ABSTRACT
The topic of this chapter is the “Lute of Heaven” of the Budai people of Jinlongdong, Longzhou County, Guangxi. Longzhou is located in the far southwest of Guangxi, and Jinlongdong is a region of karst mountains right on the border with Vietnam. The self-designated Budai are officially categorized as Zhuang, but exhibit cultural traits which are quite different from other Zhuang subgroups in this region, including shamanic ritual performances in which the chief instrument (and vehicle for celestial ascent) is a two- or three-stringed lute. The lute was “rediscovered” early in the Reform Era, and in 2006 it became one of the first items of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) to be approved by the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region government. This chapter will explore some of the reasons for this development and some of the manifold transformations that have taken place in the art form and its public presentation along with ICH status. Interestingly, much of the media coverage and scholarship has assigned an indigenous origin to the Heavenly Lute, and claimed Longzhou as the place of origin of this tradition. I suggest that this has more to do with the need to pursue tourist dollars than it does with the underlying historical and cultural realities, and that county and provincial governments may be pursuing parochial self-interest while foregoing possibilities for much wider international collaboration.
