Laosicheng Legend
01 · Historical Records
The Peng tusi of Yongshun held office by inheritance for twenty-eight generations and thirty-five terms, from Peng Shichou in the Five Dynasties to the replacement of native officials by appointed officials in the seventh year of the Yongzheng reign of the Qing, 1729. In the fifth year of the Shaoxing reign of the Southern Song, 1135, Peng Fushi Chong, tusi of Lower Xizhou, moved his seat of government to Fushi city in Lingxi commandery, that is, the present Old Division City, and the histories record that “within the city three thousand households, outside it eight hundred families” and “a great town of the Five Streams, a frontier city of a hundred li”. The Laosicheng folk legends may be divided by content into two kinds: one is the Laosicheng legends, telling mainly the historical process of the building, rebuilding and moving of Old Division City and also concerning its main buildings and the surrounding mountains, rivers and features, such as The Origin of Old Division City, Ten Thousand Horses Pay Court, The Legend of the Xizhou Bronze Pillar, The Legend of the Ancestral Master Hall, The Self-Grown Bridge and Old Division City and the Lady of a Hundred Fruits. The other is the tusi legends, telling mainly the rise and fall of the tusi dynasty and reflecting the course of political, economic, military and cultural development of the Tujia in western Hunan, filling to a certain extent the gaps in Tujia history, such as The Legend of the Tusi King, The Legend of Wu Zhuchong, The Tusi King Battles Wu Zhuchong, Peng Yinan Resists the Japanese Pirates, The Hairy Man of Kedong, Tian Haohan, Old Official Xiang, The Legend of Tujia New Year and The Legend of the White-Nosed Tusi King.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Laosicheng legend is an oral legend current in Old Division City of Lingxi town, Yongshun county, in the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture of Hunan, and the area around it. Yongshun county lies in the north-west of Hunan and the north of the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture; it has many cultural remains and rich and varied humanistic sights, providing a rich soil for the nurturing and development of the Laosicheng legend. The group of Laosicheng legendary stories reflects in concentrated form more than eight hundred years of Tujia history from the Five Dynasties to the replacement of native officials by appointed officials. The Legend of the Tusi King tells how Peng Shichou, tusi of Xizhou, defeated the local leader Wu Zhuchong, concluded a covenant with Ma Xifan, king of Chu, and established the Peng local regime; Peng Yinan Resists the Japanese Pirates tells how the tusi Peng Yinan led the Tujia people in a great defeat of the Japanese pirates on the south-east coast. The Laosicheng legends are skilled in using various artistic means of expression, with vivid images and rich imagery, and have a striking literary colour.
The Origin of Old Division City and Ten Thousand Horses Pay Court
Legends telling the historical process of the building, rebuilding and moving of Old Division City and the surrounding mountains and features.
The Legend of the Xizhou Bronze Pillar, The Legend of the Ancestral Master Hall and The Self-Grown Bridge
Place-name and local-feature legends concerning the main buildings of Old Division City and the features around it.
The Tusi Legends (Peng Shichou, Peng Yinan Resists the Japanese Pirates)
Legends telling the rise and fall of the tusi dynasty and reflecting the course of Tujia political, economic, military and cultural development.
Telling at Old Division City and Dissemination through Song-and-Dance Drama
Transmission and dissemination through telling by villagers and guides, selections of folk stories and the arranging of song-and-dance dramas.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The Laosicheng legends have their core area of circulation in Old Division City of Lingxi town, Yongshun county, in the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture of Hunan, and the area around it, and radiate over the whole of Yongshun county and the Tujia areas of settlement in western Hunan. Their transmission is mainly by word of mouth among the local villagers; after the Old Division City site was protected and opened, guides, researchers and the staff of the protection unit also joined the ranks of telling and sorting them.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Laosicheng legends are handed down from generation to generation; the present transmitting group is mainly the local villagers and the guides of the Old Division City tourist company. In recent years, with the active support of the local government, the protection unit and the bearers have energetically advanced the transmission and dissemination of this heritage item by telling the legends, collecting and sorting related materials, publishing selections of folk stories and series of books, and arranging song-and-dance dramas. The Laosicheng legends are an important part of western Hunan folk literature and tusi culture and provide important reference materials for the study of the history of the Tujia of western Hunan and the tusi system. At the same time they also reflect the history of exchange and fusion between Han culture and the cultures of the ethnic minorities, and are vivid testimony to the great fusion of the Chinese nation, with relatively high social-cultural value.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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