A Field-research And Symbolic Elucidation To Buzhang Nuo: A Ritual Drama

Nuo is known as"the living fossil of drama". Since the dramatists put the first attention to the culture of Nuo, it is also called"ritual drama", a religious rite. Up to present, the researches on the culture of Nuo have already broken the confining investigation simply from the history of drama. With the new theoretical guidance of anthropology, folklore and art, the researchers have promoted the research on Nuo from the primary research of idea and structure to the superior research of meaning. However, the emphases of most researches on culture of Nuo are still put on the collection and collation of the documents of culture of Nuo. The comprehensive investigation to culture of Nuo through comprehensive application of every theory is not deep and meticulous enough.The author of this paper chooses Buzhang Nuo in De'an district of Jiujiang as the typical subject, in order to give a comprehensive view by stressing one point. By mainly using the symbolic theory of cultural anthropology and the theory of occurrence of drama, the author has made a comprehensive explanation to the entire Nuo structure, the symbolic system and the meaning of the drama occurrence in Buzhang Nuo, and tried to provide a new thought for the research on culture of Nuo and a new exemplification for the myth of origin of Chinese drama.Nuo is an ancient traditional culture. In the long history of its development, it has been changing all the time when offering drama with nutrition. In the first chapter of this paper, on the basis of the definition of Nuo, Nuo is divided into three major categories: Nuo of the royal court, Nuo of the army and Nuo of the folk. The author traces its origin and root and has made a comprehensive analysis to the social background of the occurrence of Buzhang Nuo and its representation.In the second chapter, on the basis of the research done by former researchers, the author has made a elucidation to the symbolic system of Buzhang Nuo by using the methods of field-research and literature research and the relevant theories of western symbolic anthropology for reference. It is proved that the two puppet gods Governor Tian and Governor Er are actually two great dramatists. The Nuo god"Sir Guan"derives from a person whose surname is Fangxiang. While the prototypes of the main characters in Nuo rite Governor Pan and Aunty Meihua are Grandpa and Grandma Nuo, i.e. the first ancestor gods. It is the same to t he theme of"marriage of brother and sister"in fairy tales. Therefore, it is considered that Buzhang Nuo not only accords with the prototype of"driving away ghost and capturing the demon", but also has the sacrificial function of"worship to procreation"which is similar to the fete of Wine God in ancient Greece.In the third chapter, the author combines the history of puppet play with Nuo, and analyses the characteristics of Buzhang Nuo in a macroscopic social background. The emphasis is again laid on the meanings of Nuo rite and puppet play to Chinese drama.