A Discussion On Cultures Of The Groups Without Scripts

Among numerous ethnic groups of human beings, less could create their own scripts systematically, while more being the communities without scripts. The author divides the human race into two groups—group with scripts and group without scripts only to emphasize their distinction, while the two kinds have many forms in common as far as cultural heritage is concerned. Firstly, language is a social product and a direct way of human thoughts. It serves as the carrier of the propagation, heritage and preservation of information. Thus ballads are always regarded as the bank of folk cultures and typical model of oral languages. Therefore the author set ballad as a typical example about the twelve drum music pieces of Buyi people living in Puding, Guizhou in his paper to show that folk song is the primary tool in researching groups without scripts. Secondly, practical memory has also played a special role. The author holds the view that only can the combination of oral language and practical behavior reveal deep-seated folk cultures and historical memories. The rite of "Songning"of the Buyi people makes their culture inherited generation to generation and endless. Thirdly, object patterns and designs contribute a lot to the cultural heritage of the groups without scripts. The patterns and designs engraved on drums of the Buyi people reflect some features of their culture. However, being in a unified multinational country like China, every ethnic group is inevitably affected by the main culture of China—the Han people's culture. Thus there appeared that the groups without scripts began to borrow the Han script to record their own cultures with their close and frequent communication with the Han cultures. The priests of the primitive religion of the Buyi people, Bumo, borrow the pronunciations, meanings or basic structural parts of Chinese characters to make new ones for recording their religion classics that is called Mo Scripture. The Buyi people's character is named as the Square-shaped Character. It can not only record the religion classics, but carry some cultural information including oral literature, idioms, etc. The groups without scripts sometimes use the Han script directly to present their cultures, but it doesn't mean that they have changed their own beliefs and values. The Buyi people have transformed the original meanings of some Han scripts to new meanings which are suitable for the Buyi's customs. Moreover, the modern image mass media have not only challenged the traditional folk cultures, but also provided convenience for their revivals. The discs of folk songs bring the local culture of the Buyi back to the environment that stories are handed down by word of mouth. On a whole, heritable ways of different cultures of groups without scripts have intermingled with each other and deeply rooted, which make up necessary parts of Chinese culture. They together with the documents of the groups with scripts have created the full view of human beings'civilization.