An Empirical Study On The Miao Race Of Dazhai Village In Gu Long Town, Guizhou Province

The Miao people have profound feelings in horse, who had been playinga very important role in the production and living of the Miao nationalityin quite a long historical period. Horse race is even widespread in theMiao-populated areas and it is one of the traditional sporting events ofthe Miao nationality. With the aggravation of China’s modernizationprogress, the original horse race of the Miao nationality has changed inboth the form and cultural connotation. The culture of horse race, whichintegrates all kinds of cultural elements, has also changed in variousways correspondingly, and all these changes make the time-honoredtraditional sporting event of horse race able to adapt to the pace ofmodernization, keep pace with social development while maintaining itsethnic and cultural characteristics and find the right venation of eradevelopment. This research will adopt approaches such as method ofdocument literature, field method and logical analysis to relativelycomprehensively and systematically discuss the origin and development ofMiao’s horse race and its characters and learn about its competitiveedges and disadvantages. It mainly discusses the social value of Miao’shorse race, factors affecting the inheritance and development of Miao’shorse race in modern society and issues on protecting it. The horse raceof the Miao nationality from Dazhai Village, Gulong Town, Huangping Countyseeks for the future development direction of Miao’s horse race underthe background of modernization and cultural globalization. It isconcluded through research:I. The origin of Miao’s horse race in Huangping region is diversifiedfrom both tales of legendia and hero worship, and the origin of horse raceof Dazhai Village, Gulong Town can’t be verified. However, the local horse race can still be spread in the festival activities of the Miaonationality for a long time and has experienced three development stagestill now including its forming and spontaneous organizing, difficultprogressing and recovery and government support, but the local horse racehas reduced its scale now.II. Facing modernization and cultural globalization, the horse race ofthe Miao nationality of Dazhai Village, Gulong Town will inevitably beaffected by the mainstream culture and the horse-racing culture haschanged in the three levels, which are material, institutional behaviorand spirit. In order to adapt to the needs of social development andnational development, the local horse race of the Miao nationality hasreflected new social value: fitness value, recreational value and valueof cohesion and identification and formed cultural characteristics withunique features: universality, regionalism and nationality.III. Part of the cultural elements of the horse race of the Miaonationality in Gulong has gradually disappeared in social development.It is found by research that the main factors influencing the inheritanceand development and production of the horse race of the Miao nationalityin Gulong in this process include urbanization, new informationtechnology, introduction of Western competitive sports, governmentorientation and diversification of ways of festival entertainment.The problems caused by modernization and cultural globalizationgenerally have universality, which extends from Miao’s horse race to allkinds of Miao’s traditional sports. Therefore, the Miao people need toface up to their own culture, take the local culture as the foundationand absorb nutrition from diversified cultural environment to constantlydevelop and perfect themselves, and only by doing so can they not panicin facing the challenges of times. They need to bring the government’sfunction into full play; publicize the traditional sports of minoritiesby utilizing emerging modern information technology; stress on the educational function of schools, and actively develop and publicize thetraditional sports of the Miao nationality; reasonably develop the sportstourism resources of the Miao nationality to bring new economic sourcesand opportunities to the Miao nationality, provide new platform to thedevelopment of Miao’s traditional sports and also make contributions tothe inheritance and development of Miao’s traditional sports.