The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature

Victor Mair, Mark Bender

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9780231526739
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Crítica literaria asiática

In The Columbia Anthology of Chinese Folk and Popular Literature, two of the world's leading sinologists, Victor H. Mair and Mark Bender, capture the breadth of China's oral-based literary heritage. This collection presents works drawn from the large body of oral literature of many of China's recognized ethnic groups—including the Han, Yi, Miao, Tu, Daur, Tibetan, Uyghur, and Kazak—and the selections include a variety of genres. Chapters cover folk stories, songs, rituals, and drama, as well as epic traditions and professional storytelling, and feature both familiar and little-known texts, from the story of the woman warrior Hua Mulan to the love stories of urban storytellers in the Yangtze delta, the shaman rituals of the Manchu, and a trickster tale of the Daur people from the forests of the northeast. The Cannibal Grandmother of the Yi and other strange creatures and characters unsettle accepted notions of Chinese fable and literary form. Readers are introduced to antiphonal songs of the Zhuang and the Dong, who live among the fantastic limestone hills of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region; work and matchmaking songs of the mountain-dwelling She of Fujian province; and saltwater songs of the Cantonese-speaking boat people of Hong Kong. The editors feature the Mongolian epic poems of Geser Khan and Jangar; the sad tale of the Qeo family girl, from the Tu people of Gansu and Qinghai provinces; and local plays known as "rice sprouts" from Hebei province. These fascinating juxtapositions invite comparisons among cultures, styles, and genres, and expert translations preserve the individual character of each thrillingly imaginative work.

Chapter 1

FOLK STORIES AND OTHER SPOKEN TRADITIONS

Folk stories constitute a special category of oral narrative that has received a great deal of attention from scholars worldwide since the 1840s, when the Grimm brothers began to publish collections of stories gathered from rural inhabitants in Germany. From that time on, tales such as “Cinderella,” “Hansel and Gretel,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “The Princess and the Pea,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and many others appeared in print form in many languages, often in versions censored to appeal to prevailing sensibilities about sex and violence. As the nineteenth century progressed, many scholars worldwide extensively collected large bodies of similar folk narratives, often weaving the stories into the fabric of the nationalistic movements of emerging nations. Folk stories were thought to embody the collective character of a given people, and, like canons of written literature, were seen as necessary parts of a mature nation’s heritage. The study of folktales had become a national project in Finland by the end of the century, and a major intellectual school of folktale studies developed there that still has influence worldwide.

By the early twentieth century, scholars in China had begun to systematically examine China’s folk literature, drawing on historical records and literary works, and by the May Fourth Movement of 1919, they were collecting stories from urban and rural areas all over the country. Stimulated by the efforts of Russian and Finnish folklorists, Yanagita Kunio in Japan, and Stith Thompson in America (who compiled a massive index of common folktale motifs), Chinese researchers such as Zhong Jingwen, Gu Jiegang, and many others took on the project of collecting and analyzing folktales and other types of oral literature not only from Han Chinese areas but also, to some extent, from ethnic minority areas that were often still “foreign” to the Chinese of the large coastal and northern cities. These collecting activities often involved a large number of students who would spend time in rural areas interviewing local tradition bearers and writing down their stories, which would later appear in modern literary and folklore journals.

In the course of the 1930s and 1940s, some folktales (along with folk songs and music) were appropriated by both Nationalist and Communist forces for use in their respective social education and propaganda efforts. After 1949, even larger and more organized folk literature collection projects were carried out nationwide, covering virtually all the fifty-plus ethnic groups in China (which were only then being given official recognition), and huge numbers of folk stories were recorded, edited, and published, often in altered form to appeal to prevailing currents in the political wind. During the period from 1950 until the early 1980s, stories were regularly bowdlerized to put the proper spin on gender and class issues and to eliminate crude, pornographic, or “feudal” references in the interests of creating a “new China.” Between 1966 and 1976, most stories that appeared had overt political content and in many cases were fabricated or distorted beyond recognition. By the early 1980s, however, more reliable collections had reappeared, though for a number of years editorial policies continued to be conservative.

