Dance.
This article introduces the Naxi people, an ancient ethnic minority in southwest China living along the Jinsha and Yalong River basins across Yunnan, Sichuan, and Tibet. Deeply influenced by their indigenous Dongba religion—a shamanistic faith centered on animism, nature and ancestor worship—the Naxi developed a distinctive ritual dance tradition known as Dongba dance. The Dongba scriptures, written in pictographic and hieroglyphic characters, contain numerous ritual dance notations called "Cuomo." Remarkably, these are among the world's rare pictographic dance scores that can be read aloud, aid memorization, and be visually recognized, ranking alongside the Dunhuang dance manuscript and the Desou Palace dance score as national treasures. However, only trained Dongba priests can interpret and perform from these notations. The article also references a 1990s survey by Naxi scholar Yi Agan, who documented six surviving dance-score manuscripts, including one titled "Regulations for Spirit-Dance Rituals" containing 31 dances.
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.