The Poetics of Sound and Ritual: Music, Performance, and Cultural Memory in Yi Creation Myths

Abstract

: Yi creation myths in China do not exist solely as written texts or oral narratives. Their production, transmission, and reception have long depended on the combined agency of chant, rhythm, musical instruments, bodily movement, and ritual space. Representative Yi creation epics, including Meige, Cham, Axi de Xianji, Le’e Te’yi, and Song of Heaven, Earth, and the Ancestors, demonstrate that music both organizes narrative structure and brings myth into social practices that can be heard, witnessed, and collectively enacted. Taking the question of how sound makes myth a living tradition as its point of departure, this article examines the narrative functions of mythical music, the cultural representations of traditional instruments, the relation between sound and the body in ritual, and the role of music in sustaining cultural memory. It argues that the poetics of Yi creation myths cannot be understood through textual analysis alone. Repetition, rhythm, melody, singing, and ritual action jointly constitute the production of meaning. Music thereby mediates among mythical narrative, communal experience, and intergenerational transmission, allowing creation narratives to acquire renewed social significance through repeated performance.