Selections from the Naxi Manuscript Collection

The Asian Division is pleased to announce that Selections from the Naxi Manuscript Collection is available as of June 02, 2004 at:

http://international.loc.gov/intldl/naxihtml/naxihome.html

Dr. Mi Chu Wiens of the Asian Division started the Naxi Project in 1998 with a grant from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for three years (1998-2001), and worked with the Library's Digital Team for this website since 2002.

The Naxi collection contains documents that detailed the unique cosmology of the Naxi people of the Yunnan Province in Southwest China. They were written by Naxi shamanistic priests in what is the only living pictographic language in the world. These manuscripts illustrate a range of Naxi myths and legends including the story of the creation of the world, sacrifice to the Serpent King and other principle gods, accounts of Naxi warriors and other people of high social standing ascending to the realm of deities, and love-suicide stories. Also available in this online collection is the annotated catalog of the entire Library's Naxi manuscript collection, a 39-½ foot scroll used in funerary ceremonies, and translations by Joseph Rock of two of the manuscripts.

The Naxi Manuscript Collection is the first Area Studies LC-only Global Gateway collection. It was done using LC resources, with no partnership with a foreign library. Its interface is presented in English only and resembles the American Memory Collections in look and design.