Ancient Fishing Goose Folk Tales

Liaoning
🎧  Listen to Introduction

Throughout the ages, the small town of Erjiegou in the sea area of Liaohe River estuary has always been the gathering place of the special group of fishermen, "Gu Yuyan". The fishermen who make this living do not have the ability to fish in the open sea, so they can only migrate along the water and land edges of the coast like migratory birds, fishing and catching shrimps on the mudflats and shallow seas at the mouths of rivers. Because this group follows a primitive fishing and hunting livelihood without settling, the people of Liaohe River estuary call them "Gu Yuyan". The Gu Yuyan of Erjiegou are mainly fishermen who migrated here from the central and eastern Hebei regions of North China by land and water. They are the creators and inheritors of the Gu Yuyan folk literature. Due to the particularity of their livelihood, the Gu Yuyan folk literature is very different from the folk literature of general island fishing villages. The distinctive characteristics of the livelihood of the fishermen and the remnants of the primitive culture have a comprehensive reflection of the history and life, customs and traditions, beliefs and cultural creation of this group. In terms of form, the Gu Yuyan folk literature is short, simple in plot, primitive in content, and less developed and changed. The ancient fishing geese folk literature in Erjiegou is rich. In the past ten years, the local cultural department has excavated and recorded nearly a thousand myths, stories and legends that explain the origin of ancient boat nets and reflect primitive fishing life, and collected more than a thousand fishing songs. Liu Zeting, a descendant of the ancient fishing geese and a cultural figure from a fisherman, can tell hundreds of stories and legends about the ancient fishing geese. He is an important inheritor of the ancient fishing geese folk culture. Due to the particularity of their livelihood, the ancient fishing geese group has been on the margins of society in successive dynasties in my country, and there are very few records of them in literature. The ancient fishing geese folk literature records and reflects this ancient way of livelihood in the form of oral history, which has important historical, cultural and scientific value. In recent years, this way of livelihood has been interrupted in most coastal areas of my country and seaports around the world, and the older generation of ancient fishing geese have passed away one after another, and the ancient fishing geese folk literature is on the verge of extinction. Based on this, the ancient fishing geese folk literature that still exists in Erjiegou at the mouth of the Liaohe River is even more precious and urgently needs to be protected.

Intangible culture related to the heritage

China tourist attractions related to the heritage

World heritage related to the heritage