A Study On The Cultural Function Of The Epic "Le Otic"

This thesis aims to discuss an epic known as hne wo tep yy, which is transmitted from generation to generation by the Yi people in Southwest China. hne wo tep yy is a masterpiece of the Yi people’s unique literature developed in the history from ancient times; nowadays this epic is still being recited in the Yi areas in the Cool Mountains in southwest Sichuan and Northwest Yunnan.? Comprehensively it tells about the Yi people’s history and culture; and the main contents are about creation mythos, heroic legendaries and migrant stories.It is created in the context of the Yi culture, specifically expressing the ethnic group’s convention, religion, and marriage, etc. The epic has also been recorded in the Yi scripts and in various versions. Currently hne wo tep yy is playing a key role in the Yi people’s daily life.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter 1 analyzes hne wo tep yy in a comparison with overseas famous epics.Chapter 2 observes the transmission of hne wo tep yy in the major versions in the Yi areas. Specifically the types of circulating versions of the epic are classified.Chapter 3 discusses the contexts of the epics in the collected versions. In this chapter, the native Yi scholar Bamo Qubumo’s theory of "Five Present Elements (i.e. epic tradition, performance event, performer, audience and researcher)" is applied and the data collected in fieldwork is analyzed so as to deepen the understanding of situated performances in wedding, funeral, religion and festival.Chapter 4 focuses on analysis of texts and fieldwork data, and makes an extensive discussion of the epic’s cultural function. Starting from the narrative perspective, the epic’s contents are comprehensively analyzed. In general, epic is alive in the specific cultural context. Therefore, the significance of hne wo tep yy is interpreted in the context of the Yi culture. Besides, this chapter pays attention to the relationship between the epic and the Yi culture; and then the epic’s cultural function is concluded. hne wo tep yy plays a key role in education, ethnic identity, cultural aesthetics, social harmony, entertainment and convention, etc.Chapter 5 mainly introduces the epic’s function of cultural inheritance. Based on the Yi people’s historical memory, the situations and types of cultural inheritance are analyzed; and furthermore the inheritances of wedding custom, funeral rite and religious tradition are observed in a systematic way.