著者

黒澤 直道

出版者

東洋文庫

雑誌

東洋学報 = The Toyo Gakuho (ISSN:03869067)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.102, no.2, pp.33-65, 2020-09-17

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The Naxi ethnic group in southwest China is famous for its peculiar pictographic scripts—Dongba Scripts. For many years, scholars thought that Dongba scripts were only used for Dongba religious texts, which were chanted by Dongba priests in their religious ceremonies; few Dongba scripts were used for other purposes. However, in areas less influenced by the Han Chinese cultures, such as the Naxi neighborhood in the Diqing Prefecture, Yunnan province, it was found that some Dongba scripts were used for non-religious purposes. In this paper, the author describes the reading sounds in the Naxi language and the Japanese interpretation of The Genealogy of the Xi Family written in Dongba scripts, found in the Naxi township of Diqing Prefecture, and compares them with other texts of the Naxi genealogy. Generally, Dongba scripts are written in rectangular handmade papers. Pictographic scripts are divided into frames and are laid out in one frame almost freely. Seen from the sequence of frames, Dongba scripts are basically horizontal text. In The Genealogy of the Xi Family, handmade papers are also used in rectangular style, but the scripts are written in vertical lines. This is not the ordinary writing style found in Dongba scripts. A possible explanation would be that it has the influence of the Han Chinese writing style. In the first part of The Genealogy of the Xi Family, the ancestors' names are basically identical to the names in other texts of the Naxi genealogy, but some names have unique features, which will aid in the understanding of the variation of names in other texts of the genealogy. After the second part, few names given on the father-child principle are found, which are characteristic in other texts of the Naxi genealogy. On the other hand, several constituents, like word prefixes, are found in some of the Xi ancestors' names. Because this feature can also be found in some names of the ancestors in other texts of the Naxi genealogy, it is hoped to give a clue that reveals social changes of the time, such as the process of unification from several tribal groups. By considering these features of genealogies, the author points out that the discovery and examination of non-religious texts of the Naxi may help to clarify the condition of their society in the pre-modern times.