An Yuge

01 · Lineage & Regional School

An Yuge, Female, Hui, from Ningxia, is a fifth-batch national representative bearer of Hui Minjian Instrumental Music (Ⅱ-63). The tradition is documented in Ningxia. Within the regional tradition and school record of Hui Minjian Instrumental Music in Ningxia: The lines 'The barbarian dust clears the Jade Pass, the qiang flute rings with the war gong' and 'I do not know who is blowing the reed pipe; all the soldiers on campaign gaze all night long at home' in Li Shimin's 'Song of Watering Horses at the Caves of the Great Wall' are both true records of the instruments then in vogue, written after the Tang emperor personally visited the ancient Ningxia region of Lingzhou. Because of changes in history, these instruments have become very rare among the Han and other ethnic minorities of China today, yet as late as the twentieth century they were still popular among the Hui people of Ningxia.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

Female, Hui ethnicity, born in October 1957 in Yinchuan City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. From the age of five she learned the kouxian (jaw harp) from her mother, and by her teens she had mastered kouxian playing, sung playing and kouxian making. In the 1980s she was admitted to the Hui arts performance team of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Song and Dance Troupe, where kouxian playing and sung playing became a regular item in the troupe's exchange performances. She is the representative bearer in Ningxia who has a comprehensive command of both the bamboo and the iron kouxian and of the craft of making them. The combined bamboo-and-iron kouxian she devised has been granted three national patents. In 2012 she compiled and published Ningxia Hui Kouxian. Within the documented technical tradition of Hui Minjian Instrumental Music in Ningxia: Through long practice of life and cultural activity, the Hui of Ningxia have inherited the ancient instruments of Ningxia and the instruments of the northwestern frontier region together with their music, and have gradually developed them into folk instruments of the Hui with their own character. In the last century Chinese historians and philologists established that the Ningxia wawu, mimi and jaw harp are respectively the transformations and survivals of the xun, the qiang flute, the reed pipe and the free reed, ancient instruments circulating in Ningxia since the Han and Tang dynasties. The instruments of the Hui of Ningxia have already formed distinctive performing techniques, craftsmanship and the art of singing with instrumental accompaniment. A Hui virtuoso can use crossed trilling fingers to blow florid embellishments on the high-pitched wawu that the instrument can hardly produce by itself. The Hui instruments made by Hui artisans resemble an ox head or a small lamb; they are decorated with Hui artistic patterns and lines and carved with Arabic calligraphy, and they have vivid features of Hui culture. Because they have a beautiful tone, are easy to play and are convenient to carry, they have been handed down through generations among the Hui of Ningxia. In some Hui villages, whether young maidens or white-haired elders, everyone has a small jaw harp, while Hui boys and young men are skilled at blowing the mimi and the wawu. The village saying 'the wawu sings, the crops grow; the mimi blows, the cattle and sheep thrive' is exactly a portrait of village custom. Many artists of the older generation have changed their trade, and many young people no longer know what the jaw harp, the mimi and the wawu are. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Kou-xian jaw-harp playing": Hui women commonly carry a jaw harp and play it, using sharply marked rhythm and a melody of rise and fall to narrate the heart's feelings and convey emotion. "Mimi pipe playing": The mimi is a transformation and survival of the qiang flute and reed pipe of the Han and Tang dynasties; Hui boys and young men are often good at playing it. The village saying 'the wawu sings, the crops grow; the mimi blows, the cattle and sheep thrive' is exactly a portrait of this. "Wawu clay-ocarina craft": It takes forms such as the lentil wawu and the ox-head wawu; the artisans shape and fire it from clay, decorating it with Hui artistic patterns and lines and carving Arabic calligraphy on it. "Crossed trill technique": A Hui virtuoso uses crossed trilling fingers to blow florid embellishments on the high-pitched wawu that the instrument can hardly produce by itself.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

Representative bearer of Hui Folk Instrumental Music, a fifth-batch national intangible cultural heritage project. In recent years she has appeared many times on the music channel of China Central Television, at major galas and in competitions, performing the kouxian and hua'er, and has won various awards at national and autonomous-region level; so superb is her technique that audiences have acclaimed her as the "Queen of the Kouxian".

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. An Yuge · National Representative Bearer Archive