Illustration: Huang Qing Zhigong Tu, 1769 (public domain) Quyi
Heilongjiang Province, Northeast China
Ancient, passed down orally through Hezhen generations
Representative List
Master-Apprentice (Oral/Aural)
Oral Tradition
Hezhen Yimakan Storytelling
"Hezhen Yimakan storytelling — unaccompanied sung-and-spoken improvisation in a language its people have no script for, transferred by UNESCO to the Representative List in 2025."
CIVILIZATION CONTEXT
This artifact is part of the Intangible Heritage Cluster. It connects to 3 entities across the atlas, spanning 1 region, 0 masters, 0 festivals, and 0 skills.
Hezhen Yimakan Storytelling: A Living Heritage
Yimakan is the oral storytelling tradition of the Hezhen (Nanai), a Tungusic people of China's three-rivers country in Heilongjiang Province, where the Amur/Heilongjiang, the Songhua and the Ussuri meet. Performers improvise the stories without instrumental accompaniment, alternating between singing and speaking and using different melodies to represent different characters and plots; the many independent episodes recount tribal alliances, battles and the defeat of monsters and invaders by Hezhen heroes, and carry shamanic ritual, fishing and hunting knowledge with them. Because the practising communities have no writing system, yimakan is what preserves their mother tongue, religion, beliefs, folklore and customs. UNESCO inscribed the practice on the Urgent Safeguarding List in 2011 and transferred it to the Representative List in 2025, in the same session that selected its safeguarding programme as a Best Safeguarding Practice.
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Related Cultural Vectors
Sources & Evidence
Status UNESCO Representative List (inscribed)
Primary source UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage, Representative List — Nomination file No. 02224 (transferred from 00530, inscribed 2011 on the Urgent Safeguarding List, transferred 2025): https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/hezhen-yimakan-storytelling-02224 ; the programme recognised in 2025 as a Best Safeguarding Practice is file No. 02474: https://ich.unesco.org/en/BSP/safeguarding-programme-for-hezhen-yimakan-storytelling-02474
- — Inscribed on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding in 2011 (Decision 6.COM 8.6) and transferred to the Representative List in 2025 (Decision 20.COM 7.c.2). (Nomination file No. 02224; 20.COM decision 7.c.2)
- — Yimakan performers improvise stories without instrumental accompaniment, alternating between singing and speaking and using different melodies to represent different characters and plots; the many independent episodes depict tribal alliances and battles and preserve knowledge of shamanic rituals, fishing and hunting. (Decision 6.COM 8.6; UNESCO ICH element description, file 02224)
- — At the time of the initial inscription only five storytellers were still capable of performing certain Yimakan cantos; the element was listed as needing urgent safeguarding because, with the acceleration of modernisation and the standardisation of school education, the Hezhen mother tongue was endangered and only elders could speak their native language. (Decision 20.COM 7.c.2, criteria R.1 and paragraph 6)
Last reviewed: 2026-10-13
Status and primary source follow the official record. Other narrative on this page — including cultural interpretation — is the Atlas's own reading, not an external source.
History & Development
Yimakan is the epic storytelling of the Hezhen (Nanai), a Tungusic people of the three-rivers country of Heilongjiang, where the Amur/Heilongjiang, the Songhua and the Ussuri meet, alternating unaccompanied speech-song between hero tales and clan history. With no traditional writing system, yimakan carried laws, genealogy, and shamanic lore across generations and remains the principal vehicle of the Hezhen mother tongue.
By the 1980s only a handful of elderly singers remained fluent, and in 2011 UNESCO inscribed Hezhen yimakan on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of Urgent Safeguarding. UNESCO recorded that, with the acceleration of modernisation and the standardisation of school education, the Hezhen mother tongue was endangered and only elders could speak their native language. In 2025 the practice was transferred to the Representative List, and in the same session UNESCO selected its safeguarding programme as a Best Safeguarding Practice.
How It Is Made
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Learning call-and-response structure
Verses alternate spoken narration with sung refrains, and students master the hinge phrases that switch modes mid-story.
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Memorising fish-camp vocabulary
Canoe terms, net rituals, and river geography anchor episodes, so singers study seasonal lifeways alongside texts.
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Performing at winter gatherings
Long winter evenings were the traditional setting, when a single singer would carry a cycle of episodes through the night for the assembled community.
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Recording for archives
Because the language has no traditional writing system, fieldworkers and inheritors record performances on audio and video and transcribe them phonetically to build an archive.
Common Questions
Who are the Hezhen?
A Tungusic fishing people of the Heilongjiang frontier, numbering only a few thousand, profiled in the Hezhen community guide.
Why was it listed as needing urgent safeguarding?
When UNESCO assessed it in 2011, only five storytellers were still capable of performing certain Yimakan cantos, and the element was listed because the Hezhen mother tongue was endangered and only elders could speak their native language. It was transferred to the Representative List in 2025.
What do the stories tell?
Hero hunts, river spirit bargains, and clan migrations dominate, encoding practical law like salmon-sharing rules inside adventure plots.
Watch & Learn
Related Places
Relationship Constellation
Tracing the invisible threads that connect Hezhen Yimakan Storytelling to the broader civilization ecosystem.