Youyang Ancient Songs
01 · Historical Records
The Youyang ancient songs are the verses chanted by wu-nuo masters in ancestor worship, prayers for fertility and rites of driving out evil and redeeming vows; they circulate in the Youyang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County of Chongqing at the junction of Hunan, Hubei, Chongqing and Guizhou, their origin tracing back to the shaman songs of remote antiquity, and are the product of the continuation and evolution of the ancient culture of the south in the Wuling mountain area.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Youyang ancient songs are the verses chanted by wu-nuo masters in ancestor worship, prayers for fertility and rites of driving out evil and redeeming vows, circulating in the Youyang Tujia and Miao Autonomous County of Chongqing and the product of the continuation and evolution of the ancient culture of the south in the Wuling mountain area. Their style is uncanny, and their origin may be traced to the shaman songs of remote antiquity; they are the general collection of the natural and social knowledge accumulated by the working people over a long time. Transmitted orally, their wording fixed and with little improvisation, they preserve a great deal of primitive information and artistic elements. The verses include the free form rhyming on alternate lines and the regulated form of two-line and four-line stanzas rhyming at the end, mostly four- and seven-character patterns interwoven, with two singing styles, the high tune and the plain tune, quite charming. Taking folk activities as their vehicle, they transmit a system of cosmic knowledge and the skills of group survival and are an ancient and magnificent treasure house of folk literature, greatly promoting the spread of regional and traditional culture and having an important influence on the literature of later writers.
The Custom Poem Hiding the Body and Avoiding the Shadow
One of the representative Youyang ancient songs.
The Praise Poem The Eastern Peak Reaching Heaven Is the Prince of Qi
One of the representative Youyang ancient songs.
The Incantation Poem The Four Seasons of the Year
One of the representative Youyang ancient songs.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Taking folk activities as their vehicle and transmitting a system of cosmic knowledge and the skills of group survival, the Youyang ancient songs are an ancient and magnificent treasure house of folk literature.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Youyang ancient songs reflect the forebears' ideas of nature worship, ancestor worship and the worship of ghosts and gods, mixed with elements of Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism; they have a long history, wide influence and extremely high academic research value. Protecting them is of great significance for studying the wu-nuo culture and folk literature of the Wuling mountain area, and they have important research value.
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。