The Studies On The Narrative Tradition Of Hmong Oral Epics

Hmong Oral Epics(also translated as Miao Ethnic Epics) are the "classics" and the typical representative of the oral tradition of Miao culture, which were included in the first batch of National Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection List In 2006.Taking the texts of the ancient songs in Miao language as the main clue, by means of the basic theories and methods of ethnology, narratology, linguistics, folklore and other disciplines, this paper carries on the research of the narrative tradition of Hmong Oral Epics and the main contents are as follows:1. The definition of Hmong Oral Epics. It is pointed out in the paper that "Hmong Oral Epics are the living rhyming oral tradition with the epic nature, which are popular in the Miao dialect of eastern Guizhou, with five-character sentence as the basic pattern, the questions and answers interspersed in musical dialogues in antiphonal style as the main performative and narrative form, and the Creation, worship for ancestors, and ethnic migrations as the narrative themes, closely related in logic within the internal sections and chapters".2. Folk literature and art theories of Miao Ethnic Group. Miao has a relatively complete set of folk literature and art theories, mainly including those of the origin of the literature, art and language which are composed of the theories of bionics, Gods, heaven and labor, etc.; those of the oral narrative style composed of the styles of singing, narration, reading, and the mixture of singing and narration; those of the technical terms of narrative style composed of the specific concept and terminology of poetry, etc.3. The narrative theme of Hmong Oral Epics. This paper puts forward that the narrative theme of Hmong Oral Epics concerns Creation, worship for ancestors and ethnic migrations, and analyzes the causes of three themes respectively from the aspects of mythology, primitive worship and history.4. The narrative form of Hmong Oral Epics. It is Pointed out that Hmong Oral Epics mainly include three types of narrations such as explanatory, historical and tragic ones. Firstly, the main content of the explanatory narration is to explain the formation of natural objects and phenomena, the sources of life and physical characteristics, and the history of cultural events, etc., which bears the features of directness, indirectness, imitativeness, and associability, etc. The basic function of the epics determines the contents of the explanatory narration of Hmong Oral Epics, the original thinking pattern of early men determines the characteristics of the explanatory narration of Hmong Oral Epics, and the question-and-answer performance determines the form of the explanatory narration of Hmong Oral Epics; secondly, the main content of the historical narration is to describe the ethnic origin, ethnic relations, and the relationship among the branches, which features the narration of history by poems, having the style of its own, being straightforward, and recording great events. The main reason of the formation of the historical narration is that Miao Ethnic Group always focuses strongly on family lineage, deeds of ancestors and heroic deeds; thirdly, this paper, taking the examples of 4 great tragedy characters:the God of Bravery Chang Zha, the God of Wisdom Jiang Yang, the God of Longevity Xiang You, and the Goddess of Beauty Ou Se, summarizes three characteristics in the tragic narration, i.e., the narration of heroic deeds, giving prominence to the sad ending, and foreshadowing the story ending, etc., and analyses that the main reasons of the formation of the tragic narration are the backwardness of social development and the tragic national personalities of frankness, uprightness, narrowness, and jealousy.5. The narrative techniques of Hmong Oral Epics. It is believed that the question-and-answer narration, the contrast narration and the narration of "stem" (themes) interlaced with "blossom" (musical dialogues) are three narrative arts in Hmong Oral Epics. This paper, after the summary of 5 types of question-and-answer narrations such as the type of multiple questions and answers, etc., points out that the question-and-answer narration gets the credit for condensation of narrative theme, being easy to remember, and the role of context being clear; it also summarizes four types of contrast narrations between the ancient and the present, analyzing the characteristics and functions of the contrast narration from the "external" and "internal" aspects respectively; through the instances of the narrations of "stem" interlaced with "blossom'", it analyzes the features of less stems and more blossoms, stems definite and blossoms indefinite, and stems narrative and blossoms non-narrative, etc., the reason of which lies in the needs of performance, competition and internal narration in Hmong Oral Epics, and the main purpose of which is to enhance the narrative effect, adjust the performance atmosphere, and motivate singer's creativity, so as to facilitate the inheritance of Hmong Oral Epics.6. The development and change of the narrative tradition of Hmong Oral Epics. It mainly includes the ecological change of Hmong Oral Epics caused by the changes of cultural and inheritance ecology of Hmong Oral Epics, the change of narrative content mainly represented by "Han Nationalization" and the change of narrative form represented by the changes of narrative behaviors, vocabulary and performance forms.7. Attach great importance to Miao literature researches from the height of mother-tongue literature. It is believed that there are some problems in the current Miao literature research such as the insufficient recognition of the importance of theories. The focus in the study of Miao literature should be put in the direction of strengthening the construction of the document literature, putting forward the thoughts of how to improve Miao literature researches from the correct understanding of the status of Miao language literature and the carring out of the revelant researches, etc.