Hidden cultural divergences: A study of two creation myths of a Naxi script

Abstract

Scripts not only describe reality, but also reflect the social stratification, identity, and even power distribution among those who use them. These are often embedded in the creation myths told about writing systems. Concerning the famous pictographic script of the Naxi people, there are two distinct accounts of its invention. One is a myth spread orally in Baidi, the sacred land of the Naxi people, which tells that the script was created by a Tibetan-trained Naxi who became an ancestor of the Dongba, the Naxi religious specialists who use the script. The other is a record in the Genealogical Chronicles of the Mu Family, written in Chinese, which states that it was invented by an ancestor of the Naxi ruling chiefs in Lijiang named Maicong. These two sources thus clearly give very different accounts of the geographic origin of the script. In addition, the oral myth and the written genealogies attribute the creation of the script to persons with very different social backgrounds. This raises the question: how did these two sources’ completely different accounts of the same script come about? And how can we understand these two narratives? By examining these sources from anthropological and historical perspectives, this study analyzes the social conditions under which the two narratives were created, and discusses the roles played by creation myths of the Naxi script in social stratification, identity, and power distribution in Naxi society.