Starting in the late nineteenth century, unusual pictographic books began to flow from a remote corner of Southwest China into the libraries of the Western world. What made these books so attractive? For one, they possessed the air of mystery that came with being “magical” books almost indecipherable to all but a select few ritual specialists, but perhaps more importantly, they were written in what looked like an ancient form of picture writing.
In these books, written in the Naxi dongba script of southwest China, the events unfold on the page visually. This book offers a full translation of a central Naxi origin myth in a level of detail never before seen: readers are invited to delve into this unique script in both its original form and digital recreation, alongside historic and updated translations and an accompanying explanation of each individual graph.
- Cover
- Contents
- Part One: Introduction
- Words as pictures
- The Naxi and their literature
- Elise Scharten, Naxi translator
- The translation method
- Why another translation?
- What to watch out for when reading
- The chelggvq purification ceremony
- Part Two: Annotated Translation
- Dramatis Personae
- Cover page
- Panel 1-1 — 1-10
- Panel 2-1 — 2-13
- Panel 3-1 — 3-9
- Panel 3-10, 4-1 — 4-9
- Panel 5-1 — 5-10
- Panel 6-1 — 6-9
- Panel 7-1 — 7-8
- Panel 8-1 — 8-10
- Panel 9-1 — 9-9
- Panel 10-1 — 10-9
- Panel 11-1 — 11-9
- Panel 12-1 — 12-7
- Panel 13-1 — 13-7
- Panel 14-1 — 14-11
- Panel 15-1 — 15-10
- Panel 16-1 — 16-7
- Panel 17-1 — 17-11
- Panel 18-1 — 18-9
- Panel 19-1 — 19-8
- Panel 20-1 — 20-10
- Panel 21-1 — 21-10
- Panel 22-1 — 22-10
- Panel 23-1 — 23-12
- Panel 24-1 — 24-10
- Panel 25-1 — 25-10
- Panel 26-1 — 26-8
- Panel 27-1 — 27-7
- Panel 28-1 — 28-11
- Panel 29-1 — 29-11
- Panel 30-1 — 30-9
- Panel 31-1 — 31-8
- Panel 32-1 — 32-8
- Panel 33-1 — 33-3
- References
- Appendix 1: The Scharten manuscript
- Appendix 2: The Scharten translation (sample)
Text
Audio
Adobe DRM
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