Last month we received only one set of new material - two collections of rare dongjing archives from Yunnan in China. This material was copied by the project Survey on surviving dongjing archives in Jianshu, Tonghai and Mengzi. Its arrival couldn't have suited us better. It came just in time to be catalogued by Thushari Perera, who is doing a placement with us as part of her degree in Archives and Records Management at University College London.

We should be able to announce the completion of this catalogue and its availability very soon. In the meantime, I can tell you that the project copied 23 manuscripts and other records belonging to Mr Li Chun and 10 manuscripts from the collection of Mr Wang Kaichao. Most of these documents are music scores, lyrics or texts associated with dongjing performances and rituals. Also included are records from dongjing societies, a biography of the Sacred Zhang and volumes used in worshiping the North God.

 

The image above is from a music score belonging to the Li Chun Collection. The image below comes from the Wang Kaichao Collection and belongs to a text that gives details of donjing performances that celebrate the God Taiyi rescuing the threatened. This powerful early Daoist god is thought to act of behalf of those suffering misfortunes.

 

Lynda