Abstract: Literary anthropology focuses not only on the anthropological dimension and content of literary studies but also on the literariness of anthropology. In order to explore what makes literatures literature, this paper tries to explain the existence of literature and its significance from the perspective of literary anthropology. The interpretation to the existence and significance of literature from the perspective of literary anthropology entails exploration regarding what makes literature literature. Both Muses, the inspirational goddesses of literature, science and the arts in Greek methology, and Dongb Langf, or folk bard-singers in Southwest China are associated with literature, but their identities and destinies are vastly different. "Muses" are inherited as they evolve, but Dongb Longf are on the verge of extinction due to external challenges. Muses and Dongb Longf are typical forms of internal inheritance of human life; interntal inheritance makes humans cultural humans that can imagine, conceive and compose. Literariness of human beings is exactly a form of internal inheritance of human life. In other words, it is the literature behind literatures that determines the generation and inheritance of literature.

Key words: Muse, Dongb Longf, literary anthropology, internal inheritance, comparative literature