The Study Huopao Culture Of Achang People Lianghe Area

Having a good command of Achang language and holding lots of historical legends, folk tales and songs,"Huopao" are priests of Achang people in Lianghe of Yunnan Province. As presiders of many kinds of rites, Huopao are closely linked with local residents’ daily lives. In the long course of history, they have not just acted as individual men, at the same time, they have formed a set of cultural systems, including the mode of inheritance, the trunk and branches of the inheritance, rites, clothes, ritual utensils and the folk songs, tunes and words. These respects have shaped Huopao culture by continually reorganizing and passing Achang people’s beliefs, morality and ethics, folkways and arts. With globalization being more thoroughgoing, Achang people’s beliefs and its closely related Huopao culture are going through tremendous changes. In2006,the epic of Achang people,"Zhepama and Zhemima", was listed as the first batch of national intangible property, and had gained wide attention among the society. With the attention, as the actors of the epic, they had also stepped on the world stage, and were constantly identified as the inheritors and disseminators around the world. New features and meanings have been derived from Huopao culture with the carrier of Huopao.The introduction part declares the reasons of choosing this topic, and defines the concepts of Huopao. Then the study runs through the relevant studies about conditions of Achang people’s religion beliefs and Huopao culture. The first part tells the social environment of Achang people in Lianghe area, including the culture and geographical environment, means of livelihood and folk beliefs. The second part introduces and summarizes the culture matters like the mode of inheritance, customs. The third part and the forth part records the lives of seven Huopao in the way of oral history, taboos, clothes and utensils which are closely related to Huopao’s lives. The fifth part is focused on the procedure and libretto of funeral rites presided by Huopao and analyzes the Huopao’s role and relations between Huopao and other personnel in a funeral. In the perspective of culture transformation, the sixth chapter analyzes the changes Huopao culture has going through and is going through, current situations and difficult positions of inheritance, the cultural functions and connotations produced in this new age. The concluding remarks mentioned that though Huopao culture is facing the dilemma or even loss from the angle of intangible cultural heritage, it still has done some adjustments and progress.