Riding the wind of rebirth

Chapter 1654 Still Lucky

"Now that I've told you this, it seems quite important." Tu Liangzhi said with emotion: "After all, it is the history of our ancestors, and we can't forget this root."

"In fact, written materials at least have a carrier, so they are not the most urgent." Zhou Zhi said: "More cultural heritage that needs to be saved is the part that has been passed down orally by the Bimos of successive generations, such as ancient songs; or the part that has been displayed in form, such as various sacrificial dances."

"The best carrier of these cultural heritages is people, but now there are no more people studying this, so the only other carrier is recording or video equipment, so that they can be preserved and handed over to future researchers and enthusiasts for study and learning."

"You are a little too careless, kid." Jike Chiri had been listening quietly without saying anything, but now he suddenly spoke up: "Even after two disasters, do you know how many are left?"

"Before coming here, I looked up some information. There are still more than 260 pieces of Yi language documents and stone carvings in Qianzhou and more than 700 in Yunnan Province."

"There are about 10,000 paper books and other types of documents collected by relevant domestic departments and countries such as Britain, France, the United States and Germany."

"I guess the number of Meigu folk classics is much more than this."

"And the part I'm talking about continuing to save is far more than this, the part that remains in the hearts of the Bimos."

"How are you going to save them?" Lao Chi Ri asked.

"Old man, please wait a minute..." Zhou Zhi put down the wine bowl and went back to the car to get a Sony tape recorder: "We can use this."

This is the latest recording equipment that uses small tapes specifically for information recording.

The working principle of this tape is the same as that of ordinary tapes, but unlike traditional tapes which have a large shell, a small core soft magnetic strip, and only enough content to record half an hour of information on one side, the recording soft magnetic strip of this tape is very long, the wrapping is very thick, and the tape is relatively wide. Therefore, the thickness of the tape shell is thicker than that of ordinary tapes, but the size is only about half of that of ordinary tapes, making the size of the machine quite compact.

"Old man, please sing the ancient song again." Zhou Zhi stretched the microphone wrapped with a wool cap to eliminate pop sounds in front of Lao Chi Ri.

The old Yi man was not someone who had never seen the world. He roughly guessed what the object was. He took the small microphone and started singing into it.

When the song was finished, Zhou Zhi took out a small speaker the size of an egg, connected it to the tape recorder, rewound the tape, and pressed the play button.

The old man's desolate and simple singing voice came out from the speakers. In this empty room, the recording and amplification effects of the Sony recorder were very good, as if another old red sun appeared in the void and was singing.

"This thing is much better than the one used by the county radio and television bureau." Wu Renzhong was amazed. "The equipment in the provincial capital has really good recording effects!"

"The best thing is that it can work for a long time." Zhou Zhi introduced: "One box of this kind of tape can record for eight hours, but the rechargeable battery must be replaced once in the middle."

"If it's dance or skill-related, it's best to record it on video," Zhou Zhi said.

"This... is very expensive, right?" Old Chi Ri was just shocked by his own voice. There is actually a big difference between hearing your own voice through a device and hearing the synthesized sound through the external brain bone. But the effect is beyond doubt, it is quite nice.

If Zhou Zhi were to comment, he would say that this is a rich, mid-bass folk singing style. Of course, he doesn't understand it as magic, but he can appreciate it as art.

So he smiled and said to Chi Ri: "Don't worry, old man, the sponsor of this project said that we will have enough tapes and videotapes!"

"Really?" The little kid promised so easily that Chi Ri was even more unconvinced.

"We'll try recording again tomorrow." Zhou Zhi said, "I brought several sets of equipment this time, as well as a lot of tapes and videotapes. They should be able to last for a while, but how to record and how to build indexes and archives are more important."

"Otherwise, if you record a lot of things in a messy way without scientific cataloguing and management, it will be a big hassle to sort them out in the end, and they may even lose their due value."

"That's true." Chi Ri said, "Take witchcraft for example, it can be divided into many categories, such as ancestor worship, memorial service, worship of gods, eliminating disasters and misfortunes, exorcising demons and sending away ghosts, cursing and swearing, summoning souls, praying for blessings, divination, welcoming gods and sitting in the book of rituals, etc."

"Take sending ghosts for example. There are domestic ghosts, suburban ghosts, wild ghosts... The methods they use are also different."

It would have been fine if Chi Ri had used other examples, but he used this to illustrate the complexity of the Yi witchcraft culture, which made Tu Liangzhi frown: "This...are these cultural essences or cultural dregs?"

"Without in-depth and thorough research, I think none of us are qualified to make comments. After all, we can't even get a glimpse of the whole picture now." Zhou Zhi said sincerely, "But we can keep these valuable materials first, and it won't be too late to make comments after everyone has studied them thoroughly."

"That's right. What Elbow said is the truth. How can those people who know nothing be qualified to evaluate Bimo? It's just their luck that they were born in the new era. If they were born a hundred years earlier, humph!"

This sentence alone is enough to illustrate Jike Chiri's character.

The Bimos have mastered a large number of witchcraft, spells, and poison-making techniques. Although Jikechiri often encounters people who slander the Bimo culture, he just gets angry and never thinks of using those means to retaliate.

Regardless of whether it works or not, the fact that Lao Chi Ri has never had such an idea is itself a very respectable thing.

"Although the matter is complicated, we are not completely unsure." Zhou Zhi said: "There are many ethnic groups in our country with their own languages ​​and scripts. The most famous are the Manchu, Mongolian and Tibetan ethnic groups, as well as the Persian and Arabic languages ​​used by the Hui people."

"The cultural heritage of these ethnic groups also needs to be sorted out, but they all have an advantage, that is, this sorting work has already begun as early as the Yuan, Ming and Qing dynasties, leaving behind a large number of classics, and also providing us with valuable experience and ready-made examples for collecting and sorting out the cultural heritage of other ethnic groups."

"The Yi people are much weaker in this regard because the ancient dynasties before them did not pay enough attention to it. In addition, due to the many internal and external wars and disasters from ancient times to the present, a large number of ancient books have been lost, and most of them have been passed down orally from generation to generation."

"But the story is different," Zhou Zhi comforted Lao Chi Ri, "Compared to many ethnic groups in our country that have not yet developed written language, or have developed written language but lost it in the end, the Yi people are very lucky."