Reaserch On The Utilization And Development Of The Oral Archives’of The Wa Minority

Yunnan is a province in China with a large population of ethnic groups that create rich culture with their long history. These ethnic cultures are an important part of China’s multi-cultural system. With the socio-economic development and individuals’ value orientation changing, some ethnic cultures lack the foundation for inter-generational transmission and are almost dying out, especially those who have no written language.Under the condition of multi-cultural conflict, we need to take measures to save those endangered cultures. With the help of governmental preservation, some programs such as the Tangible Culture Heritage program and Intangible Culture Heritage program have been put into effect, emphasizing the preservation of one element of culture, as opposed to preserving the entire culture.However, these actions are not enough to save the entire culture.Oral archives play an important part in preserving rich culture. This essay is based on field work,which was conducted by means of interviewing different people concerning the development of the Wa minority. These interviews were to learn about the Wa minority’s social development, religion, arts, diet, customs, and related topics as well as to explore how to utilize such information to preserve and disseminate the Wa minority’s culture.This essay is divided into five chapters.Chapter Ⅰ includes the background of this essay, the current study’s situation, research implications, academic methodology, research techniques, and content of the research.Chapter Ⅱ includes a definition of oral history, oral archives; the classification of oral archives of the Wa minority, and the characteristics and values of the Wa minority oral archives.Chapter Ⅲ includes the analysis of the oral archives of the Wa minority in two parts: Part one discusses the already existing oral archives, Part two discusses the oral archives collected in the research process.Chapter Ⅳ explores ways to utilize these oral archives.Chapter Ⅴ is the summary and conclusion.