Ancient songs of Miao Nationality

Name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: Miao ancient songs

Applicant: Huayuan County, Hunan Province

Item No.: 1

Project No.: I - 1

Time of publication: 2011 (the third batch)

Category: Folk Literature

Region: Hunan Province

Type: Extension Project

Applicant: Huayuan County, Hunan Province

Protection unit: Huayuan County Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center

Introduction to Miao ancient songs:

Applicant: Huayuan County, Hunan Province

The ancient songs of Miao nationality are the ancient oral literature forms of Miao nationality, which include the creation of heaven and earth, war migration, customs, production and labor, myths and legends, love stories, love songs, funeral torches, Miao medicine and astronomy philosophy. There are two forms of the dissemination of the Miao ancient songs: oral performance and copy circulation.

Miao ancient songs have a long history. From Sanmiao, Guandou, Nanman and wulingman, the ancestors of the Miao people, to the Miao people in the Song Dynasty, they all regarded it as their own "Encyclopedia" and widely spread. During the ten years of the cultural revolution, its manuscripts and records in square Miao language were burned up, but the Miao people still quietly preserved them in the form of folk oral transmission.

The ancient Miao songs are widely spread in Huayuan County, Jishou City, Fenghuang County, Baojing County, Guzhang County, Luxi County of Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture in Western Hunan Province, as well as Guizhou, Chongqing and Hubei. Wuling mountain area is located in the Yumai of Yunnan Guizhou Plateau, where the mountains are overlapping, the forest is dense, the economy is relatively backward, and the environment is relatively closed, which has become the soil for the propagation of folk literature.

Miao ancient songs are of great value to the study of Miao ancient history, politics, economy, religion, philosophy, literature, art, sacrifice, medicine, agronomy, astronomy, folk custom, military and ethnic migration. As the most important cultural heritage of Miao nationality, Miao ancient songs have practical significance in strengthening national cohesion and building a harmonious society.