Yet, as with many folk stories that have been collected elsewhere in the world, folk stories published today in China tend to appear in a more or less idealized and rather literary format that does not attempt to represent many of the stylistic features of actual storytelling situations. In recent years, however, a few scholars, influenced by folklorists outside the country, have begun to experiment with new models of collecting and editing that may open new avenues for appreciating China’s rich heritage of folktales. The following stories are a few examples from the vast store of these folktales, presented in a variety of editorial formats. Probably the most unfamiliar to readers is the “ethnopoetic” style of presentation of “The Mother’s Brother and His Sister’s Son,” a ginseng tale from northeastern China. The words are printed in a manner that allows the reader to get a sense of the stresses and pauses of the original language. The other stories are presented in more traditional formats that were developed in part to facilitate easy reading.

While whole volumes could be devoted to the topic, only a few stories can be presented here. They were translated from their original languages or, when that was not possible, chosen from among especially interesting tales that had been translated into Chinese and were felt to widen our understanding of the range of styles and topics. For instance, the Daur tale “Mengongnenbo” has imagery and situations found in stories of other northern ethnic minority groups as well as features of trickster tales that resonate with stories from many parts of the world. Stories of a human-eating “wild woman” of the mountains comparable to “Cannibal Grandmother,” a Nuosu tale about Coqo Ama, have been collected from other ethnic groups in China (including the Han), as well as from Japan, North America, Africa, and other places. The dragon tales represent a common theme found in many parts of China and, like “Goddess Gemu,” a Mosuo tale from Lake Lugu (on the border of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces), are also examples of the seemingly endless number of stories about local places in this vast land. The Dai tales not only are a part of traditional Tai Lue lore but also are closely related to Buddhist stories rooted in India, directly illustrating the cross-cultural nature of some stories circulating in ethnic groups in China. An unusual selection is “The Red Silk-Cotton Tree,” a Luo folk story from Yunnan province embedded in a funeral chant. This story could easily have been placed in chapter 3, on folk ritual, as could the stories about the origin of rituals from the Tu ethnic group in Qinghai province, in northwestern China.

This chapter also includes two examples of other forms of spoken verbal art. There are “flirting words” and tongue twisters from Tibetans in Qinghai province and riddles from the Namzi, a small Tibetan subgroup in Sichuan province. These selections are included to suggest the many minor styles of spoken oral literature in China.

A GINSENG TALE FROM JILIN

Collected, translated, and introduced by Mareile Flitsch

“The Mother’s Brother and His Sister’s Son” is a common tale in the folklore of the Changbai Mountain area of northeastern China, of a type concerning the practices of searching for wild ginseng plants. The root of the wild medicinal herb ginseng (Panax ginseng) has for centuries been collected as a cash commodity by Han Chinese peasants during seasonal migrations from central China to the northeast. The ginseng hunters (who are called guardians of the mountains or those making their way into the mountains) have their own lore (which includes a guildlike mountain god cult). It provides cultural background for understanding the tales about the collecting of the ginseng plants. The collectors venerate the first ginseng hunter, “Old Chief” (Lao Baotou), who is said to have died alone in the mountains, his grave remaining a place for ginseng collectors to visit and affirm their occupational identity.

Specific rules and secret jargon surround the hunting and digging of the rare plant. Men go out in hierarchical groups led by a chief (baotou). In the mountains, the men erect a small hut that is guarded by the lowest rank of the diggers, the cook, who remains in camp while the collectors search the mountainsides. Near the hut, a small altar dedicated to the mountain god is set up for daily sacrifices and obeisances. The hut represents the realm of men and civilization, while the surrounding forest is the realm of the mountain god.

Each day as the collectors go out in search of ginseng plants, they must follow certain customs and taboos. The group has to strictly obey the chief, since any mistake may be severely punished. Speaking loudly is prohibited, and secret names are used for certain objects and animals. The collectors carry large wooden sticks called suobogun. When a ginseng plant is found, it is secured first by calling to it loudly, using its secret name and speaking the number of its leaves (or leaf stems, called prongs by American ginseng collectors in Appalachia), that number increasing as the plant ages. The plant stem is then bound to a small wooden stick using red thread, to which two old coins are attached. Then begins the laborious task of digging out the root without damaging any of its fine root hairs. Only bone or wooden instruments may be used; no metal is permitted to touch the root. When released from the soil, the ginseng root is packed into a simple container made from the bark of a nearby tree and filled with forest soil. A message (zhaotou) indicating the number and age of the plants at that spot is recorded on the gash where the bark has been peeled from the tree.

