Yaluwang
01 · Historical Records
From 2033 to 1562 BCE the Miao epic Yalu Wang already had its embryonic form, telling of the seventeen generations of kings of the Yalu kingdom creating the world, founding the state, pioneering enterprises and developing; it also tells of how from 221 to 202 BCE King Yalu led the Miao of the kingdom to migrate to Guizhou, successively developing and establishing capitals at Shangdubu, Guiyang, and Adaibu, Anshun, and finally at Mashan. The epic describes the genealogies of more than two hundred royal descendants of the Yalu kingdom and their migration and wars.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
This epic is often used in the Miao funeral rites of the Mashan area; it is a sacred chant to the return of the soul to the age of the Yalu kingdom. The chanting uses the western Miao language and its form of expression is flexible and varied: sometimes it is read and chanted in narrative form, sometimes in the form of spoken question and answer; repetitive and bi-and-xing devices abound, the poem is chiefly in prose poetry and the singing tune low and bleak. The departments concerned of Ziyun county are organising forces for transcription, recording, videoing, collating and translating.
The Chant of the Seventeen Generations of Kings
The chant telling of the seventeen generations of kings of the Yalu kingdom creating the world, founding the state, pioneering enterprises and developing.
The Chant of the Miao Migration and Founding of Capitals
The chant telling of King Yalu leading the Miao to migrate to Guizhou and to develop and establish capitals.
The Genealogies of the Royal Descendants
The epic's description of the genealogies of more than two hundred royal descendants of the Yalu kingdom and their migration and wars.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Yalu Wang is a Miao epic newly discovered in the local survey of intangible cultural heritage.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Yalu Wang is a heroic epic of the Miao, about twenty-six thousand lines long, involving more than ten thousand ancient figures, more than four hundred ancient Miao place names and detailed descriptions of more than twenty ancient battlefields, still transmitted orally to this day among more than three thousand singers of the Mashan Miao area. Most of the transmitters are already advanced in years and the work of continuing transmission and recording and collating is extremely urgent. It is first transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet, then translated literally into Chinese and finally collated into a Chinese text. Majiang is a poor county of Guizhou with limited funds; the epic is told in western Miao and mixed with much ancient Miao, and successors are scarce, so it urgently needs protection.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Chen Xinghua 04-1505
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
This static English edition is rendered at the edge for search engines, AI crawlers and readers without JavaScript; it mirrors the bilingual dossier. 阅读中文版，或返回 英文名录。