トン戯の保護と継承：住民参加の視点から

The Inheritance and Safeguard of Dong Drama: From the Perspective of Residents Participation王佾WANG Yi
1. Introduction(1) Research backgroundDong drama, an unique intangible culture of Dong
minority, formed around 1830. This activity originatedfrom Liping, Guizhou province (貴州省黎平県). And
it is accessible in Sanjiang, Guangxi province (広西省三江県), and Tongdao, Hunan province (湖南省通道県). The form of Dong drama is a significant sign thatthe history and culture of Dong ethnic had developedin a new stage. In 2006, the culture department ofChina nominated it in the first batch of Representative
List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in China 1.
According to the National key scientific research
projects of China (国家重点科研項目) implemented
in 1999, the statistics showed that there were 394 kindsof Chinese drama in the past. In 1959, the number
reduced to 360, and 50 of them were formed after 1949.
By 1982, the number of Chinese dramas had dropped
to 317. The Chinese drama is disappearing rapidly.
With the deepening of globalization, how to deal
with the impact of foreign culture becomes very
important. As a weak minority, Dong formed its own
drama by absorbing from Han, which is a very
successful case of resisting an invasion of foreignculture.
(2) Research purpose and methodology
Based on the above background, this study has
three purposes.
Frist is to study the development and influence ofDong drama. Second, to prove the impact of residents’participation on Dong drama. Third, to combine theabove research results, put forward suggestion for thesafeguard and inheritance of Dong drama.
The methodology were literature research andfield investigation. In literature research, the mainwork is clarifying the history development, andcurrent situation of Dong drama. In field work, three
counties intangible cultural heritage center andnational level Dong drama inheritors had been
investigated. Considering Liping Guizhou province isthe origin of Dong drama and had been nominated as
the Hometown of Dong drama in 1994. This place isthe major of survey.

学位論文梗概集 2019(3) Basic information of Dong drama
Dong drama group ( ト ン 戯 班 ) is the mainorganization for Dong drama. Actors, scriptwriter andband belong to the group. All the participants areresidents. Usually, one village has one Dong drama
group. Since the birth of it, the group never has aprofessional troupe, and the members always change.

Figure 1 Stage composition
A: Entrance
F: Scriptwriter
B: Entrance and exit
G: Accompaniment band
C & D: Actors’ stand point ∞ ： The movement route
E: An altarof actors

Because of the amateur participants, the stage’s
spatial structure is unique. As a local leisure activity,
most of the participants of Dong drama make theirliving from agriculture, which means they don’t havemuch time to practice. To make sure the show goessmoothly, the scriptwriter will sit on the stage and give
actors a prompt. This is a special performance
movement in Dong drama2. (Figure 1)
In figure 1, C and D are the positions of actors, F
point is where the scriptwriter sits. In order to hear thehints, the actors will walk to C point naturally andmove back to the D point to finish the paragraph.
Because this moving route is very similar to an 8character, it is called an 8 step (八字歩). This feature
greatly reduces the requirements for actors and allows
everyone able to participate in Dong drama.
(4) Current situation of Dong drama
safeguard and inheritance
The Intangible Cultural Heritage Law of thePeople's Republic of China divided intangible cultureTable 2 The support fund for Dong drama

RegionLiping county,
Guizhou(貴州省黎平県)
Tongdao county,
Hunan(湖南省通道県)
Sanjiang county
Guangxi(広西省三江県)

Support fund(To supportactivities of Dong
drama in county)

For Nationalinheritor

600,000 yuanlevel

For Provincial level inheritor

For Prefecturelevel inheritor

ForCounty
level inheritor

20,000 yuan

8,000 yuan

2,000 yuan600 yuan

500,000 yuan
-900,000 yuan

20,000 yuan

10,000 yuan

3,000 yuan

0

600,000 yuan

20,000 yuan

Unknown

Unknown

600 yuaninheritor into 4 levels: National level, Provincial level,
Prefectural level, and County level. The law ordainsthat a National level inheritor can get 20,000 RMB
each year as the allowance.For other levels, theidentification and management of inheritors isdepending on the government at the same level. (Table2)
In Liping county, by the end of 2017, the local
culture department has built 20 training institutions. It
is a special place for local Dong drama group and otherintangible cultural heritages to practice and assemble.
It is managed by the village committee.
In Guangxi Sanjiang area, the culture department
set up a Dong drama inheritance base in Nanzai
Village. In the base, the musical instruments, costumes,
and the history of Dong drama have been
demonstrated. This place is managed by Yang
Kaiyuan, the national inheritor in Guangxi.
At the same time, there is no special method toprotect the Dong drama in Hunan Tongdao county. In
an interview of Wu Shangdei, the national inheritor inHunan, he mentioned that the Dong drama in Hunan isdeclining.
2. Transition of Dong drama(1) Initial stage (1828~1911)
Around 1644, transportation was developed
rapidly, and town thrived and prospered in Dong
ethnic area. More and more Han people moved toDong area and brought various opera there.
Meanwhile, the power of the government continuouslyincreased, and lots of cultural organizations wascreated, such as county school, and local college3.
Dong people received the Han nationality'seducation in various degree against this background.
Paralleling with the gradual deepening of twominorities' communication, Dong people raises
concerns about Han opera while Han opera groupoften performs in Dong villages.
By 1828,Wu Wencai (吴文彩), an educated Dong
people who passed the imperial examination at thecountry level was attracted by Han opera and createda new faction of opera for Dong minority4. After the
first appearance, the show had an enormous success.
To get closer to the Han opera, a lot of items of Dong

