Weeding Gong and Drum
01 · Historical Records
It is distributed mainly in the eight townships of Wufeng, Wantan, Renheping, Fujiayan and Caihua of the Wufeng Tujia autonomous county in Hubei, and has a history of more than one hundred and fifty years.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
The weeding gong-and-drum, also called the “racket song” and commonly known as “making a racket”, is a folk-song form current in the Tujia areas of settlement. In the weeding season the Tujia gather scores or even hundreds of people for collective labour, and at such times two singers are usually invited to perform facing the weeding crowd, one beating the drum and one striking the gong, singing and dancing to the sound of gong and drum while the weeding crowd joins in the chorus. In dancing, the hands sway with the steps, the left hand with the left foot and the right hand with the right foot—light and lively, soft yet firm. The tunes of the weeding gong-and-drum are flexible and varied, and the song master can change the lyrics according to the time of day and the hour, so as to enliven the atmosphere and turn the monotonous and toilsome farm labour into a fiery and cheerful collective activity. The Wufeng Tujia weeding gong-and-drum is an important component of Wufeng folk song; because it is mostly accompanied by gong and drum it is also called the “gong-and-drum song”. The Wufeng weeding gong-and-drum may be named for the different farm activities, such as the rice-transplanting gong-and-drum, the weeding gong-and-drum and the firewood-cutting gong-and-drum, or for the number of gongs and drums, such as the one-gong drum, the mixed gong-and-drum, the four-kind gong-and-drum and the wind gong-and-drum. Its formal structure belongs to the banqiang linked-qu form, generally with more than ten vocal styles and tunes and as many as eighty-odd in the fullest cases; locally there is the saying “nine styles and eighteen beats, thirty-six calls and seventy-two kinds of tune”. A single three-note-mode song is commonly called the “three-note song” and has the four different melodic styles of intonation, rhyme, song-tune and song-manner, among which the three-note song formed of two minor-third intervals clearly shows the surviving elements of the ancient songs of Chu. Its subjects are wide and varied, embracing productive labour, love life, astronomy and geography, local customs, ethics and morality, religious belief and cultural entertainment; its representative pieces may be divided into the three great categories of “tune names”, “vocal-style names” and “content names”: those named for fixed tunes include the raising song, the half-sound, the one-sound, the five-line and the moon song; those named for the vocal style include the high style, the flat style, the horse-raising style, the nuo-vow style and the descending-tiger; and those named for content include the dew chantey, the rising chantey, the hair-combing chantey, the field-descending chantey, the friendship song and the seeing-off-my-lover song. The weeding gong-and-drum is complete in structure, and the artists usually follow the rule of “singing flower names in the morning, the ancients at noon and friendship at night”.
The Raising Song, the Half-Sound, the One-Sound, the Five-Line and the Moon Song
Representative pieces named for fixed tunes.
The High Style, the Flat Style, the Horse-Raising Style, the Nuo-Vow Style and the Descending-Tiger
Representative pieces named for the vocal style.
The Dew Chantey, the Field-Descending Chantey, the Friendship Song and the Seeing-Off-My-Lover Song
Representative pieces named for content.
“Flower Names in the Morning, the Ancients at Noon, Friendship at Night”
The rule of singing usually followed by the artists.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
The lyrics are mostly in a single rhyme throughout, and their content is divided into the parts of the “song head”, commonly called the “prelude”, the “invitation of the gods”, the “raising song” and the “sending off of the gods”.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Chuanbeihaocao Gong and Drum · Weeding Gong and Drum · Weeding Gong and Drum · Weeding Gong and Drum · Weeding Gong and Drum · Weeding Gong and Drum · Weeding Gong and Drum · Weeding Gong and Drum.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
The Wufeng weeding gong-and-drum has a broad popular base and a strong function of cultural dissemination; certain ancient cultural information preserved in it has important reference value for research in history, folklore and musicology. Because modern modes of production have changed greatly, the weeding gong-and-drum, closely tied to old-style agricultural labour, has gradually declined; together with the ageing of the artists and the young people's unwillingness to learn traditional art, the survival of the Wufeng weeding gong-and-drum has fallen into difficulty and its transmission faces a crisis, urgently needing rescue.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Wang Shaoxing 02-0252
- Meng Fanlin 03-0824
- Wang Aimin 03-0825
- Zhang Zhongxiang 05-2047
- Fang Yougen 05-2048
- Leng Haoran 05-2049
- Li Decui
- Xiao Shiqin
- Zhang Yuzhen
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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