An Analysis of the Elements and Characteristics of the Dongba Oral Tradition
This article examines the essential elements and characteristics of the Dongba oral narrative tradition of the Naxi ethnic group in southwest China. The author identifies five constitutive factors of Dongba narrative tradition: the Dongba priests themselves, Dongba religion, Dongba scriptures, Dongba pictographic writing, and Dongba ritual performance. These elements are organically integrated through ritual practice. Religious belief and ritual action serve as the narrative's driving force, while myth functions as its central content and expressive mode, transmitted primarily through shamanic and mythic narrative forms. Dongba scriptures preserve and transmit these myths as an intertextual, multilingual, interactive corpus. Through oral recitation, dance, painting, music, games, and other performative means, the Dongba tradition creates a rich, multidimensional, trans-linguistic narrative text. The article also traces the etymology and social organization of the Dongba priesthood, including its transmission through kinship and village lineages, hierarchical ranking, and comparison with related shamanic figures such as Yi "bimo" and Qiang "shibi," situating Dongba tradition within broader Chinese ethnic minority ritual-narrative practices.
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