(VOVworld)- Epic poems have played an important role in the cultural lives of Central Highland’s people for centuries. But they are now on the verge of falling into oblivion. Only few people can still recite these poems. The teaching of epic poems has become more urgent than ever. VOV reporter Ngoc Hien looks at ways to preserve and promote epic poems.

According to researchers, the epic poems of the Central Highlands are on the verge of disappearing due to the impact of modern culture. Traditional long houses which are the venue for reciting epic poems are disappearing. Linh Nga Niek Kdam, a folklore culture researcher explains.“The Central Highlands has the world’s biggest collection of epic poems, but they are on the verge of completely disappearing because there’s no one reciting them. Epic poems now live only on papers but not in the community. There are only a few people reciting the epics and they are old and weak. Epic poems can be passed down orally only. It’s difficult to find a person who can recite epic poems from dawn to dusk”.

Doctor Hoang Son, Deputy Director of the Vietnam Institute of Arts and Literature says that it is urgent to record epic poems on tapes and CDs and broadcast them on radio to make them popular among ethnic minority people.  In addition, epic poems should be printed in both Vietnamese and ethnic languages and then distributed to the school libraries of ethnic minority people. Son says these two solutions should be implemented in parallel to revitalize the epic poems of the Central Highlands region: “We need to take resolute measures to enable younger generations to learn epic poems. The easiest way is to teach the next generation. For example, an 80-year-old man teaches a 60-year-old one because it would be difficult for an 80-year-old man to teach a 20-year-old. We need to get managers and local authorities involved in this work because local people cannot do it by themselves. We should implement this work as soon as possible as we have done with gong culture”.

In fact, epic poem classes have been opened in Kon Tum and certain other provinces. But, this model has not become popular due to a shortage of incentives for those who teach epic poems. Phan Van Hoa, Head of the Culture Section of Kon Tum Province’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, says:“After collecting and editing epic poems, we have published epic books and opened classes to teach epics to young ethnic minority people. It will take a long time to preserve and promote epic poems. We need incentives to encourage artists to teach epic poems to the following generations”.

62 sets of volumes with 60,000 pages containing 75 epic works of Ba Na, Se Dang, E De, Cham and Ja Rai ethnic minority groups have been translated and published bilingually. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has asked relevant agencies to prepare a dossier to seek UNESCO cultural heritage recognition.

Ngoc Hien