Mulao Ancient Songs
01 · Historical Records
The Mulao ancient songs can be traced back at the earliest to the late Yuan and early Ming; they were already flourishing in the Ming and Qing, and before the founding of the People's Republic of China almost every household had a songbook, every village had singers and everyone could sing.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The Mulao ancient songs are the general name for the folk ballads on ethnic history, culture and knowledge of production collectively created by the Mulao people. Luocheng is the only Mulao autonomous county in the country and the largest Mulao area of settlement, lying at the southern foot of the centre of the Jiuwan great mountains in northern Guangxi. The pleasant climate and green hills and clear waters gave the Mulao rich enjoyment of life, and the seasonal festivals and the folk customs of entertainment and games provided fertile soil for the birth of the ancient songs. To this day, at market fairs, at the “walking the slopes”, at weddings, at festivals and at leisure from work, the Mulao people must sing and answer each other in song. The Mulao ancient songs are noted for their plain method, vivid language, ingenious imagination and bold metaphor; they have varied forms, with about forty-four song names and ninety types of line pattern. Four-line form predominates, the number of characters in each line is flexible, and rhyme is mainly on the even lines. The “ancient-strip songs” are mostly about historical figures, heroic stories or folk legends, representative works being The Ancient and Modern Antiphonal Song, Singing of Luocheng, The Fuxi Brother and Sister, Zhao Jinlong of the Eight Stockades and The Flood Covers Heaven's Gate. The “offhand answers” have no fixed lyrics and are improvised, including the walking-the-slopes love songs and the ceremonial songs. The “mouth-wind songs” are improvised singing contests and best display and embody the singer's talent. Almost every Mulao loves to sing. For example The Ancient and Modern Antiphonal Song is the most complete long historical narrative ballad extant among the Mulao, telling the long history from Pangu's separation of heaven and earth to the Revolution of 1911; Establishing Luocheng and Passing on the Family Instructions are textbooks of Mulao history and ethical education; and a large number of narrative ballads on Han subjects, such as The Complete Story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (Four-Line Song) and Xue Rengui Conquers the East, bear witness to the history of the fusion of Mulao and Han culture. The Mulao ancient songs accumulate the Mulao people's knowledge and practice of nature and society and their experience of life, reflect an ethnic character that honours virtue and wisdom and a plain natural aesthetic, and are an important source of Mulao cohesion and identity.
The Ancient and Modern Antiphonal Song
The most complete long historical narrative ballad extant among the Mulao, telling the long history from Pangu's separation of heaven and earth to the Revolution of 1911.
The Fuxi Brother and Sister and The Flood Covers Heaven's Gate
Creation and heroic ballads among the Mulao ancient-strip songs.
The Complete Story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (Four-Line Song) and Xue Rengui Conquers the East
Part of the many narrative ballads on Han subjects bearing witness to the fusion of Mulao and Han culture.
Walking the Slopes, Antiphonal Singing at the Altars and Mouth-Wind Song Contests
The scenes of practice in which singing talent is tried at the slope grounds and the singing altars and the tradition is transmitted by oral instruction and hand-copied songbooks.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
This item is widely distributed in the eleven townships of Dongmen, Siba and others of the Luocheng Mulao autonomous county of Hechi city, Guangxi, and the Mulao areas of settlement around them such as Yizhou and Liucheng. The Mulao ancient songs embrace the whole of creation; by content and the habit of the folk singers they may be divided into the ancient-strip songs, the offhand answers and the mouth-wind songs. According to incomplete statistics the local singers number about two thousand, among whom fifty-seven are famous and nineteen have won the title of song king.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
They sing at work, at festivals and when visiting relatives and friends, and try their singing talent at the slope grounds (the occasions on which Mulao young men and women gather on the slopes and make friends) and at the singing altars; in practice, by oral instruction and hand-copied songbooks, they have transmitted the ancient songs from generation to generation to the present. The Mulao are a people who can sing well; the ancient songs are an important way for the Mulao to learn knowledge and transmit the experience of production and life. Today the Mulao ancient songs have become an important vehicle of local cultural development, and through wide publicity and promotion their important cultural value and social educational function stand out ever more clearly.
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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