drama had been adjusted. Since then, the stage ofDong drama from one actor changed to multiple actors,
and the accompaniment musical instruments wereraised. In this period, although the story in Dong
drama still relies on Han minority, it is the shape ofDong drama.
(2) Growth period (1911~1966）
In this period, the script Zhulang and Niangmei (珠郎 娘 美 ) presented the formation of Dong drama.
Zhulang and Niangmei is the first original script ofDong drama. The entire script is based on a true story,
set in Dong minority in the mid-19th century5. Using
the heroine's love tragedy as the clue, it depicted thelife of all social classes, reconstructed thecontradiction of marriage customs in Dong minority.
It perfected a form of Dong drama, ultimately
reappeared the profound culture of Dong minority,
which won the heart of every audience and also theattention of the Guizhou culture department (貴州省文物局). The department began to conduct researchon Dong drama and support the development of local
performing group.
After that, the Guiyang opera company (貴陽市黔
劇団) remade the story of 'Zhulang and Niangmei intoa Han drama called Qin Niang mei (秦 娘 美 ) andplayed it successfully at Beijing theater in 19606. In
the same year, the Shanghai Haiyan Film Studio (上海海燕制片厂) brought Qin Niang Mei to the screen.
The film helped the story of Zhulang and Niangmei
win widespread fame. The Dong drama rang a newperiod.
(3) Stasis and revival period (1966~)
In 1966 came the 'Cultural revolution’, whichlasted a whole decade. Considering that most contextsof play involves religion or belief, all of the local Dong
drama group spontaneously disbanded. With the endof Cultural revolution, the government organization
has reformed 4 times.
The transition of Dong drama shows that Dong
drama was indeed influenced by the Han minority atfirst, but after a while, the Dong drama explored its

Summaries of Academic Theses 2019

own mode, which in turn affected Han drama.
Throughout the phase from Han opera to Dong drama,
then back to Han opera and remade into a movie, Dong
drama development has become mature.
3．Analysis of Scripts of Dong drama(1) Two types of Dong drama scripts
The content of Dong drama has two varieties:
adaptation and original scripts. A story that has
appeared in other drama and has been translated it intoDong language by author, or made it into a newversion, is considered as an adaptation script. The
original script means that it is the first script, not acopy by someone else.
During the fieldwork, at least 537 scripts of Dong
drama were collected, of which 220 were original
scripts and 317 were adaptations.
(2) Case study: Script Data Analysis
In the process of field work, based on the principleof “the most complete, the earliest, and the mostRepresentative”, ten scripts of Dong drama wereselected as the study objects to understand theinfluence and function of Dong drama. According to
the classification above, two of them are the adaptation
scripts, and eight of them are original scripts.
The analysis shows that the content of those tencases can be classified to 4 types.
(i) Education and ideology
Policy introduction, educational encouragement
and moral education are vital contents of educationand ideology. One script explains the contents ofNational Congress of the Communist Party of China
to villagers. Two scripts encourage the residents tocontinue their education instead of seeking workoutside. Moreover, Dong drama has a significant
function to create the principle of society, especiallymoral boundaries. Diligence is the vital point among
them, and five of cases all mentioned it.

related to agriculture is the most important survival
skills that Dong people must learn and understand.
Most of the Dong drama subconsciously pass on
knowledge to local residents, such as how to plant andhow to determine the farming time. Moreover, 15
kinds of farm products are recorded in those ten scripts.
On the aspect of landscape, there are 16 kinds of
Indigenous vegetation and 7 landforms in ten scripts.
The environment description line shows that the Dongvillage landscape exhibits a high to low structure. This
result reflects that Dong drama recorded thegeographical characteristics of Dong people’s habitatand represented the coexistence of Dong people andnature.
(iv) Event
Marriage is the major subject in Dong drama, 6
scripts have discussed marriage. This analysis isrelated to the conflict between the two marriage
traditions of Dong ethnic.
Cousin marriage is a custom that relatives getmarried. In this condition, the marriage is decided byparents.
Another custom is called Xing ge zuo yue (行歌坐月). When a young man reaches a certain age, usuallya suitable age for marriage, he will visit the house of ayoung lady who is at a similar age and sing together toexpress love. In this tradition, the marriage is decided
by the young.

