribution of maintenance funds (for example,"every year, enjoy the incense money inside the palace and downstairs, return all of it to the public, and share the rest equally according to shares ").
The measures are very specific and highly targeted, and also include severe punishment measures (offenders are "severely punished" and "severely punished", and sometimes the Taoist priest on duty is held accountable together).
This kind of protection rule formulated and promulgated by the government obviously has stronger authority and binding force than ordinary folk contracts.
It can be said to be a very important part of the early and conscious practice of intangible cultural heritage protection in China.
Similar ideas and measures are still being passed down today-official legislation is undoubtedly one of the most powerful ways to protect intangible cultural heritage today.
The "Intangible Cultural Heritage Law of the People's Republic of China" officially passed and began to implement by the China government in 2011 is proof of this.
Diversified funding sources.
The eight steles show that in the process of protecting the local Nuwa belief and maintaining the Wa Palace, funding sources were varied.
Sometimes it was entirely the investment of the local government (such as the incident recorded in the stele in 2004), and sometimes it was the result of people gathering together.
However, more often it was the cooperation of the government and the people to "solicit funds from all directions" and "seek funds from the government and collect money from the common people." This model can also be often seen in the current intangible cultural heritage protection work in many areas of my country.
Of course, some of the above-mentioned protection characteristics may have specific historical stages (such as erecting monuments as a recording method), but most of them are highly model-oriented and sustainable, so they have been passed down in local protection practices in different historical stages for a long time.
It also maintains an intrinsic connection with today's intangible cultural heritage protection projects under the framework of UNESCO.
conclusion
The practice of protecting local intangible cultural heritage in China has a long history.
It has provided local fertile soil and constitutes an indispensable internal cause for the intangible cultural heritage protection project launched by UNESCO in the early 21st century to successfully take root, blossom and grow rapidly in China.
Realizing this will not only help us correctly view and evaluate the function and significance of intangible cultural heritage protection projects under the framework of the United Nations, but also help us build cultural confidence and draw nourishment from our own rich historical accumulation, thereby benefiting today's intangible cultural heritage protection practice.
Obviously, the new functions and new significance created by the United Nations Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Project should be evaluated in the overall history of local Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection.
If we ignore China's long-standing cherishing and protecting its own cultural traditions, and only emphasize the destruction of traditional culture in modern times (in fact, the cases in this article show that even during the radical Cultural Revolution, cultural protection efforts have been ongoing), highlighting the revolutionary significance of UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage protection project in the binary opposition of "old" and "new","destruction" and "protection", in my opinion, it is somewhat one-sided and fair.
There is an intrinsic correlation between local intangible cultural heritage protection practices in different historical stages and with intangible cultural heritage protection projects under the framework of UNESCO.
The case of protecting the Nuwa belief in She County fully shows that in the nearly 400 years from the Ming, Qing, Republic of China to the present, there are obvious correlations in many aspects such as protection motives, protection subjects, protection measures, and funding sources, such as the participation of multiple subjects; temple building is to maintain a fundamental cultural place for Nuwa belief activities; monument erecting is a long-used recording method with local characteristics; Official promulgation of regulations and formulation of protective measures are powerful and powerful means of protecting intangible cultural heritage today.
They have played a fundamental role in the inheritance of the Nuwa Faith in She County over the past 400 years.
This belief can persist in the local area and be passed down from generation to generation, and its ritual can be successfully included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage protection lists in 2006.
It is inseparable from the many protection efforts made by local society over the long history of the past.
On the other hand, many local intangible cultural heritage protection models have been widely used in intangible cultural heritage protection projects under the framework of UNESCO, which also shows that current intangible cultural heritage protection measures and policies are not born out of nowhere, but often have long-term historical practical experience.
accumulation.
In other words, the vigorous intangible cultural heritage protection movement in China today is to a certain extent a further advancement and deepening of the local tradition of continuous and endless cultural protection.
The experience of intangible cultural heritage protection refined locally in China provides useful reference for today's intangible cultural heritage protection projects.
As far as the case in this article is concerned, the motivation for protection focuses on "internal values" and the "government-civilian collaboration" model in the protection process deserve special attention.
In the Convention and its derivative documents, it is particularly emphasized that communities, groups or individuals are the key subjects in the production, identification, protection, continuation and re-creation of intangible cultural heritage; the purpose of intangible cultural heritage protection is to ensure that intangible cultural heritage remains within the group of people and can continue to be practiced and passed on through the group of people.
① Therefore, understanding and respect for the "values recognized and actually used in life" by community people as "insiders" should become the basic principle of intangible cultural heritage protection work.
However, this point does not seem to have been fully paid attention to by many relevant practitioners.
The enthusiasm and pursuit of "external values" such as economic interests has become a global issue in the current protection of intangible cultural heritage.
① The weakening of internal values and the increase of "external values" generated in the process of "heritagization" have also triggered many criticisms of the current intangible cultural heritage protection movement by many scholars.② In view of this, China's long-term experience of focusing on "internal value" in its local practice history can provide valuable inspiration for today's intangible cultural heritage protection work.
In addition, the protection model of multi-subject participation, government-civilian collaboration, and often government-led protection presented in this case has not only proved to be very effective in the nearly 400 years of protection in She County, but is still very common in the practice of intangible cultural heritage protection in China and other countries.
This model is not completely consistent with the "community-centered" and anti-"top-down "protection spirit advocated by the Convention and its derivative documents, but it is more practical and feasible to implement in the specific contexts of China.
It provides practical and effective supplements to relevant idealized concepts in UNESCO's intangible cultural heritage protection policy, ③, and demonstrates the creativity of China's local intangible cultural heritage protection practice.
(The original text is published in Journal of Yunnan Normal University, No.
06, 2017, with the annotations omitted, and refer to the original issue for details)