A Study On Legends About Emperor Yao In The South Of Shanxi Province

Emperor Yao is one of five Emperors in the ancient legends. After Yao’s sanctification by Confucian scholars such as Confucius, Yao’s virtue spirit gets spread."Piping Days Of Peace" created by Yao and Shun begins to be the example of ideal political life in ancient China. Legends about Emperor Yao are highly sacred. Through past dynasties’governance practice, Emperor Yao has become a spiritual symbol which producs far-reaching influences on the historical development of nation and state. All of these have formed "Great Tradition" about Emperor Yao’s sacred culture. This kind of tradition gradually has been localizing in regional society. People in the south of Shanxi province regard legends about Yao as their local traditional resources. Through the past historical choice, reorganization, interpretation and reconstruction, they combine legends with local scenery, landscape remains, customs and traditions, and thus they create a kind of culture about Yao with regional characteristics. Legends about Yao rooted in life of the south of Shanxi province, become a symbolic carrier containing rich historical and cultural information, carrying significance of sacred order and the value of emotional communication.These legends affiliate with local society, the formation, performance and sustainability of which are a culture reproduction process. By virtue of the historic collective memory, people combine legends with local scenery, continue the oral narrative tradition for legends about Yao, and show folk narrative characteristics distinctively. People assign, explain and name for the local culture resources, thus form sacred landscape with rich cultural meaning. The distribution and narrative themes vary with regional culture circles formed by county areas, such as Yaodu, Yicheng, Fushan, Hongtong and Jiang. Sometimes, people improve the expressive force of legends by connecting legends with other traditional culture, such as the origin of power drums and production techniques of earthen pot. Legends about Emperor Yao have permeated the daily life of local people, reflecting in the spiritual beliefs, daily behavior, festivals and customs. Different demands from three classes-elite, pilgrims and ordinary people-ultimately reinforce the belief in Emperor Yao in the south of Shanxi province. The people’s collective memory for the temple gods, the taboo during the temple, the conflicts with Great Tradition and culture reconstruction, show the cognition of their own history and the real society.Local scholars are communication intermediaries between the public and the government. With such specific identity, they become an important power for Yao’s culture production. By means of demythologizing and celebrating merits, such local scholars as Qiao Zhongyan produce real and full saint and shape images of "the founder of the contry" and "the ancestor of civilization" which both refer to Emperor Yao. Based on Emperor Yao’s capital Pingyang, they trace back to Yao’s era and reproduce sanctuary and history center position which Linfen was in. The relationship among different regions indicated in Emperor Yao’s legends, not only connects Linfen to county areas around Linfen but also reflects its important position in the south of Shanxi province. On the ground of construction of the saint-Emperor Yao and sanctuary-Yao’s capital, local scholars intend to make people believe that Yao is our ancestor and they creatively develop the "saint’s descendents" identity from blood, region and Yao culture. In this way, they combine people and Emperor Yao, combine people and the local region, combine local people, combine Emperor Yao and the local region, combine people in other regions and the local region to build multiple relationships, and strive to create the regional labels of "the culture sanctuary of Emperor Yao". While facing external doubt and crisis, they search more exactly narrative patterns for legends, and try to construct the sanctuary by virtue of recountal power and own authority.The government build a new development space for local economy and society through practical ways of integration of all kinds of strength and remodeling sacred symbol meaning. With the aim of pursuing tourism and economic benefits, they make a combination of power politic and business capital, and show the content and symbolic significance of legends about Emperor Yao, which embody in nationalization, landscape and cultural industrialization, so as to achieve the best interest of culture production. Local government changes and benefit competitions lead to fracture of the traditional culture about Yao in construction, even to crisis. Nonetheless, the government’s positive construction make historic ideas and cultural consciousness aroused by legends about Emperor Yao get spread. New culture symbols warm up in regional discourse again. With state discourses, the local government develop the local culture resources about Yao in order to look for local new development under the influence of movement in protection of intangible cultural heritage. However, the pure economic consciousness will make the government into the trouble of culture development.In the multi-agent and multi-level sacred narrative process, Legends about Emperor Yao in the south of Shanxi province are industriously striving to construct the local sanctuary image.