In March 2019, Leiden University Libraries (UBL) signed an Academic Cooperation Agreement with the Beijing Association of Dongba Culture and Arts (ADCA), and handed over the digitized Dongba manuscripts to ADCA in May. From August to September of the same year, the ADCA research team worked with Dongba Xi Shanghong in Sanba to interpret the books.
Each manuscript in the Leiden collection has been recorded by ADCA researchers in

the field, preserving the interpretation and reading of the Dongba pictographs by the old Dongba priest. The contents have then been translated and the manuscripts catalogued. The catalogue entries include a summary of the contents, the name and purpose of the ceremony, and the provenance of the book etc. Sample catalogue entries (for manuscripts Or. 25.259 and 25.260) looks like this (click the images for the version in Chinese; to see these manuscripts, visit our Naxi Dongba manuscripts in our Digital Collections).

In order to align the text with the oral reading, the team asks the Dongba to use a wooden stick to point to the specific pictographic character being read during the oral recital, when this process is recorded on video, the image and pronunciation of the pictograph can be accurately aligned, which is very helpful for researchers to confirm the exact pronunciation of a word and the relationship between the oral reading and the written manuscript (this is especially important because the Naxi manuscripts are not written in a linear fashion).

In order to most accurately record the process of reading and deciphering a Naxi manuscript, the project team of the Beijing Association of Dongba Culture and Arts (ADCA) employs audio-visual anthropological methods. These include making records of the ritual specialist’s reading and translation, captured in a traditional Naxi village, from multiple angles with a number of cameras.