Jianghe Work Songs

01 · Historical Records

Jianghe work songs are the various chants sung by boatmen on the Yangtze, the Yellow River and their tributaries. Since ancient times the Yellow River has repeatedly flooded, and in the course of the ancestors of the Chinese nation contending with the floods, in order to cooperate better they gradually formed sounds with a certain rhythm, a certain regularity and a certain rise and fall; this is the earliest Yellow River work song. It developed together with river control, emergency repair and tamping labour, and in the regions along the Yellow River it took on different types such as emergency-repair chants, tamping chants and boatmen's chants.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Jianghe work songs are the various chants sung by boatmen on the Yangtze, the Yellow River and their tributaries; in river reaches where the current is swift, the bends are large and the terrain is complex, navigation is extremely difficult, and the boats can only be moved ahead by the boatmen tracking them. Boatmen's chants grew richer accordingly. According to the state of the navigation, Jianghe work songs can be divided into several types, among them the easygoing "downstream chants", the leisurely "flat-water chants", and the highly tense, almost shouted "upstream chants" and "death-defying chants". Since ancient times the Yellow River has repeatedly flooded, and in the course of the ancestors of the Chinese nation contending with the floods, in order to cooperate better they gradually formed sounds with a certain rhythm, a certain regularity and a certain rise and fall; this is the earliest Yellow River work song. Emergency-repair chants are further divided into horse-riding chants, sheep chants, little-officer chants and flower chants, used mainly for driving piles, dragging the riding horse, dragging the bundled bedding rope and pushing the bedding. Tamping chants too have many varieties, mainly including old chants, new chants, standby chants, missing-hand chants, urgent wind, clapper chants, big set-solid chants, stake-beating chants, overlapping chants and two-man antiphonal chants, among others. Yellow River work songs are sung in forms such as lead singing and unison singing; their tunes are high and stirring, their rhythm firm and powerful, and their modes and tonalities change frequently. In relatively leisurely labour the "lead phrase" and "response phrase" of the chant are long, while in more strenuous labour both the "lead phrase" and the "response phrase" are very short. Most of the time the "response phrase" follows after the "lead phrase" has been sung, but there are also cases in which the "response phrase" enters before the "lead phrase" has ended, so that the two parts overlap. Strenuous labour and heavy loads have given Yellow River work songs the character of being sung in the manner of calling out and shouting, and so the chants have been carried down through generation after generation of the people on the banks of the Yellow River. The Yellow River, the mother river of the Chinese nation, nurtured five thousand years of Huaxia civilisation and left behind countless precious items of intangible cultural heritage. Yellow River work songs are the soul of the Yellow River and the root of the Chinese nation, and they occupy an extremely important position in Yellow River culture.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Yellow River work songs were born in the ancestors' cries of "hang yu hang yu", and after five thousand years of development and refinement they took on various different types in the regions along the Yellow River, such as emergency-repair chants, tamping chants and boatmen's chants.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Jianghe Work Songs · Jianghe Work Songs · Jianghe Work Songs · Jianghe Work Songs · Jianghe Work Songs.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

At present, with the development of mechanisation, the mode of production along the Yellow River has changed enormously, the development of Yellow River work songs — which were bound up with the labour techniques of the agrarian age — has come to a standstill, and there is a lack of successors; those who now know the chants are mostly around eighty years old and few retain clear memories of them. Yellow River work songs are in danger of being lost and urgently need protection. Li Fuzhong (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Han nationality, born in September 1964, native of Wuzhi County, Henan Province. In 1988 he entered the Yellow River Workers' University to take further studies in engineering surveying. In 2011 he was transferred to the Talent Centre of the Henan Yellow River River Administration Bureau, where he studied and researched Yellow River history and culture and flood-fighting and emergency-repair techniques, and sang Yellow River work songs. He excavated, analysed, collated and enriched the chants of the lower reaches of the Yellow River, wrote scripts, and organised the production of the professional audio discs Yellow River Work Songs and Earth-Ramming Chants, which are held by the Yellow River Museum and the Yellow River Archives. He published the monograph Yellow River Work Songs. Representative inheritor of the fifth national-level batch of the intangible cultural heritage project Jianghe Work Songs (Yellow River work songs).

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

• Li Fuzhong 05-2106
• Yan Mingjun

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

1. Jianghe Work Songs (Huangheshuiliweiyuanhuihenanhuanghehewuju) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Li Fuzhong · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