The story of darkness

The name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Dark Legend

Applicant: Baokang County, Hubei Province

Project No.: 1059

Project No.: i-115

Time of publication: 2011 (the third batch)

Category: Folk Literature

Region: Hubei Province

Type: new item

Applicant: Baokang County, Hubei Province

Protected by: Baokang Cultural Center

Introduction to dark biography:

Applicant: Baokang County, Hubei Province

Baokang County is located in the hinterland of Jingshan mountains in the northwest of Hubei Province. In 1984, Shennongjia discovered the long poem dark biography, which was published in the newspapers, and aroused widespread concern in the academic circles. Baokang and Shennongjia have the same cultural foundation. The story of darkness is widely spread in Baokang.

Baokang is the hometown of folk songs with rich content and various forms. Folk songs are mainly divided into Yang songs and Yin songs. Yangge is a song sung in the daytime, such as the song of plucking grass, gongs and drums, folk songs, love songs, happy songs, noisy songs, Shangliang songs, etc. Yin songs refer to funeral songs (night gongs and drums songs, filial piety songs). Singing the story of darkness has been popular among the people for a long time, but in the process of historical development, because of its significant theme, complex structure and closer content to tracing the origin of human beings, folk singers gradually turn the story of darkness into a scene of funeral songs. Baokangzhi in Ming Dynasty is the earliest document to record the singing of darkness in written form.

In 1986, Qu Dingchao, a folk artist in dahengxi, Maqiao, discovered a handwritten copy of dark biography. In 1992, he discovered more than 2100 lines of dark biography in 1875, the first year of Guangxu in Xiema town. Later, he discovered more than 3000 lines of dark biography in Dianya town There are Heluo books and diagrams of eight trigrams, which are regarded as the most complete manuscripts by Professor Liu Shouhua of central China Normal University. As early as the eighties and nineties of the 20th century, these editions have been sent to Shennongjia (see the preface of dark biography by Changjiang literature and art publishing house for details). Since 2005, more than ten manuscripts have been found in Maqiao and Xiema. Folk singers Wu Kechong, Tang Guoying, Wan Zude, Chen Changwei, Yang Pingfa, Zou Wenfang and Zhu Guangtian can all sing the story of darkness.

Dark biography is an epic of the Han nationality in a broad sense. Baokang is one of the important places for its discovery and inheritance. The number of manuscripts and singers is the largest, which should be protected.