Most of the ginseng tales, like the one translated here, concern the initiation of a young hunter into the traditions of the ginseng-hunting cult. A motif is the child who is abandoned in the forest, dies, and is revived by supernatural powers that include snakes, ginseng spirits, the mountain god, or the patron chief of the ginseng diggers. Through his initiation, the young man establishes contacts with such powers of the mountains that enable him to become a successful ginseng collector later in life.

In the ginseng-producing areas of northeastern China, these stories are told in family and village contexts as a part of everyday entertainment, and they are a medium by which knowledge about ginseng hunting is spread. The initiation of young men into the art of ginseng collecting occurs against the background of this knowledge. Another important motif in ginseng folktales is the dreams of diggers that reveal the location of the elusive plants.

The folktale “The Mother’s Brother and His Sister’s Son” (which in Western terms would concern an uncle and his nephew) was told on the afternoon of June 21, 1985, at the home of the ginseng hunter Diao Xihou, a farmer living in Chenghou village, Ji’an district, Jilin province. The storyteller was Li Yongbao, then sixty years old. A ginseng hunter himself, Li was a disciple of Diao Xihou. The translator visited Diao Xihou with a group of Chinese folklorists from Tonghua and Ji’an during fieldwork on ginseng folklore in the Changbai Mountains. Among the listeners were also members of Diao’s family (his wife, son, and grandchildren). Li Yongbao calls his stories lies (xiahuar) or legends (chuanshuo).

The general plot of the story, which (like all folktales) exists in many versions, is as follows. A greedy maternal uncle takes his (often unwilling) nephew along on a search for ginseng. After a long and fruitless trip, they discover a patch of ginseng at the base of a huge rock. The uncle lowers the nephew down with a rope. The boy digs out the roots and sends them up in a basket. The uncle, unwilling to share the precious roots, steals away, leaving the boy to starve. The nephew is aided by a supernatural being, in this story a protector animal of the ginseng plant, which happens to be a huge snake. The serpent shows the boy how to survive by licking the Lingzhi mushroom (Ganoderma lucidum), highly valued for its medicinal potency, which allows the boy to survive the winter in a dormant state in a cave. In the spring, the nephew is helped out of the cave by the snake and returns home, whereupon his uncle is punished.

The translation is based on the transcription of a tape-recorded performance of the folktale. The translation is ethnopoetic in that it strives to present a text that, when recited aloud, gives some sense of what an actual oral telling would be like.¹ In order to maintain the spoken manner in the written form, the text is transcribed in lines, divided by pauses the speaker makes while speaking. A new line indicates a long pause. A line continuing under the last word of the foregoing line indicates a short pause. Gestures, laughter, and other paralinguistic features are presented parenthetically like stage directions. Exclamations are written in capital letters. The English translation follows the Chinese transcription as closely as possible.

THE MOTHER’S BROTHER AND HIS SISTER’S SON

Told by Li Yongbao (Han)

Lies—

Didn’t we hear legends told, ha?!

From the home in Shandong came

That mother’s brother and his sister’s son the two

to dig for ginseng

…

Didn’t the mother’s brother and his sister’s son

See a patch of ginseng below that rock

His uncle

his nephew went down and dug all

When he had just dug out he of their family

he first sent the ginseng up

He² left his sister’s son back there

He went back

after he had sold the ginseng for money he went home

Coming home he talked to the wife of his sister’s son and said

Said his sister’s son of their family had died

Had gone half the way

had fallen ill and died

(Laughs)

…

That—

Later their family

This

This sister’s son of their family

he didn’t manage to come up

With this

Rope he had been let down

When he had gone he³ had been left alone

Soon it would be the Feast of the Eighth Month,⁴ HA!

Wasn’t there this snake this python or whatever

There was a big cave, ah!

He entered that cave

In order to winter at it

And it was there that he went to lick that Lingzhi

Went to lick this Lingzhi wasn’t it in order to be able to winter

He⁵ had gone back to their home but he had no way

it also went into that grotto

When he saw that it licked the Lingzhi he also went to lick it

This is how he passed one winter

When he had passed one winter and spring came and flowers opened...