The Current Situation of Miao Traditional Culture

Yu Miao do not have their own text, the ancient songs sung actually have the function of transmitting the history of the nation. Therefore, there are strict taboos when singing ancient songs, which are usually sung on major occasions such as ancestor worship, weddings and funerals, gatherings of relatives and friends, and festivals, etc., and the singers are mostly middle-aged and old people, sorcerers, singers, and so on. The banquet is an important occasion for singing ancient songs. Singing, divided into guests and hosts sitting opposite each other, the use of disk song form of questions and answers, a sing is a few days and nights or even ten days and a half months, the tune of the majestic and bleak. Inheritance of the ancient songs of the way is also more rigorous, there are ancestors to teach, family teaching, teachers and apprentices to teach, self-study and so on several kinds.

While the ancient songs have been passed down from generation to generation for thousands of years in the deep mountains of the Miao Ridge, they have always been hidden in the mountains without being known. After the founding of New China, Tian Bing, Tang Chunfang, Jindan, Ma Xueliang and other folklorists published different versions of the ancient songs of the Miao at the end of the last century after repeated collection and organization.

Taijiang County, in order to declare the ancient songs of the Miao people and their culture to the UNESCO Representative List of the Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, set up the Protection Committee of the Miao Culture of Taijiang County and the Committee for the Declaration of World Heritage in 2001. Through several years of efforts, Taijiang County has collected five major groups of ancient songs of the Miao people, nearly 60,000 lines, nearly 300,000 words, prepared and published the declaration of the world's intangible cultural heritage text based on the ancient songs of the Miao people, "the soul of the Miao people - the cultural space of the Miao people in Taijiang," a book.