Using Animation to Record Indigenous Knowledge
Spokesperson: Lu Bing
Location: Mengsong, Xishuangbanna, Yunnan
Producer: Qian Jie
Organization: CBIK
E-mail: lubin@cbik.ac.cn
Web: www.cbik.org
In November 2001, a CBIK project team was using comic strips to record Hani festivals when they met a young Hani man by the name of Meilan. He was the main cartoonist of the program, and was also the most interested in traditional culture among the local youths. Sharing the concern of the CBIK workers about the loss of indigenous knowledge, Meilan told them he wanted to record the indigenous knowledge of his people. The CBIK workers and Meilan settled on a topic of research and Meilan went to interview the elders of the stockade in his spare time, gathering much knowledge that had never been documented before, which he recorded by means of illustrations. Afterwards, Meilan and the CBIK workers created a cartoon about Hani indigenous knowledge on the basis of the data he had collected. The aim of the cartoon is to re-inject the knowledge back into the community so it will be passed on to the next generation.
Akha (Hani) New Year: ‘Gatangpa’
2003/Color/DV/20min
Location: Mengsong, Xihuangbanna, Yunnan
Filmmaker: Lu Bing
Organization: CBIK
‘Gatangpa’ is the name of the Hani (Akha) New Year. In the 1960s it was banned along with other traditions as part of the ‘Four Olds’ campaign and was only revived by the government in 1987. However, in its ‘new form’ the festival has lost its cultural significance. A cartoon was created to describe the traditional sequence of events surrounding the festival. In itself, the cartoon not only constitutes a record of the traditional meaning of Gatangpa, but also a new media for the expression of indigenous knowledge.
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