*Studies of Ethnic Literature*, 1998, No. 2
This article examines the Naxi Dongba epic "The Black-White War" (Dongaishuai), one of the three pillar works of Dongba scripture, a 4,000-line pictographic verse epic recounting the creation of the world and a blood-feud war between the White Tribe (Dong) and Black Tribe (Shu) over possession of the sun and moon. The author argues the epic's central theme—"fighting for the sun/moon"—is unique among world heroic epics, which typically depict wars over land, property, or women. Unlike Finland's Kalevala, where a lunar/solar dispute is only episodic, this epic sustains the sun/moon conflict as its unifying theme. The paper traces the theme's formation to the ancient Naxi people's primitive cosmology, mythological thinking, and philosophical concepts of "black" and "white," which symbolize the epic struggle between light/justice and darkness/evil, reflecting heroic-age idealism and the nation's formative struggles and political ideals.
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