Zouma town Folktales

The name of China's national intangible cultural heritage: zouma town Folktales

Applicant: Jiulongpo District, Chongqing

Item No.: 17

Project No.: I-17

Time of publication: 2006 (the first batch)

Category: Folk Literature

Region: Chongqing

Type: new item

Applicant: Jiulongpo District, Chongqing

Protected by: Jiulongpo cultural center, Chongqing

Zouma town Folktales

Applicant: Jiulongpo District, Chongqing

Zouma town is a town in Jiulongpo District of Chongqing city. There is a kind of folk story created and passed down orally by people who take "zouma" (driving horses) as their occupation. People usually call it "zouma story". The exact time of the origin of zouma story is unknown, but zoumachang was established in the late Ming Dynasty and early Qing Dynasty, and soon flourished. The story should develop with it, and its formation has a history of at least four or five hundred years.

Because the living environment and life experience of "zouma" people are different from ordinary people, their stories show some characteristics. Zouma folktales are complex in content and diverse in types. In addition to the general types of folktales, such as fairy tales, scenery legends, animal and plant legends, folk legends and life stories, Zouma folktales also contain other unique cultural information, such as the legend of Ba totem dragon and snake. As an important legacy of ancient Ba culture, there are a large number of such stories.

During the compilation of "three sets of integration of Chinese folk literature" in the 1980s, 10915 catalogues of folk stories were collected in the town, with 9714 records completed. In addition, more than 3000 folk songs, more than 4000 proverbs, and more than 4000 allegorical sayings and sayings were collected. There are 316 folklorists in the town, including 2 who can tell 1000 stories, 3 who can tell 500-1000 stories and 10 who can tell 200-500 stories.

Zouma folktales are characterized by the diversity of telling time and occasion, the multi-source of story composition, and the coexistence of local culture and foreign culture.

Zouma town was named "hometown of folk literature" by Chongqing Municipal Bureau of culture in 1990; industrial and rural areas were named "Chinese folk story village" in 1992; and Wei Xiande was awarded the title of "Chinese folk story writer" by UNESCO and China Folk Artists Association in 1998 (a total of 10 people in China).

At present, Zouma story is facing a serious crisis, the main problem is lack of inheritance. Rescuing and protecting zouma stories can not only enrich people's cultural life, but also provide research materials for anthropology, culturology, religion, ethnology and dialectology.