A Study of the Reproduction of Folk Narrative Tradition: A Discussion Based on the Naxi Epic Black and White War
Drawing on Bourdieu's theory of cultural reproduction, this article traces how the Naxi epic Black and White War (《黑白战争》, Naxi: Dongshu-Ai), a Dongba narrative tradition performed at exorcism/misfortune-averting rituals such as "duoken," has changed cultural status across three historical modes: as embedded ritual narrative sung by Dongba priests within religious practice; as a literary "epic," canonized alongside Genesis and Muban Muran as one of the "Three Great Naxi Epics" during the mid-20th-century construction of national minority literary history; and, since 2014, as a state-level Intangible Cultural Heritage item administered by Lijiang's Ancient Town District heritage center. The paper argues each transition is not passive cultural drift but an active reproduction process, in which political capital and (later) the tourism-driven "heritage economy" reshape the tradition's meaning, increasingly pulling literary and political capital toward economic capital, fragmenting and commodifying performance (e.g., in stage shows like Dream Lijiang) even as heritage protections such as training bases and audiovisual archiving try to preserve the tradition's oral, ritual core.
This page publishes the bibliographic record and the project's summary. The scanned article text belongs to its publisher and is shown to readers under a research-use policy; it is not reproduced in this record.