She Folk Songs
01 · Historical Records
The character “She” means “slash-and-burn cultivation” and began to be used as an ethnic name at the end of the Southern Song. From the Yuan dynasty onwards “She people” appears commonly in Chinese historical records as the proper name of the She ethnic group. At the latest by the seventh century the She had already settled in the border area of the three provinces of Fujian, Guangdong and Jiangxi.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Eastern Fujian and southern Zhejiang are the main areas of She settlement. The She have a long history and their own customs and language, and singing mountain songs is one of the principal forms of activity in the cultural life of the She people. The mountain song is an important means and instrument by which the She transmit historical, cultural, productive and everyday social knowledge and carry on cultural and recreational activity. Singing mountain songs has become an indispensable part of She cultural life; young and old, men and women are for the most part good singers, and certain distinctive ethnic song customs and song fairs have formed. The song customs include chiefly the roadside love song, the “comparing of wits” for guests, “acting the elder cousin” and “acting the in-law uncle”. The song fairs include chiefly the Ox-Stone Ridge song fair on Suti mountain in the Muyang area of Fu'an on the “Dividing the Dragon” festival in the fourth lunar month; the song fair on Baiyun mountain at Liuyang, Fu'an on the first day of the sixth month; the song fair on Baiyun mountain at Shekou and Yingkeng, Fu'an on the seventh day of the seventh month; the song fair in the county town of Fu'an on the Mid-Autumn festival, the fifteenth of the eighth month; and the song fairs on Mulian mountain at Mayang in the Xiapu county town and on Geyun mountain at Xin'an on the ninth day of the ninth month. By subject matter the She folk songs may be roughly divided into narrative songs (including myth-and-legend songs and novel songs), miscellaneous songs (including love, working life, knowledge-transmitting, ethical and recreational content) and ritual songs (including wedding songs, ancestor-sacrifice songs and merit songs). Their tunes may be roughly divided into the two great kinds of the mountain-song tune and the shigong tune. The mountain-song tunes include the Funing tune, the Fuding tune, the Xiapu tune, the Luolian tune, the Lishui tune, the Jingning tune, the Longquan tune and the Wencheng tune. The shigong tunes include the chanting tune and the singing that accompanies the movements of performing merit. She mountain songs are mostly sung in falsetto, and according to the manner of singing there are three variations: the level-speech tune, the falsetto singing and the high-register singing. In the Qidu, Badu and Jiudu areas of northern Ningde in Fujian there is also a form of singing called “double voice”, in which a man and a woman sing the same lyrics, the tunes forming a heterophonic, imitative or harmonic relation between them. This form of singing was current for a period, and a representative piece is The Wind Blows the Bamboo Leaves, Tipped and Tip-Tilted.
The Wind Blows the Bamboo Leaves, Tipped and Tip-Tilted
The representative piece of the “double voice” form of singing of the She folk songs, in which a man and a woman sing the same lyrics in falsetto.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The She are one member of China's great family of many nationalities, distributed over parts of the mountain districts of more than sixty counties and cities in the five provinces of Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Guangdong and Anhui.
Other submitting regions for the same item: She Folk Songs · She Folk Songs.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
It is now endangered and in urgent need of rescue. (Associated bearer recorded in the official archive:) Lei Meifeng, female, She, born August 1970, a native of Ningde city, Fujian. She has a thorough command of the traditional singing methods and techniques of the She folk songs and also studies the composition of She folk songs. She takes an active part in all kinds of singing activity and devotes herself to the transmission of She song-speech and of antiphonal double-voice singing, having trained several dozen young singers. She is a representative bearer of the third batch of national-level intangible cultural heritage items, the She folk song. She has won the second prize of the exhibition performance of the China Original-Ecology Folk-Song Gala and the tenth “Mountain Flower Award” of the Chinese folk literature and art circles, the silver prize of the original-ecology group of the fifth China Ethnic Folk-Song Festival, the silver prize of the first China Xuanwei Yangliu Mountain-Song Exhibition, and a certificate of the China Original Folk-Song Festival exhibition performance.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Lei Meifeng 03-0810
- Lan Chenqi 03-0811
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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