Badixiongsagun
01 · Historical Records
Part of the scriptures, through the myth of the war between the Thunder God and the Yellow Emperor, tell of the origin of the world, the emergence of all things, the formation of clans, production and labour, tribal warfare and ethnic migration and other historical and cultural information about the Miao.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The priest can achieve different functions by chanting different scriptures, hoping thereby to help the Miao solve the various problems of daily life. Badixiongsagun circulates widely over an area of more than three thousand square kilometres centred on the Laler mountain range in the Wuling mountains, and is preserved most completely in the Songtao Miao autonomous county of Tongren city, Guizhou. Songtao lies on the north-eastern edge of Guizhou, with a total population of seven hundred and forty thousand, of whom the Miao make up 68.1 per cent. Badixiongsagun is full of rich historical and cultural information; from the content of the scriptures and the ritual norms it can be judged that it was born along with the survival and development of the Miao, and that its history of creation and transmission should be no less than a thousand years and never interrupted. As an important part of Miao culture, the Badixiongsagun sacrificial rites and their orally transmitted scriptures take the ancient rites and laws as their basis and contain many texts of statutes and rules of conduct regulating the relations between people, between people and society and between people and nature. Each scripture has a similar main framework but differs in content and has a different educational meaning. Though Badixiongsagun is used in solemn rites, it also contains a boundless imagination. The scriptures make great use of metaphor, hiding the true meaning within a romantic surface meaning and giving infinite reverie. They also often use personification, personifying plants and animals and having them live in peace with mankind, proclaiming the view of survival that man and nature are a community of shared destiny. In some scriptures the litigation matters involved must be strictly conducted according to law, and the law enforcers may not abuse their powers. Badixiongsagun is transmitted mainly by long apprenticeship, mastering the rites and the oral scriptures with skill, and after confirmation by solemn rite, by “badixiong” priests with “legitimacy”.
The Scripture of the Myth of the War between the Thunder God and the Yellow Emperor
The scripture telling of the origin of the world, the emergence of all things, the formation of clans, tribal warfare and ethnic migration.
Scriptures for Funerals and Ancestor Sacrifices, Averting Calamity and Praying for Blessing
The scriptures chanted by priests in funerals and ancestor sacrifices, averting calamity and praying for blessing, seeking offspring and settling disputes.
The Hereditary “Badixiong” Priestly Families
The Miao priestly families that have transmitted it for five or six to eight or nine generations, and the transmission by apprenticeship and confirmation by rite.
About Fifteen Lyric-Form Oral Scriptures
About fifteen lyric-form oral scriptures with a relatively good basis of transmission, totalling about forty to fifty thousand lines.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
“Badixiongsagun” is a transliteration from the Miao language; it refers to the orally transmitted scriptures of the folk-literature kind chanted in the eastern dialect of Miao by Miao priests in such activities as funerals and ancestor sacrifices, averting calamity and praying for blessing, litigation, seeking offspring, settling disputes and harmonizing neighbours. The moral standards, norms of conduct and legal thought conveyed by Badixiongsagun have already formed a certain consensus locally and become the basic norms by which people get along, constituting a beneficial supplement to modern humanistic thought.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Nurtured by a deep Miao culture, every Miao village with a history of more than a hundred years has bearers of Badixiongsagun. About fifteen scriptures of Badixiongsagun with a relatively good basis of transmission exist today; these scriptures are all “lyric-form” oral texts, each of one thousand to four thousand lines, totalling about forty to fifty thousand lines. Miao priestly families have a hereditary tradition, and “badixiong” families that have transmitted it for five, six, eight or nine generations are still numerous today. It has research value in literature, history, ethnology, sociology and folklore studies, and has positive practical significance for perfecting the rural governance system, raising rural civility and building a harmonious society.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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