Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1653: Can't Delay

"Then let me change to our country's own definition." Seeing that Tu Liangzhi was a little confused, Zhou Zhi said: "In our country, intangible cultural heritage refers to various traditional cultural expressions that have been passed down from generation to generation by people of all ethnic groups and regarded as part of their cultural heritage, as well as physical objects and places related to traditional cultural expressions."

"Specific items should include: traditional oral literature and the language that carries it; traditional fine arts, calligraphy, music, dance, drama, folk art and acrobatics; traditional skills, medicine and calendar; traditional rituals, festivals and other folk customs; traditional sports and entertainment; and other intangible cultural heritage."

"To put it more bluntly, my country's intangible cultural heritage should include the folk literature, traditional music, traditional dance, traditional drama, folk art, traditional sports, entertainment and acrobatics, traditional fine arts, traditional skills, traditional medicine, and folk customs of various ethnic groups. These are roughly what it is, as well as the utensils, production tools, processing sites, and performance sites needed to match these skills."

Wu Renzhong was stunned: "This... Old man, it seems like all this is your job..."

The Yi people have their own language and writing system, also known as "Cuanwen" and "Weishu". Many books from the Ming and Qing dynasties said that this writing system "has characters like tadpoles" and "1,840 letters".

There are many different opinions about when Yi language originated, but what is certain is that it has a very long history, far longer than Chinese characters.

A number of carved symbols unearthed in Pengtou Mountain, Li County, Jiahu, Wuyang, etc. can be interpreted in ancient Yi language. If we calculate according to this, ancient Yi language must have a long history of more than 9,000 years. If we add its initial period, it may be more than 10,000 years.

It is not an exaggeration to call it the "ancestor of world writing."

Unlike the single legend of Cangjie creating Chinese characters among the Han people, there are as many as seven legends about the Yi people creating Chinese characters.

The forms of Yi-language documents that are circulated and preserved in Yi areas mainly include rock books, cloth books, leather books, paper books, tile books, wooden slips, bamboo slips, bone carvings, wood carvings, stone inscriptions, seals, etc., among which the vast majority are paper books.

The vast majority of Yi books were copied from non-paper writing materials and oral traditions by Bimos according to the content and format handed down from generation to generation.

Since there has never been a true separation between shamanism and history in the history of Yi social development, most Yi literature was copied and handed down by Yi shamans, and was mostly used for shamanic affairs. Therefore, Yi literature is still in the stage of integrating multiple disciplines with primitive religion as the main representation, and most of them have not formed specialized works with distinct disciplinary characteristics.

The content is all-encompassing without any subdivision into monographs. It covers a wide range of topics, including religion, history, music scores, mythology, philosophy, ethics, astronomy and calendar, geography, literature, medicine, agriculture and animal husbandry, military affairs, contracts, account books, notices, translations, texts, etc. It is very rich.

Therefore, every Bimo must be able to learn Yi calligraphy, as well as study, interpret and promote the contents of the scriptures.

They have to inherit folk literature and national history; when engaging in activities such as sacrifices, disaster relief, prayers, divination, etc., they need to be familiar with traditional music, cooperate with traditional dances, and even traditional martial arts.

They are also responsible for hosting weddings and celebrations, so they need to be familiar with traditional arts, entertainment, acrobatics and folk customs.

Since we often need to cure illnesses and save lives, we are also familiar with traditional medicine.

There are also a large set of rules for the various utensils needed for the activity and the tools used to make them.

Shamans, doctors, fortune tellers and historians have been inseparable since ancient times. All of these put together are called Bimo.

"Angkor is absolutely right." Zhou Zhi smiled and saluted Chi Ri: "People like you have a special title in our country's proposal to the United Nations, which is 'Inheritor of Intangible Cultural Heritage'."

"But... ten years ago, no, twenty years ago, that's not what people said..." "Brother Tu, you said it yourself, that was twenty years ago." Zhou Zhi said, "Many things that everyone thought were correct twenty years ago may not be correct now."

"To paraphrase an old newspaper saying, this is a new era, new problems, new solutions."

"And similar things have been done by our predecessors."

"As far as I know, the earliest classics of the Yi people were scattered in the vast mountains. In the Qing Dynasty, Shuixi Rewo Tumu Moshi collected many Yi-language historical chapters handed down from ancient times by various branches of the Yi people after Wu Sangui conquered Shuixi and before the land system was changed to officialdom in the seventh year of Yongzheng's reign. After revision, he compiled them into a historical document called "Aibusha'e."

The Yi ancestors believed that the continuous movement of Sha'e, or clear and turbid air, produced a pair of basic material elements - Aibu, and on the basis of Aibu, all things came into being.

This is the basic view of ancient Yi philosophy. In fact, it is very similar to the Han Chinese view that chaos gave birth to two energies, which formed Tai Chi, and then two gave birth to three, and three gave birth to all things.

This book is named this way for this reason.

"This book has more than 300,000 words and 400 topics. It mainly reflects the ancient Yi people's understanding of the origin of the universe and human beings, as well as the economic, political and cultural life of the ancient Yi society. It is a complete encyclopedia of ancient Yi society."

"If the translation is to have that flavor, the book should have been called Theory of Two Principles and Three Life. But later on, because of its content, it was directly translated into Records of the Yi People in the Southwest."

"Later, in the late Qing Dynasty, foreign missionaries in this area, according to Western customs, called the ancient books written on goatskin 'sheepskin books'."

"In 1898, Catholic missionary Villar published his translation of The Myth of the Origin of the Universe from the Yi language. This was the first time that Yi culture went global and became known to outsiders."

"In the winter of 1930, a famous geologist named Ding Wenjiang made a great contribution to the removal of these 'parchment books' from the mountains. Ding Wenjiang was originally the director of the Geological Survey of China. After coming to Liangshan, he met Mr. Luo Wenbi, a -year-old Yi intellectual, through an introduction. The two sides agreed that Luo would translate the ancient Yi books using phonetic transliteration, Chinese literal translation, and Chinese free translation."

"This translation method is called the four-line translation method, and later became the classic way of translating Yi language."

"In 1936, Ding Wenjiang handed over the eleven Yi classics translated by Luo, entitled "Cuanwen Congke", to the Commercial Press for publication, which opened up a precedent for the scientific translation and compilation of ancient Yi books."

"Once this path was opened, the methodology was established. Therefore, after the founding of New China, many Yi texts began to be sorted, translated and published."

“But this work was soon interrupted again.”

"Yi classics have suffered two disasters in history, one when Wu Sangui conquered Shuixi, and the other 20 years ago." Zhou Zhi said seriously: "If the lost classics in the chaotic times were not collected, sorted, translated and preserved before the prosperous times came, they might really disappear completely. This would be an irreparable loss to the Yi culture, Chinese culture, and even the world's cultural diversity."

"So this matter really can't be delayed any longer."