Nvwa Legend
01 · Historical Records
The Xiangyang Prefectural Gazetteer of the Ming records: “Nüwa mountain lies west of the county of Zhushan… it is commonly said that this is the place where Nüwa smelted stones to mend the sky.” The Zhushan County Gazetteer of the fiftieth year of the Qianlong reign, 1785, under “Nüwa Mountain” records that “fifty li west of the county it is commonly said that where Nüwa smelted stones to mend the sky there is a Nüwa temple; the Song poet Liu Guangzu wrote ‘Few walk below Nüwa mountain, in the valley's voice a single bird cries’”, and records “the green lock of Wa mountain”.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Zhushan Nüwa legend has been current for a long time. Du Guangting of Shu in the Five Dynasties states clearly in his Records of the Strange: “In the Shangyong district of Fangzhou there is a temple of Fuxi and Nüwa… the ancient remains are there.” Works of art taking the Nüwa legend as their subject are complete in kind and many in number, such as shadow puppetry, folk paper cutting, wood carving, stone carving, bronze statues and stone images.
Nüwa Kneads Earth to Make People
The content of creating mankind in the making-people-and-mending-the-sky type of legend.
Smelting Stones to Mend the Sky
The legend of Nüwa smelting stones to mend the sky and save mankind; Nüwa mountain in Zhushan is said to be the place of the mending.
Brother and Sister Marrying and First Making the Sheng Reed-Organ
The legends of Nüwa multiplying mankind and first making the sheng reed-organ to educate mankind.
Sacrifices at Nüwa Mountain and the Lotus-Picking Boat Custom
The Nüwa sacrificial activities and the lotus-picking boat and other folk activities in the Nüwa mountain area of Baofeng town.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Nüwa legend tells a series of stories centred on Nüwa, the humanistic ancestor of the Chinese nation, and on this basis a series of customs and traditions connected with the legend has formed, widely distributed in Henan, Gansu, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Hebei, Hubei, Hunan and Sichuan. Baofeng town on the Du river basin is the core area of the Zhushan Nüwa legend. The villagers of the Nüwa mountain area of Baofeng town can almost all tell the Nüwa legend stories and sing Nüwa ballads, which together with the local Nüwa sacrificial activities and the lotus-picking boat and other folk activities connected with Nüwa make up the varied scenes of transmission practice of the Zhushan Nüwa legend. The Zhushan Nüwa legend is divided into the making-people-and-mending-the-sky type, the custom type and the local-feature type; its content includes Nüwa kneading earth to make people and creating mankind, brother and sister marrying to multiply mankind, smelting stones to mend the sky and save mankind, and first making the sheng reed-organ to educate mankind, as well as legends connected with the local features and natural and historical remains of Zhushan.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Zhushan county of Shiyan, Hubei, is one of the areas where the Nüwa legend is transmitted relatively densely. After the founding of the People's Republic of China the Nüwa legend with the characteristics of the new era has been continually transmitted and practised in the life of the people of Zhushan and has been widely collected and sorted. The Zhushan Nüwa legend has the features of localization of the legend, romanticization of the episodes, popularization of the language, secularization of the image, routinization of transmission and domestication of content; it permeates the life of the people of Zhushan, and its traces are to be found in production and labour, daily language, cultural activities and place names and local features. The Zhushan Nüwa legend is expressed mainly through oral telling, flower-drum boat songs, shadow puppetry and paper cutting, and each form has a transmitting group with a clear lineage of transmission, handed down from generation to generation by master-to-apprentice and collective transmission. With the development of protection work, Zhushan county has set up a Nüwa culture research association to collect and study the Nüwa legend in a concentrated way, systematically uncovering and enriching the Nüwa legend centred on Nüwa mountain, achieving certain results and advancing the contemporary transmission and development of the Zhushan Nüwa legend. The Zhushan Nüwa legend preserves such good customs of the Chinese as valuing human relations, observing rules and being practical and diligent, and the social and academic value it displays has attracted wide attention. Systematically uncovering and protecting the Nüwa legend has positive significance for carrying forward Chinese virtue.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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