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This Special Issue of Oral Tradition, as a prospective production of the cooperative project between the Center for Studies in Oral Tradition (CSOT) and the Institute of Ethnic Literature (IEL) of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) that initiated in 1999, is the first collection of papers published in English on studies of oral traditions of ethnic groups in China.
Having shared the common interest and orientation to promote Sino-U.S. discourses in oral traditions, we planned out the bilateral project at the very first step to introduce recent Northern American scholarship to Chinese readers, as well as to present Chinese researches on ethnic verbal art to English readers. In 2000, seven English papers recommended by Professor Foley were translated and published in Studies of Ethnic Literature, a quarterly journal founded in 1983, sponsored by the IEL to encourage study of oral and written literature of ethnic groups in China. In this special Chinese Issue subtitled American Scholarship on Oral Tradition, we have been fortunate in assembling contributions from scholars in the States, who have made ground-breaking interpretations of oral traditions. We also have had the honor of adding Professor Foley"s succinct head note to each paper, and his insightful perspectives on the discipline to the addendum in order to show our readers the new directions in the field. It"s worth mentioning that the issue has been warmly welcomed by Chinese scholars from relevant disciplines. And now, we are very happy to see the counterpart issue coming out in the States. The authors here are all my colleagues, and the great majority comes from minority ethnic groups, or with a specialized knowledge of indigenous traditions and ethnic verbal arts.
From the green grassland of the north, to the lush jungles in the south, from the coastal areas along Taiwan Strait in the east, to the "world height" in the west, there have been 56 official ethnic groups residing in Mainland China. The largest group, the Han, make up over 92% of China"s vast population, and thus it is somewhat understandable that when the rest of the world talks about "Chinese Culture", they often refers to "Han Culture." Yet, the 55 ethnic minorities, largely inhabiting away on China"s vast frontiers, spreading out 64% of China"s territory, have been struggling to maintain their own languages, oral traditions, and cultural identities for centuries.
In this English volume, thirteen authors examine oral traditions from various perspectives. Obviously, no single collection of papers could adequately cover the extensive range of traditional expressive arts observed in the diverse cultures of a country as huge and complex as China, anyhow, some important genres like epic, myth, sacred songs, incantation epos concerning Tibetan, Mongolian, Kirghiz, Manchu, Nahxi, Yi, Miao, and Dong peoples are represented here. We are aware that these papers revealed, in some sense, a general situation of diversity, multiformity, and complexity of oral traditions in China. We are also aware, without a doubt, that the present issue merely provides a close-up picture, illuminating Chinese current scholarship exploring into the roots of expressive cultures of human beings.
We are confident that the international scholarship in oral tradition has a promising future, one impetus is: its leading arena, the Oral Tradition, has been keen on broadening our vision to other culture, and sharpening our sense to rebuild the rules of verbal art. We hope this volume will reach into a new stage of our discipline toward dialogue and exchange with others who seek to better understand the expressive culture of human beings, in particular, through the discourses in discussing oral traditions of ethnic groups in China.
Hearty thanks must go first to Prof. Foley; it was his suggestion that made this volume possible. Much credit for the publicity of this volume should go to the translators and the editors. Not only are the subject matters difficult, but also the original texts with Chinese academic style do not easily translate into English academic format. My old friend, Dr. Naran Bilik and his buddies have made great effort to translate the majority of the papers into English. As for the editing process, I myself worked together with John Zemke, Michael Barnes, Kristin Funk, Heather Hignite, Heather Maring for months, I know how tough the job was for them. Aaron Tate helped me in some ways to edit the papers as well. Also, my special gratitude goes to my colleague Ms. Bamo Qubumo, for her generous assistance to editors in various ways. Here we would also like to extend our acknowledgement to Foreign Affairs Bureau of CASS, especially to Dr. Pei Changhong and Mr. Zhang Youyun, for the sustentation fund appropriated to this issue.
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