(ii) Religion and belief
The goodness Sa (薩) and animism are the basic
religions in Dong area7. Meanwhile, 7 scripts related
to religion and belief indicates that there are a large
number of religions like Taoism Buddhism of Han
minority in Dong culture. This strong emotional bond
between Han and Dong ethic was formed around 1830.
Since then, Dong people started to get to know Han
minority's culture and were deeply affected by thereligions, especially the yin-yang and five elements
theory of Taoism. Those religions of two minority areclosely connected and work successfully together.
(iii) Daily life and traditional knowledge
In daily life and traditional knowledge, agriculture
and landscape are the major contents.
About agriculture, 27 contents appear in scripts. As
a minority living on rice cultivation, the knowledge
学位論文梗概集 2019

Picture 3 Dong ethnic traditional custom Xing gezuo
yue (photo from the Tangan eco-museum)Among the ten cases, 4 scripts discuss about thecontradiction. In 1960, the heroine of Jinhan andliemei (金漢列美) cannot disobey the cousin marriage,
so she chose to escape from the village and had ahappy ending in the end. In Once Upon a Time in
Wuliang hill (霧梁情), the heroine imitated the oldstory of Jinhan and liemei but died in the elopement.
This script questions cousin marriage. Besides, in2017, the heroine of Wu huaka ( 呉 華 卡 ) directly
rejected cousin marriage, and suggested that it should
not be existed.
In 2016, the script of late marriage ( 結 晚 婚 )brought a new idea that people are never too late to getmarried. Considering the traditional marriage age in
Dong ethnic is 14 to 15 years old, the new idea isconsidered as a great break. The result also indicatedthe marriage conception changes of Dong ethnic.
4. Resident participation and Safeguard in
Dong drama.
(1) Two participant patterns
The 8-step movement helps actors not to memorize
the lines of Dong drama. In addition, as the main
culture for the festival, each group usually requires 2030 actors for a show. Those features make theparticipation of resident become a great characteristicof Dong drama.
The fieldwork in 2019 confirmed two modes ofparticipation in Dong drama: Native performance andInterchange performance.
(2) Tripartite relationship in Nativeperformance
In native performance, the performer andaudience come from the same village. Three main
sections exist in this mode: scriptwriter, groupmembers, and audience.
The scriptwriter chooses the proper actor for eachrole, and the actors' performance affects and attracts
audience. To support the Dong drama group, audience
will give them money or other gifts, such as food orclothes. A scriptwriter controls the whole situation,and everyone on the team can get a role in performance,
which means this performance pays more attention toresidents’ participation than to professionalism.

requires actors, which are residents, to be professional.
The Dong drama study should treat it like a
Community culture. It is essential for long-term
safeguard and inheritance. However, with theincreasing population of working outside thehometown, it is hard to find a villager who is willing
and able to receive training. Even if the inheritor isfound, it is unlikely for him/her to stay in the village
and continue the inheritance work.
To maintain this community culture, this study
suggests that the local department may establish a
professional organization only for businessperformance and tourism.
The developing tourism can bring more consumers
and funds to local businesses, which contributed to agood condition for the returning population.
Simultaneously, the population increasing provided
actors’ successors for the professional organization.
The scriptwriter can be recruit into the organization for
script providing and consulting. Under this condition,
residents are making a good living and are contented.
Reference:

1. 周帆 黄守斌, 柔性的力量,文艺研究,pp.97-103, 2011年第 11 期,

2. 吴鹏毅，侗戏，北京：北京科学技术出版社,pp.25-27,2012

3. 梁淑安，中国近代文学论文集, 1919-1949: 戏剧卷 ，p.218,中国社会科学出版社,1988

4. 政 协黎 平 县委 员会 文史 委 员会编， 侗族最早的侗 戏,5.

(3) The social interaction in Interchange
performance
Interchange performance is a big event between
two Dong villages. The performer and audience comefrom different villages.
In this event, the village that performs the Dong
drama is usually called Guest village, and the villagethat watches the play is called Host village. Those twovillages will exchange performances to strengthen
relationships.
On the one hand, the interchange performances
promote the development and progress of Dong drama.
On the other hand, this event increase population
mobility between villages. This mobility strengthens
the bond between the Dong people and makes theregional communities more united.

Unpublished data
Lang yajuan, Analyze Dong ballad from the variant text ofZhulang Niangmei, Minzu university, the Chinese minorities
Linguistics and Literature, 2010.

6. 李瑞岐，贵州侗戏, p25,贵州民族出版社,p.12,1989.
7. The Guizhou Ethnic Affair Commission, The Culture of Dong
Ethnic Group, p2, Guizhou Nationality Publishing House,
2006.6.

5. Conclusion
Besides the consideration above, this survey
reveals that the development of Dong drama provedthat the great way to resist an invasion of foreignculture is to take an active learning of foreign culture,transplant the local culture, and form its distinctivefeatures. Whereby, the Dong drama protection andinheritance are worth discussing and considering.
In this research, the results pointed out that thesafeguard method would not work if Dong drama
Summaries of Academic Theses 2019