Butterflies and dragon-eagles : Processing epics from southwest China

Since the 1950s large-scale government-sponsored folk literature collection projects have been carried out in China.1 These include the massive Chinese Folksong Compendium (Zhongguo geyao jicheng), a nationwide project underway since the late 1980s to collect folksongs and oral art (Feng 1999:18-19). By the year 2002, this and related projects had resulted in the collection and publication of approximately three million folk songs, nearly two million folk stories, and a whopping seven million proverbs, as well as hundreds of local dramas, prosimetric narratives, and epics (WIPO 2002:2).Issue title: In Memoriam John Miles Foley January 22, 1947-May 3, 2012